By Ngwuoke Ngwuoke
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has insisted that it does not recognize Senator God’s will Akpabio as the APC Senatorial Candidate for Akwa Ibom North- West Senatorial District.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Mike Igini, says there is no way former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio can be the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Akwa Ibom North-West senatorial district.
Akpabio who withdrew for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the APC presidential primaries had emerged winner of the rerun election for the senatorial district, polling 478 votes out of the 512 registered delegates.
But speaking on Uyo-based Comfort FM, Igini said the rerun election which produced Akpabio was strange and unknown to the law.
According to him INEC would only recognise the primaries which produced Udum Ekpoudum as the party’s candidate.
“By virtue of Section 31 of the 2022 Electoral Act, the only way somebody can be replaced in any form is that we no longer have substitution by political party. What you have now is withdrawal by individual or nominee and or death.
“The law is not saying you should go and kill people so that you can have yourself on the ballot. No. The law is saying that those who have emerged at all levels up to the presidential level, you can decide that you are no longer interested. You can write an application signed by yourself, delivered to your party who will now deliver to INEC, but nobody can shave the political head of another person in his or her absence.
“The report of the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District APC primary as submitted to INEC headquarters in Abuja is final. It is concluded. The train has left the station. The timeline is clear. All those who are in politics should go and study the 2022 Electoral Act very well.
“I hear people talk about substitution. If you look at Section 31 and Section 34 of the Electoral Act, those of you who are still carrying the old idea of the 2010, 2012 Electoral Act in your head, thinking you can substitute wilfully, it is no longer so.
“Then number two is only in the case of death. Even at that, there will now be a fresh primary. This is the new law. So, what we are seeing going on is clearly a misnomer. The rerun can only be conducted between and among those who participated in the first Senatorial election of May 27, 2022 and the Senatorial primary for Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District was not cancelled, was not nullified, was not inconclusive. It was conclusive, it was concluded and the report was written and it is final because you cannot reopen that anymore,” he said.
