Placeholder status has no place in Nigeria’s constitution —INEC

The issue of political parties naming placeholders in order to beat the deadline set by the Independent National Electoral Commission has been clarified.

Festus Okoye, INEC Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, made this clarification on Monday, during an interview on AriseTV monitored by Ripples Nigeria.

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Labour Party (LP) are amongst the parties who named placeholders as temporary vice-presidential candidates ahead of the 2023 elections.

However, Okoye revealed that the issue of nominating placeholders is just a way by which political parties exploit the system.

He further noted that the practice was not recodnised within the legal framework of the constitution.

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“The issue on the legality within the framework is that a Presidential candidate cannot run alone and an associate must be nominated which the parties did. As far as we are concerned, the parties didn’t submit the names as a placeholder.

“The issue of placeholder is a Nigerian creation that has no place in the constitution. The INEC cannot issue a mandate regarding the names to be submitted for these positions,” Okoye noted.

The INEC commissioner, however, warned that any current placeholder must submit a withdrawal letter and affidavit addressed to the commission and the party before they can be replaced, ahead of the 2023 elections.

He noted, “There is a period for withdrawals for the placeholders to pen an official affidavit which will be submitted to the commission and the party to ratify it.”

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