2023: No presidential candidate indicated ‘placeholder’ in nomination forms -INEC

By Tunde Opalana with agency report

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the concept of “placeholder” for vice-presidential candidates “has no place in our constitutional and legal framework”.

Following the completion of presidential primaries of political parties, INEC set June 17 as the deadline for the nomination of vice-presidential candidates.

However, in order to beat the deadline, some parties submitted names of vice-presidential candidates who they described as placeholders.

For instance, Kabiru Masari was named as the running mate to Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), but some political analysts had said the APC welfare secretary is a “placeholder” before a final candidate is named.

Similarly, Doyin Okupe had announced that he would be “standing in as the vice-presidential candidate” for Peter Obi, the Labour party candidate, pending a final replacement.

Reacting to the trend in a chat with Arise TV on Monday, Festus Okoye, the commissioner for information and voter education of INEC, said the “placeholder is a unique Nigerian invention” for which the commission’s law has no provision.

He added that the commission can only replace a candidate if the person writes a “sworn affidavit stating that he is withdrawing from the race within the time frame provided by the law”.

Okoye said: “The constitution makes it very clear that you cannot run alone as a presidential candidate and must nominate an associate to run with you for that position, and as far as INEC is concerned, the presidential candidates have submitted their associates to run with them in the presidential election

“As far as we are concerned, there’s no form submitted by the presidential candidate where they said ‘we’re submitting this person’s name as a place or space holder’.

“The issue of space or place holder is a unique Nigerian invention that has no place in our constitutional and legal framework.

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“Political parties’ candidates have submitted names of associates to run with them, and that is the position of the law as at today and nothing has changed.

“For there to be a substitution of a candidate, the vice-presidential candidate must write to INEC, with a sworn affidavit stating that he is withdrawing from the race within the time frame provided by the law. That’s the only way there can be a substitution of candidates”.

Meanwhile, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu, says choosing a vice-presidential candidate for the party was done after “careful” legal consultations.

Adamu spoke on Monday while addressing state house correspondents after accompanying Biodun Oyebanji, governor-elect of Ekiti, on a visit to President Muhammadu Buhari.

Recall that Kabiru Faskari, an APC chieftain, had said Kabir Masari was chosen as the running mate to Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the party.

Although APC has not officially confirmed if the VP candidate is a placeholder or not, there have been speculations on the possibility that Masari may not want to step down if he is indeed standing in as Tinubu’s running mate.

Speaking on the development, Adamu said such speculations should be dismissed.

“We are not in the speculative world. We are governed by the laws of the land. There’s nothing our presidential candidate has done with regards to returning his forms that is not within the confines of the law of the land.

“Everything we’ve done so far, we have done very carefully with legal consultation and we are cocksure, we’re not going to have the kind of speculation that you are professing at this point in time.

“We’re very comfortable with what we have done. It is still pessimism. However, not in that school of thought yet. We don’t have to be there,” the APC chairman said.

However, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has charged the Independent National Electoral Commission, to assert its independence by ensuring that the full weight of the law is brought to bear on parties that have introduced the illegal “place holder“candidate into the nation’s political lexicon.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said this on Monday.

He explained that actual voting on Election Day was a culmination of a process which begins with the announcement of a time table / timelines for activities by INEC to the nomination of candidates by parties and all other activities in between.

The PDP spokesperson however expressed sadness that the ruling All Progressives Congress has been allowed to force INEC into bending over backwards to accommodate its growing acts of impunity with a lack of respect for INEC time-lines for scheduled activities.

This, he said, should not be allowed to continue because the nation’s electoral process must be allowed to grow.

He said: “Place holders is a new lexicon introduced into our electoral process by the APC. I recall that when the issue came up on Saturday, my friend and brother, Felix Mouka, the APC National Publicity Secretary said that nobody can stampede the party into naming a candidate. I said the impunity which the party and this regime is irresponsible. If INEC has come up with its guidelines and timetable based on the rule of law, the APC believes it can truncate it without repacautions.

“The greatest challenge we have in this country is that institutions are abused by people who claim to be in authority who ought to be the custodians of these laws.

“These people go in at will to violate that process because the APC is a lawless party, this should not be allowed in the interest of our democracy.

“The INEC set its schedule of activities in order to plan as provided for in the Electoral Act as passed by the National Assembly so that it can have sufficient time to set things right.

“Elections is about processes but because the APC cannot operate when there is an orderly process, they go all out to disrupt the process.

“They started by forcing the process of party primaries to be chocked up. We must have a system in place where any party that does not obey the processes set up by INEC must be sanctioned.