The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Monday, said the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, can no longer change their running mates.
The electoral empire said the concept of “placeholder” or dummy vice presidential candidate as done by political parties is out of place, stressing that it has no place in the constitution of Nigeria.
Recall that after the completion of presidential primaries, INEC had set June 17 as the deadline for the nomination of vice-presidential candidates
However, as some political parties continued to search for the rightful VP candidate, and to beat the deadline set by INEC for submission of names, some candidates, including Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress and Peter Obi of Labour Party, submitted names of vice-presidential candidates whom they described as “placeholders or dummies.”
But, while speaking during a chat on ARISE TV on Monday, INEC Commissioner for Voters’ Education and Information, Barrister Festus Okoye, ruled out the concept of “placeholder” for vice-presidential candidates, saying it has no place in the constitution of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
He said “placeholder is a unique Nigerian invention” for which the commission’s law has no provision.
“As far as we are concerned, there’s no form submitted by the presidential candidate where they said ‘we’re submitting this person’s name as a place or placeholder,” he said