Only court can save Bankole, others –INEC

Posted by admin House, Legislature, Top Stories Sunday, February 13th, 2011

The cloud of uncertainty over participation of Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, in the April elections thickened at the weekend with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) saying only the court can determine whether he and those in similar situation would run or not.

Feelers from the commission showed that reports of its officials, who monitored primaries of the parties, would decide the actual candidates that would stand elections in April. The only exception, sources said, would be where a court order directed otherwise.

Many of the parties are in crisis following the spate of court injunctions, which barred them from presenting some politicians, including Bankole, Enugu State Governor, Mr. Sullivan Chime, and his Abia State counterpart, Chief Theodore Orji, as candidates for the elections.

Sunday Sun gathered that notwithstanding, the declaration by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ibadan that Bankole was its candidate for the National Assembly election in Abeokuta South Federal Constituency, INEC still recognises Peter Oluwasegun Alawode as the party’s candidate as directed by a court order. The court order had restrained INEC from accepting Bankole and others belonging to the faction of Ogun State Governor, Chief Gbenga Daniel, in Ogun State. INEC Director of Political Parties Monitoring and Liaison, Regina Omo-Agege, said Alawode remained PDP candidate on the commission’s list.

Investigations revealed that the resort to reports from primaries as submitted by INEC officials was to douse tension generated by the indiscriminate substitution of candidates by the political parties. The decision is also meant to instil internal democracy among the parties, a top official of the INEC told some aggrieved party leaders, who visited the commission on fact-finding missions.

The commission has also replied the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), dismissing its request that Mohammed Abacha’s name be substituted as the party’s governorship candidate for Kano State.
The commission, in the letter to CPC Chairman, Prince Tony Momoh, insisted that Abacha remains the party’s candidate because the reports of its monitors indicated that he won the primaries.

-Sunwp_posts