Professor Mahmood Yakubu
Chairman, Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC)
Abuja, FCT.
Dear Professor Yakubu,
NEED FOR CONSISTENCY AND EVEN-HANDEDNESS IN APPLYING
THE PROVISIONS OF THE ELECTORAL ACT AND GUIDELINES RELATING TO POLITICAL PARTY
PRIMARIES AND ENSURING THAT PARTIES THAT DO NOT CONDUCT PRIMARIES TO SELECT
THEIR CANDIDATES ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FIELD CANDIDATES SURREPTITIOUSLY (S)ELECTED
FOR INEC ELECTIONS.
RE: PURPORTED (S)ELECTION BY THE IMO STATE CHAPTER OF
THE ALL PROGRESSIVE GRAND ALLIANCE (APGA) OF A GOVERNORSHIP CANDIDATE FOR THE
2019 GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS.
Having observed the
efforts the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under your Chairmanship
is making towards ensuring a free and fair electoral process which conforms
with tenets of democratic governance; and efforts by INEC at ensuring
compliance with the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended); and the various guidelines
towards ensuring that the wishes of the electorate are established - particularly as reflected in the extra
measures INEC has adopted after the Ekiti and Osun State gubernatorial
elections respectively; we are sufficiently motivated to draw your attention
the situation in the Imo State chapter of the All Progressive Grand Alliance
(APGA), in the belief that INEC will make appropriate pronouncements and
adequate arrangements to ensure that due process and compliance with relevant
statutes is adhered to.
As would likely be well
known to your gooodself, Section 87 of the Electoral Act explicitly provides
for any candidate for any elections to be organized by INEC to emerge from a Primary
Process to which INEC was duly notified and invited; which INEC monitored; and which
INEC acknowledges as meeting with laid down criteria.
Under your watch, and with
a view to ensure transparency, compliance with due processes and minimizing
(and ultimately eliminating) anti-democratic dictatorial tendencies in Nigerian
Political Parties, INEC has repeatedly cautioned political parties to ensure
that they comply with laws and guidelines geared towards institutionalizing and
internalizing democratic culture within the parties.
Lack of
Primary elections to select gubernatorial candidate:
In furtherance of and
compliance with the provisions of the said Section 87 of the Electoral Act and
the extant INEC Guidelines on Political Party Primaries, following the failure
of the Zamfara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to hold its
Governorship Primaries before the end of the period prescribed by INEC for such
purpose, INEC had duly, and rightly I must intone, informed the said Political
Party, APC, that it was precluded from fielding a candidate for the
Governorship elections in Zamfara State for the 2019 gubernatorial elections.
Similar to what transpired
with the Zamfara State Chapter of the APC, there was no governorship primaries
conducted by the Imo State Chapter of the All Progressive Grand Alliance
(APGA). To the astonishment, chagrin and protestation of other gubernatorial
aspirants of APGA, the name of one of the gubernatorial aspirants in APGA was
surreptitiously churned out as the ‘(s)elected candidate’. It is therefore
pertinent, in view of the need to maintain consistency and even-handedness in
fulfilling INEC’s role as the regulator of political party activities and
unbiased umpire, for the pronouncement and declarations made by INEC over the absence
of INEC observed and approved primaries for the Zamfara State APC gubernatorial
position, be also made with regards to the absence of INEC observed and
approved primaries for Imo State APGA gubernatorial position.
Motivation
for Call
Deepening the democratic
space by adherence to established laws and due processes, and ensuring equal
and equitable treatment and access for stakeholders in the political and
electioneering remains key motivational factors that influence our Firms intervention
in the political process.
Sequel to the appointment of
your immediate predecessor in office, Professor Attahiru Jega, we had in
pursuit of our belief that extant provisions of the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria 1999 had been violated by the appointment of an individual
who was not qualified to be INEC Chairman to the office of INEC Chairman,
initiated processes, firstly by communication with the Office of the Senate of
the Federal Republic and subsequently via litigation in suit No:
FHC/L/CS/862/2010 (Ezekwesiri Eluchie Vs. President of the Federal
republic & 2 Others). We were vindicated when Constitutional Amendment,
which expunged the requirement for the INEC Chairman to be a registered member
of a political party, was effected.
The clear double-standards
in INEC’s pronouncements regarding the lack of gubernatorial primaries Zamfara
State Chapter of the APC and a similar lack of gubernatorial primaries Imo
State Chapter of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) provides our Firm
with one more opportunity to use the instrumentality of the law to right
wrongs, ensure Justice and adherence to due process.
Call to
disallow Imo State Chapter of APGA to present a candidate for the 2019 Imo
State gubernatorial elections:
Dear Professor Mahmood
Yakubu, Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in
furtherance of our hope that you mean well for the Nigerian electoral system
and aspire to leave a legacy of propriety, uprightness and justice in the
regulation of political parties and management of the electoral process, we
have taken the extra effort to, in addition to presenting the similarities of
the lack of gubernatorial primaries in Zamfara State APC and Imo State APGA
Chapters, also allowed you a glimpse at our basic motivation for this
communication. We thus call upon your
goodself, and INEC, to do the needful and right thing in the circumstances –
notify the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) that in view of their not having
conducted a Primary election to select their candidate for the gubernatorial
elections within the period set by INEC for such elections, the party (APGA)
will not be allowed to field a candidate for the 2019 Gubernatorial elections
in Imo State.
Conclusion
What we have requested of
your goodself and INEC is squarely within the powers of INEC to make. In the
unfortunate event that you choose not to positively adhere to our call, we
shall be at liberty to explore other means available within the scope of
legalities and Nigerian laws, including recourse to litigation, to ensure that
the spirit and intendments of the Electoral Act are complied with and met.
Please remain assured of
our high regards.
Your truly,
For: Eze Eluchie & Associates
Eze Eluchie,
Esq.
Solicitor.
Pix: INEC Chairman: Professor Mahmood Yakubu
