The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, has claimed that the Electoral Act 2022 contains loopholes that allowed some candidates to be purportedly imposed on the Independent National Electoral Commission for the 2023 elections.
Sowore, in a tweet on Thursday, noted that one of such loopholes allowed the court to declare Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the candidate for the Yobe North Senatorial District “in an election where he never participated in the primary.”
Recall that the Supreme Court on Monday affirmed Lawan as the All Progressives Congress senatorial candidate for Yobe North.
In a majority judgment delivered, the apex court allowed the appeal filed by the APC against Bashir Machina’s candidature.
The court declared Lawan the winner of the Yobe North senatorial candidacy over the winner of the May 29, poll, Machina.
Reacting, Sowore said, “I had a chance to tell Nigerian lawmakers the lacuna in the Electoral Act that got the Senate President, Lawan declared a candidate in an election where he did not contest the primary.”
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Sowore in a video that accompanied his tweet, recorded while speaking at a National Assembly public hearing on the Electoral Act 2022, said, “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 (Senate) President here.”
“An Electoral Act that also empowers 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 directly into how to curb INEC’s power to deregister parties because that does not promote democracy at all,” Sowore added.
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It was gathered that the APC delivered victory to Lawan after dragging Machina to the apex court while insisting that Lawan, who didn’t contest the primary, was its “authentic candidate.”
Meanwhile, while addressing journalists after the judgement of the apex court on Monday, Lawan lauded the judgment, saying it showed that “democracy is at work.”
Lawan said, “What happened was democracy at work and the courts gave their various judgments and of course, the Supreme Court gave the final judgement. I want to at this point commend the Supreme Court and of course the judiciary generally for making this kind of judgement to strengthen our democracy because it is not only for politicians to work and strengthen democracy. All institutions have their roles to play. So I commend them.”
During the party’s primary on May 8, 2022, Machina emerged as the unopposed winner of the election while Lawan contested and lost the party’s presidential ticket to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
Machina had previously cried out that the Senate President and some forces were trying to clinch the ticket from him.
Amid the outburst, the APC submitted Lawan’s name to INEC as its candidate, leaving the confused electoral body with no choice but to leave the senatorial district candidacy empty when it released the full list of candidates across the country.
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