2023: INEC asks parties to provide information on primaries

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday urged parties to provide detailed information on their primaries, congresses and conventions ahead of the 2023 general elections.

The INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, made the call when he featured in a Channels Television programme, Sunday Politics.

According to him, every political party was mandated by law to inform the Commission of its process of the convention before commencement.

He said: “Based on the provisions of the constitution and the power conferred on the Commission by the constitution, we are required to monitor the conduct of elections. Secondly, under the sections 82 and 84 of the Electoral Act, we are also bound by the law to monitor the primaries, congresses and conventions of the political parties.

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“So if the political parties give us the requisite notice of primaries and we say to monitor, then they can go ahead. But if they fail to inform us of their conventions and others, then whatever they have done is completely invalid. That’s the position of the law.

“Part of what the new electoral framework has done is to prevent political parties from engaging in an electoral ambush in which some political parties will change the locations of their primaries. That era is over. What our guidelines require is that every political party intending to change the venue of its primaries must give us a seven-day notice regarding that.

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