The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has again dismissed allegations by the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, that it removed the party’s nominated candidates for some State House of Assembly constituencies in Anambra and Benue states and replaced them with unauthorised names.
Chairman of INEC’s Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Kudu Haruna, said candidate nomination was exclusively the responsibility of political parties.
He stressed that the commission had no legal authority to select, insert or substitute candidates for political parties.
Haruna’s statement followed a similar challenge by INEC Chairman’s Chief Press Secretary and Media Adviser, Dayo Oketola, who asked the NDC to provide evidence of officials allegedly involved in inserting unknown candidates into its list.
INEC said: “The Commission has noted a statement by the leadership of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) alleging that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) removed the party’s validly nominated candidates for certain State House of Assembly constituencies in Anambra and Benue States and replaced them with unauthorised names. The Commission states that these allegations are unfounded.”
Haruna explained that INEC’s monitoring of party primaries was a statutory oversight function and did not give the commission powers to impose candidates on political parties.
He said all 22 registered political parties had designated two technically trained officers to handle their candidate nomination processes ahead of the 2027 elections.
According to him, the officers were trained by INEC and portal access codes were issued directly to the national chairmen of the respective parties.
“List of candidates were generated for each party as submitted by the party jointly signed by the National Chairmen and National Secretaries of the party, making the submission in Form EC9 series (A-G). Therefore any claim that the Commission independently uploaded or altered candidate information is unfounded and untrue,” Haruna said.
He added that INEC had Form EC9E containing the names of the affected candidates as submitted by the party.
“As a matter of fact, the Commission has in its possession, Form EC9E where these candidates were listed and submitted to the Commission duly signed by the National Chairman and the National Secretary of the party,” he said.
Haruna reaffirmed INEC’s commitment to transparency, accountability and a level playing field for all participants in the electoral process.
“The Commission remains committed to transparency, accountability and providing a level playing field for all stakeholders in the electoral process,” he said.
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