The INEC Commissioner for Akwa Ibom State, Barrister, Mike Igini has said that Senator Akpabio’s emergence is nothing but a Nollywood fantasy, which is unknown to Nigeria law.
Igini said the report of the Independent National Electoral Commission on the Akwa Ibom North- West( Ikot Ekpene) senatorial ticket is final and can not be restarted again.
Akpabio, the immediate once Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, surfaced the winner of are-run primary conducted at the Skill Acquisition Centre, Ikot Ekpene, having polled 478 votes out of 512 accredited delegates for the election.
But speaking on Tuesday at the Comfort FM news and Current Affairs programme covered by News pressman in Uyo,
Mr Igini said there-run primary that led to the emergence of Senator Godswill Akpabio as the All Progressives Congress seeker for the quarter is strange and unknown to law.
According to him, the May 27, 2022 primary, which produced a former Deputy Inspector- General of Police, Udum Ekpoudum( retd.), subsists because it wasn’t cancelled, neither was it rendered inconclusive.
Igini added that what he knew about Akpabio was that he was the presidential applicant for the All Progressives Congress who stepped down for Bola Tinubu
Adding that, indeed if there was are-run, it could only be conducted for applicants that shared in the first primary.
He advised politicians querying the 2023 general election to strictly study the new vittles of the 2022 Electoral Act as amended, so as not to continue with the stopgap that effects were still the way it were with the repealed 2010 and 2012 Electoral Act.
By virtue of Section 31 of the 2022 Electoral Act, the only way notoriety can be replaced in any form is that we no longer have negotiation by political party. What you have now is pullout by individual or designee and or death.
The law isn’t 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 surfaced at all situations up to the presidential position, you can decide that you’re no longer interested.
You can write an operation inked by yourself, delivered to your party who’ll now deliver to INEC, but nothing can shave the political head of another person in his or her absence.
In our statement report of the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District APC primary as submitted to INEC headquarters in Abuja is final and cannot be reverse again.
It’s 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 veritably well.
The rehearsal can only be conducted between and among those who shared in the first Senatorial election of May 27, 2022 and the Senatorial primary for Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District wasn’t cancelled, wasn’t annulled, wasn’t inconclusive.
I hear people talk aboutsubstitution. However, those of you who are still carrying the old idea of the 2010, 2012 Electoral Act in your head, If you look at Section 31 and Section 34 of the Electoral Act.
also number two is only in the case of death. Indeed at that, there will now be a fresh primary. This is the new law. So, what we’re seeing going on is easily a misnomer.