The Chairman, Osun State Electoral Commission (OSIEC), Barrister Hashim Abioye, hinted on Wednesday that some political parties vying for elective positions in the coming local government election acted contrarily to the provisions and procedure regarding the substitution of candidates.
The chairman, who dropped the hint at a press conference held at the OSUN NUJ correspondent chapel, listed the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), and the Action Peoples Party (APP) to be among the concerned parties who ran foul of the rules.
According to him, virtually all the political parties contesting the elections had one case or another of the infractions, and that while some are remediable, others are incurable.”
He said, “The provision is not an innovation, it is also contained in the Electoral Act, 2022, that is the provision we have now adopted. For this reason, some political parties, notably the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), and the Action Peoples Party (APP) ran foul of the provisions and procedure regarding the substitution of candidates.”
“While no substitution can be validly done without following the rules, any substitution or change of candidate done after the purported candidate intended to be a replacement for another must have been given and submitted nomination form despite his/her name not being on the list originally submitted to the Commission would be void.
“Let me note once again that virtually all the political parties contesting the elections had one case or another of the infractions that are remediable, but the political parties highlighted above committed the most of the infractions that are incurable by giving nomination forms for candidates whose names were not on the list in some local government areas and wards. This we cannot help.
“Being a major political party, I will take that of the APC as an example. In Atakumosa West Local Government, the chairmanship and vice chairmanship candidates submitted by the party to the commission were not the persons who filled out nomination forms submitted to OSSIEC.
“In the same vein, the respective vice chairmanship candidates submitted by the APC for Ede South, Egbedore, Ife Central, Ifedayo, Isokan, Olorunda, and Oriade Local Government Areas were completely different from the persons that filled out and submitted nomination forms to the Commission. Candidates of the APC in several wards across various local government areas were affected by this incurable anomaly, he submitted.
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