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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has explained why it did not list any presidential candidate for the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
The electoral umpire confirmed it removed the name of a former governor of Cross River State, Mr. Donald Duke, from the final list of presidential candidates which was published on Thursday.
INEC National Commissioner, Voter Education Committee, Mr Festus Okoye, offered the explanation on Friday on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
INEC, he said, took the decision in line with a court judgement which ordered it not to recognise Duke as the presidential candidate.
“The name of Donald Duke was forwarded to the Independent National Electoral Commission as the candidate of the SDP for the presidential election,” Mr Okoye said.
“Thereafter, the Independent National Electoral Commission received a court order to the effect that all the votes that were scored by Donald Duke during the SDP primaries were wasted votes, and that the candidate of the SDP in the presidential election should be Professor Jerry Gana.”
He also explained that the action of SDP led to the exclusion of the name of Professor Jerry Gana – a former minister – from the list.
He said INEC expected the party to forward Gana’s name as its presidential candidate and not the responsibility of the commission to do so.
“The court went further to direct that it is the political party itself, the SDP, that should submit the name of Jerry Gana to the Independent National Electoral Commission,” Okoye stated.
“As at the time we published the list, SDP has not forwarded the name of Jerry Gana as the presidential candidate of the party.
Donald Duke
“So, we are waiting for the party to submit the name of Jerry Gana … that is why we removed the name of Donald Duke from the list that has been published.”
He assured Nigerians that INEC was ready to include Gana’s name on the ballot as the SDP candidate as soon as his party obeyed the court’s order.
He insisted that the court never instructed the commission to include the name of the former minister and that the onus lied on his party.
Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf nullified the candidacy of Duke as the flag-bearer of the SDP in a ruling in December 2018.
The court declared Gana as the winner of the presidential primary conducted by the party.