INEC deadline: Confusion over candidates

Vanguard

2 February 2011

INEC deadline: Confusion over candidates

ABUJA—TWENTY-fours after the deadline for the submission of lists of candidates for the April polls, the polity and the National Headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC were awash with high wire intrigues and confusion, yesterday.

With a series of court orders flying from all directions, moves and counter moves, there were confusion over who were the authentic  candidates of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Indeed, the INEC and the PDP_controlled government of Ogun State and the daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senator Iyabo_Obasanjo_Bello, were all locked in a battle of rectitude.

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Yet, the Ogun State Government which controls another faction of the party in the state speaking through its Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Sina Kawonise, said that INEC was  not on solid ground in this latest move.

Still on the series of confusion trailing the candidacy of the parties, INEC said it was still reviewing the list of candidates sent in for Oyo State while the PDP categorically insisted that the Oyo State list was intact.

There were strong indications, yesterday, that Chief Great Ogboru’s Democratic Peoples Party, DPP, which gave the PDP a fierce competition at last month’s Delta State gubernatorial election, may not have met the deadline.

Interestingly, the PDP took a swipe at the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, over what it described as imposition of candidates.

Meanwhile, only 43 of the 63 registered political parties met the  INEC’s deadline.