According to Hobnob News reports, OMOYELE Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), has revealed that the Electoral Act 2022 contains loopholes that are being exploited by the judiciary to impose some candidates on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Sowore, in a tweet on Thursday, noted that one of such lacuna allowed the court to declare Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, fraudulently as a candidate in an election where he never participated in the primaries.
The Supreme Court had on Monday affirmed Lawan as the All Progressives Congress senatorial candidate for Yobe North.
In a majority judgment delivered on Monday, the apex court allowed the appeal filed by the APC against Bashir Machina’s candidature.
But in his reaction, Sowore said, “At the @nassnigeria public hearing on the “Electoral Act 2022” I had a chance to tell Nigerian lawmakers the lacuna in the Electoral Act that got the Senate President, Lawan fraudulently declared as a candidate in an election where he did not contest the primaries.”
Meanwhile, Sowore, who addressed the National Assembly public hearing, condemned how the Supreme Court affirmed Lawan as the genuine candidate of the Yobe APC.
He said, “I also want to say that the Electoral Act; I also seriously think that the Electoral Act has some lacuna that is being exploited by the judiciary. We are all aware that even though the portal for electoral process has been closed, courts are still giving conflicting judgements regarding candidates in this election, including candidates that did not even participate in the primary that have been imposed on INEC as we speak. One of them is your president here.”
“An Electoral Act that also empowers the INEC to be a major decision-maker for political parties is not a democratic electoral act. I also want to say that the senate should look at directly into how to curb INEC’s power to deregister parties because that does not promote democracy at all,” Sowore added.
There has been controversy over the APC Yobe North Senatorial ticket.
Machina, at a primary election organised by the party in May 2022 won unopposed. The senate president did not participate in the primary election.
At the time the exercise was held, Lawan was pursuing his presidential ambition but lost to former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu.
Rather than submit the name of the elected candidate, the name of the senate president was submitted to the commission by the ruling APC, a move that led to the deliberate omission of their names from the published particulars of candidates late June 2022.
To clarify the brewing controversy around the seat, INEC, on at least two different occasions, said it rejected the senate president’s name because he had not been validly nominated for the senatorial seat.
The commission, however, urged the duo to resolve their issues internally or seek redress in court.
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