Nigeria\u2019s political parties are continuing to select candidates to fill elective positions in the 2023 general elections. The 18 political parties recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are expected to produce candidates for the office of President, Governor, National and State legislative seats. While the presidential nominations dominate the news, party primaries to produce candidates for the other positions have been ongoing. Two of the most prominent political parties \u2013 the ruling all Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are very much in focus during this period of the primaries. The PDP is way ahead in concluding its primaries. Its presidential primaries produced former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar in a keen contest that saw him beat his closest rival, Nyesom Wike, Governor of Rivers State by 371 to 237 votes. Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal had withdrawn from the contest and handed over his supporters to boost Atiku\u2019s chances. Observers of the PDP presidential primaries however worry about allegations of widespread payment of delegates. The use of monies across the primaries of political parties seems to be a major concern, clearly raising even further concern about the influence of money in Nigeria\u2019s elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ruling party, APC is however yet to produce its\ncandidate for Presidency. Its presidential primaries earlier scheduled for May\n29 and 30 was postponed by one week. Apparently, getting wind of INEC\u2019s\nextension of its deadline for party primaries by the same period. INEC had\nshifted its timelines after it said that it acted in response to the plea made\non behalf of political parties by the Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory\nCouncil (IPAC), which had claimed that the parties needed more time to meet up\nwith completion of their primaries. INEC\u2019s extension went against earlier\nvehement statements issued by it, to the effect that it would not extend the\ndeadline for conclusion of party primaries. According to INEC, the deadline is\n\u201cfirm and fixed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Civil society organisations have however criticised the extension of the primaries deadline by INEC. The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room in its statement noted that: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTurning around and extending the date meant that\npolitical parties that were lagging behind in their preparations for the\nprimaries were now gifted with the advantage of better preparation that the\nearlier given date denied the other political parties. INEC should be seen to\ngive level playing ground for all parties involved in any election<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, the big concern for Nigeria\u2019s election\nwatchers is how to insulate INEC from the pressures and manipulations of\npolitical parties ahead of the 2023 general elections. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nigeria\u2019s political parties are continuing to select candidates to fill elective positions in the 2023 general elections. The 18 political parties recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are expected to produce candidates for the office of President, Governor, National and State legislative seats. While the presidential nominations dominate the news, party primaries to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2714,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions\/2714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}