By EMMANUEL AZIKEN, KOLADE LAREWAJU, BEN AGANDE, OLA AJAYI & TONY EDIKE
ABUJA—AMIDST contradictory claims on the authority to publish the list of candidates for the forthcoming general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, yesterday invited the general public to scrutinize the eligibility of the nominees submitted to it by the political parties.

At press time, yesterday, only INEC offices in Oyo, Anambra and Enugu States claimed to have received the list of candidates endorsed for the elections. Sources at the commission revealed last minute dressing of the list by officials at the headquarters.

In Oyo State, Governor Adebayo Alao_Akala made the list on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and is to square up against his former boss, Senator Rasheed Ladoja who made the gubernatorial list for Accord and Senator Abiola Ajimobi who is flying the banner of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN.

Candidates on the list of the PDP faction loyal to Governor Akala equally made the list as it was gathered that the names of senatorial candidates of the PDP which include Jumoke Akinjide (Oyo central), daughter of the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Chief Richard Akinjide (SAN), Hosea Agboola (Oyo North) and Kamoru Adedibu (Oyo south senatorial district) were on the list.

Senate leader Senator Teslim Folarin who was contesting the ticket with Ms Akinjide lost out. Professor Chukwuemeka Onukaogu the REC for Anambra State said in Awka last night that he had no authority to release the list of the candidates of the political parties vying for the April, 2011 general elections.

The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Enugu State, Mr. Josiah Uwazuruonye, said the list of candidates from various political parties was received from INEC headquarters, Sunday afternoon, and would be displayed today.

He told Vanguard on phone that the list forwarded to him Sunday could not be displayed immediately but assured that it would officially displayed on the notice board of the commission today.

The fate of Governor Sullivan Chime and members of his group in the PDP was last night uncertain as Vanguard learnt that INEC had last Wednesday issued the PDP gubernatorial nomination form for Enugu State to Chief Engr. Anayo Onwuegbu and went further to issue those of senatorial, House of Representatives and House of Assembly positions to candidates elected by the Ogbonna group, which is loyal to the former National Chairman, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo.

INEC reportedly issued nomination forms to candidates elected by the group in obedience to the January 31 orders of the Federal High Court, Abuja which directed it and the PDP national leadership to accept Onwuegbu and all the candidates on the list submitted by his group as the authentic candidates of the party for Enugu State.

Media Officer of Onwuegbu’s Omeiheukwu Campaign Organisation, Mr. Jeff Mba, confirmed to Vanguard, weekend, that the governorship candidate (Onwuegbu) had filled and submitted his form to INEC last Friday while other candidates on the list completed theirs on Saturday.

He said that it has become very clear to all that Onwuegbu is the gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in Enugu State having been elected from the party primary held by the legitimate executive headed by Caesar Alex Ogbonna.

However, the news of the issuance of nomination forms to Onwuegbu and others by INEC caused tension within the state, weekend, as members of Governor Sullivan Chime’s political camp felt that their chances of flying the party’s flag in forthcoming elections may have been threatened by the new development.

Sources said that most of the candidates from the governor’s camp had been meeting at Abuja with some legal luminaries since last week to seek ways of vacating the court order granted by Justice Kafarati in favour of the Nwodo group.

Although members of Chime’s political camp contacted on the issue refused to comment at the weekend, sources said that a team of lawyers had filed necessary papers on behalf of the group at the Federal High Court seeking to be joined in the matter with a view to contesting the order. Further hearing of the matter had been adjourned to February 8 by Justice Kafarati and the governor’s lawyers are expected to appear before the court that day.

Vanguard also learnt that the PDP leadership was highly disturbed by the confusion over the party’s candidates for the state and had set machineries in motion to ensure that the matter was resolved next week to avoid the disruption of the South East Zonal rally slated for February 11 in Enugu where the party’s flags are billed to be presented to the candidates

However, in many other States INEC officials and Resident Electoral Commissioners pooh_poohed efforts to obtain the lists
of the candidates. Mr. Kayode Idowu Chief Press Secretary to Prof. Attahiru Jega, the national chairman of INEC told Vanguard yesterday that the list would be published in accordance with the provisions of the electoral act last night in the respective constituencies. However, many INEC officials in the various States denied the receipt of the list of candidates. A senior INEC official, however, admitted last night of ongoing subterranean pressure by vested interests to compromise the list as initially prepared by the commission.

But speaking to journalists in Abuja, the INEC national commissioner (Legal Services) Barrister Philip Umeadi said the list being published would not be the final list of candidates. He described the list as mere nominations. INEC on its part through a notice on its web site invited the general public to screen the list nominations made by the parties for the purpose of verifying the information contained in the forms filled by the candidates.

Clarification
Umeadi said: “It is important for me to make this clarification because there appears to be obvious ignorance of the provisions of the law with regards to what is going on. If you look at section31 of the electoral Act, it says political parties would submit to the INEC the particulars of candidate they intend to sponsor for the election. They are not sponsoring them yet. It is just an expression of intent. Under the 2006 act it was our responsibilities to screen the candidates based on this particular as well as send them down to the states. Now, our right to screen has been taken away. ”

The INEC national Commissioner maintained that “What we are doing now is essentially not a compilation of lists of candidates. The political parties have expressed the intention to sponsor these candidates. We received these candidates and pushed them down to the constituencies for people to look at those candidates they intend to sponsor, scrutinize it and raise objection which we will look at.

The actual nomination process starts tomorrow when they will collect forms by our guidelines. But you will realize that we had given them soft copies of these forms so when they begin the process of substitution which will continue till the 24th of February that is when we now begin to compile the lists of candidates the political parties have nominated to contest elections. Now it is just an expression of intention.

“We dispatched the lists to the constituencies today and the publications will start today because the Act under section 31 says within seven days of receipt of these forms, you must publish same in the respective constituencies. It is an invitation to the public to scrutinize the candidate the political parties are sponsoring.”

Asked whether the lists submitted by the political parties to INEC now are not t the final candidates for the elections, Barrister Umeadi said the final list can only come on or before February 24. “In a sense yes because the act simply says is an expression of an intent but that expression of intent must emanate from a process and that process is that those candidates must have emanated from a primaries and those primaries would have been adjudged to be democratic. Our responsibility is to look at such arbitrary and invidious substitutions by some political parties and say no this is improper and we are going to correct it because based on our records, Mr A is the one who won the primaries and you ought to have brought his name. Some of the lists that have gone out have been corrected.

“We recognize that it is the right of political parties to nominate candidates for elections. But those candidates which the political parties intend to sponsor for elections must emanate from primaries duly conducted by the parties and these primaries must conform to democratic practices. It is the statutory obligations of the political parties to issue notice for us to come and monitor.

If we monitor and it is not democratic, we will say so. That is our responsibility” he said. On the objections from some candidates that there names had been removed from the lists submitted to the commission by their political parties, Barrister Umeadi said ideally such complaints ought to have come after the lists had been sent to the states. “Ideally, those petitions ought to come after we have published. We have received court order some of them we have complied and we will continue to comply with court orders but the process will have to go on. We have set a guideline that today is for display.

We don’t want to ignore our own guidelines. We must display today. we are pushing everything down to the states. Those we are able to correct we have corrected, those that are still outstanding, we will still correct them but it is important for me to reassure the public that this is just a step in the process. It is not the nomination of candidates. The political parties have merely expressed their intentions to sponsor these candidates and they are putting them out for the public to scrutinize and criticize their intents.”

Vigil by journalists
In Abeokuta, an official of INEC arrived the Abeokuta office of the commission at about 6.45pm after the Administrative Secretary; Mr. Ebenezer Fakorede had left after waiting for several hours and journalists who had kept a vigil on the place also left.

He was reportedly admitted in by security men while a few officials inside the complex were said to be the ones that would contact the Resident Electoral Commissioner.

Efforts to gain entrance at about 7.pm was, however, abortive.
Meanwhile, INEC urged the general public to come forward to scrutinize the particulars on the candidates submitted to it by the parties. Members of the public who observe discrepancies in the particulars of any candidate are expected to challenge such a candidate in the court which under the law has the right to disqualify such a candidate from partaking in the election.

The notice published on INEC web site yesterday evening read thus: Pursuant to the provisions of section 31 of the Electoral Act, 2006, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) hereby informs the public that it has commenced the publication of the personal particulars of candidates (Form CF 001) for the offices of President, Vice President, Governor, Deputy Governor, Members of the National Assembly (Senate and House of Representatives) as well as the State Assemblies and Chairmen and Councilors of the Area Councils.

The personal particulars are displayed in all the State and Local Government Offices of the Commission in the Constituencies of the candidates. Any person who has reasonable grounds to believe that any information given by any candidate is false or that the candidate is not qualified or is disqualified from contesting the elections should notify the Commission in writing within 7 (seven) days of this publication.

The public is further informed that the grounds for qualification for the offices specified in the Constitution (Section 65, 106, 131 & 177) are as follows: