BREAKING: INEC Bows To Pressure, Extends Presidential Primaries Deadline

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has extended the deadline given to political parties to conclude their primary.

After several rejections, INEC yielded a last-minute appeal by the Inter-Party Advisory Council Nigeria (IPAC) to extend the deadline by one week.

The extension is coming less than 24 hours to the presidential primary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and about 72 hours to that of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, approved the extension at a meeting with the political parties on Friday.

“Earlier, the political parties had requested for 37 – 60 days extension of the timeline for primaries and the nomination of candidates. The Commission was emphatic that this request could not be granted because it would disrupt other scheduled activities on the Timetable. This position of the Commission has not changed.

“However, based on the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2023 General Election, the parties have now pleaded with the Commission to use the 6-day period between 4th and 9th June 2022 to conclude outstanding primaries and prepare to upload the list of candidates and their affidavits on the INEC Candidates Nomination Portal. The Commission did not schedule any specific activity during this period. The idea is to simply give parties time to compile the list and personal particulars of their nominated candidates before uploading same to the INEC Candidates Nomination Portal from 10th – 17th June 2022.

“The Commission has decided to allow the request of the political parties since the six-day period does not conflict with the next scheduled activity which is the submission of the list of nominated candidates or any of the subsequent timelines which remain sacrosanct. However, this request is granted in respect of outstanding primaries only without prejudice to those already concluded by political parties. The Commission will not monitor already concluded primaries,” said Yakubu.

More details to follow…