The Independent National Electoral Commission has released the final list of 2023 governorship and state assembly candidates for the election scheduled for 11th March.
According to a statement on Wednesday by INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, 18 political parties are fielding 837 candidates with their running mates for the 28 governorship elections.
Eight states – Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Kogi, Ondo and Osun – have their governorship elections off-season.
Okoye’s statement indicated that 10,231 candidates would vie for 993 seats in the state assembly elections.
The PUNCH reports that no fewer than 14 candidates in 12 states have been knocked off the INEC list on account of the litigation and controversies that dogged the parties’ primary elections.
This is against the backdrop of ongoing litigations in Ebonyi, Akwa-Ibom, Enugu, Rivers, Ogun and four other states.
Those cleared for the governorship race include; Governors Babajide Sanwo-Olu (Lagos), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), and Dapo Abiodun (Ogun); Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege (Delta) and 833 others.
In Delta, Omo-Agege of All Progressives Congress (APC) will be competing with the state House of Assembly Speaker, Sheriff Oborevwori of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Great Ogboru of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, and Kenneth Gbagi of the Social Democratic Party.
Governorship candidates of the APC and PDP are not listed Akwa Ibom and Ogun States respectively as the dispute that followed the parties’ primaries remain in the courts.
The APC candidate in Akwa Ibom State, Mr Akanimo Udofia was missing from the list following the crisis in the state chapter of the party and the refusal of INEC to monitor the primary which produced him. It, therefore, rejected his candidacy in line with the Electoral Act 2022.
At least four suits were filed against the Ogun State governorship candidate of the PDP, Chief Ladi Adebutu.
Two of the suits were filed by former aspirants – Otunba Segun Showunmi and Mr Jimi Lawal, while three PDP members – Messrs Taiwo Olabode Idris, Kehinde Akala and Alhaji Ayinde Monsuru, also filed another suit challenging the delegates’ list used in the conduct of the party primaries.
Last Tuesday, a Federal High Court sitting in Abeokuta, nullified all the primaries conducted by the PDP in the state.
The court also barred INEC from recognising Adebutu as the governorship candidate of the party in the state. Reports said Adebutu had filed an appeal against the Federal Court judgment.
In addition, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Booth Party, Labour Party, Young Peoples Party and Zenith Labour Party will also not contest in Ogun State as they have no can
In Gombe State, the Peoples Redemption, Young People’s Party, and All Progressives Grand Alliance have no governorship candidates as the space for them was blank.
In Jigawa, the African Action Congress, Allied Peoples Movement, Action Peoples Party and the Zenith Labour Party had no candidates.
