Igini, INEC lose last battle with Akpabio, APC; senator wins back ticket

The tussle between INEC and the APC stalwarts Sen. Godswill Akpabio and Sen. President Ahmd Lawan might have been partially put on rest by Justice Emekea Nwite.

The National Daily reported how INEC, especially its former REC in Akwa Ibom, Mike Igini, drew mass applause in the media and the opposition  for his passion in ensuring Akpabio  never returns to  the Senate by substitution  after the primary aspirant Ekpoudom Udom claimed he won.

Same applied to Lawan and Bashir Machina in Yobe.

“By virtue of Section 31 of the 2022 Electoral Act, the law is saying that those who have emerged at all levels up to the presidential level, can decide that they are no longer interested. You can write an application signed by yourself, delivered to your party, which will now deliver to INEC but nobody can shave the political head of another person in his or her absence,” Igini said in a press statement following the rumoured emergence of the two politicians as senatorial candidates, after losing at the party’s presidential primary.

Igini, whom many in the APC  believe to be working for the PDP insisted with emphasis the  report of the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District APC primary as submitted to INEC headquarters in Abuja is final.

“I hear people taking about substitution. If you look at Section 31 and Section 34 of the Electoral Act, those of you who are still carrying the old idea of the 2010, 2012 Electoral Act in your head, thinking you can substitute willfully, it is no longer so,” he said.

INEC also took a similar stand, and refused to publish any name for the Akwa Ibom North/West senatorial ticket, and the Yobe North senatorial ticket.

Since it became clear the party wanted both Lawan and Akpabio as substitutes for Udom and Machina, the primary winners had to go to court.

In his ruling, Justice Nwite declared INEC’s position illegal.

According to him, the commission had no reason to reject Akpabio since his name was sent to it by the APC as its candidate.

He then ordered the commission to include the former mnister in the list