…Buhari and Atiku cleared by INEC
President
Muhammadu Buhari, former vice president Atiku Abubakar and 74 others
have been named as contestants for the 2019 presidential poll in the
provisional list released by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC).
A total of 76 political parties will contest for presidency in 2019 general elections, according to the INEC publication.
The
list, released, yesterday, in compliance with Section 31 (1 and 3) of
the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended), also named Governor of Ogun State,
Ibikunle Amosun, former governor Sam Egwu, Victor Umeh, Stella Oduah,
Uche Ekwenife, and others as candidates for the National Assembly in
their various states.
In Anambra Central Senatorial district, the
published candidates are Charles Odunukwe of the Peoples Democratic
(PDP), Chief Umeh of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Mrs.
Ekwunife of All Progressives Congress (APC).
In South Senatorial
district, a serving senator, Andy Uba of the APC, Chukwunedum Ubah of
the PDP and Nicholas Ukachukwu of APGA made the list.
For North
Senatorial district, a former senator, Margery Okadigbo of the APC, Mrs.
Oduah of the PDP and Chinedu Emeka of APGA made the provisional list.
In
Ogun State, only the list of senatorial and House of Representatives
candidates of the APC and that of the ADC were available at the INEC
office in the state.
The list of PDP National Assembly candidates, was however, not available as at press time last night.
For
the ADC, the senatorial candidates on the INEC list include the former
Speaker of the House of Assembly, Titi Oseni-Gomez as candidate in Ogun
Central, Adedeji Ashiru, Ogun East and Babatunde Ogunnola, Ogun West.
For
the House of Representatives, ADC would field Fasasi Oyemade, Remo
Federal Constituency, Olaifa Aremu, Egbado North/ Imeko-Afon, Abiodun
Akinboyede, Ado-Odo/Ota Federal Constituency, Gabriel Omolaja, Ijebu
Ode/ Ijebu North East/Odogbolu, Ogundimu Akande, Abeokuta South, Olude
Adewale, Egbado South/ Ipokia, Omoleye Olabode, Abeokuta North,
Obafemi-Owode/Odeda and Jenriyi Oshinowo, Ijebu North/ Ijebu East/ Ogun
Waterside. The candidate for Ifo/ Ewekoro Federal Constituency was not
published on the INEC list.
Those to fly the APC senatorial flag are
Lekan Mustapha, Ogun East, the incumbent Chief of Staff to Governor
Ibikunle Amosun, Tolu Odebiyi, Ogun West, while Governor Amosun would
vie for Ogun Central.
For the House of Representatives, Jimoh
Ojugbele, Kayode Oladele and Ibrahim Isiaka would slug it to be returned
to Ado-Odo/Ota, Egbado North/Imeko-Afon and Ifo/Ewekoro federal
constituencies, respectively.
Others include: Biyi Otegbeye, Egbado
South/ Ipokia, Biyi Ismail, Ijebu North/East/Ogun Waterside, Olumide
Osoba, Abeokuta North/Obafemi-Owode/ Odeda, Olanrewaju Edun, Abeokuta
South, Adewunmi Onanuga, Remo federal constituency and Osunsanya
Akorede, Ijebu Ode/Ijebu North and Odogbolu federal constituency.
Head
of the Public Affairs Department of INEC in Lagos, Femi Akinbiyi,
revealed that 50 candidates would contest for the three Lagos Senatorial
seats on the platform of 25 political parties and 249 candidates across
30 political parties would contest the state’s 24 seats in the House of
Representatives.
Lagos West Senatorial District has 22 candidates, Lagos East and Lagos Central 15 and 13 candidates respectively.
For the House of Representatives election, only the PDP, APC and ADC fielded candidates in all the 24 federal constituencies.
Ebonyi, Kogi, Oyo
Top
on the list of candidates displayed as eligible to contest the National
Assembly seats in Ebonyi State on the ticket of the PDP are Dr. Sam
Egwu for Ebonyi North and his counterpart for Ebonyi Central, Senator
Obinna Ogba.
In the APC, a former senator and pioneer speaker of the state, Julius Ucha made it for Ebonyi Central.
It
could not be confirmed whether former Minister of State for Power and
Steel, Chief Godwin Ogbaga eventually made the list as APC candidate for
Ebonyi North.
In Benue, INEC’s State Public Relations Officer, Terka
Andya, said the list will be posted in all the 23 local government
headquarters of the state.
Andya in a telephone chat said that
already, the list had been posted in zones A and C of the state while
staff of the Commission are working assiduously to ensure that the list
for zone B is posted before midnight to meet the deadline given by the
INEC chairman.
He assured that by today, everyone would have access
to the list which would be pasted on the notice boards in all the local
government offices of INEC across the state.
The Kogi State office of
INEC only published the list of all the presidential candidates. It was
gathered that a comprehensive list of all the candidates will be
published on or before Saturday.
The situation was not the same in
Enugu State when Daily Sun visited the Independence Layout office of the
commission by 8pm; as the list was yet to be displayed.
Attempts to reach the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Emeka Ononamadu was not fruitful.
The
REC for Oyo State, Mutiu Agboke, led a delegation of INEC officials to
paste the list of presidential candidates and photocopies of their
credentials at the state headquarters of the commission.
He said
the lists of candidates for Senatorial and House of Representatives
would be pasted today at local government offices of the commission
across the state.
Head of Voters Education and Publicity in
Zamfara State INEC office, Garba Galadima, said the office was yet to
receive the list.
He said the most recent list the office
received from the INEC headquarters was the claims and objectives list
of all the Senate and House of Representatives aspirants in the state.
“The new list we have is those pasted outside the gate”, he said.
The list pasted outside the Zamfara INEC office is stamped and dated October 17, 2018.
However,
if INEC follow through its threat, APC might not field candidates for
any of the position owing to its failure to conduct primary elections.
