The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has ruled out the concept of “placeholder” or dummy vice presidential candidate saying it has no place in its constitution.
This is coming following claims that some Presidential candidates including Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress and Peter Obi of Labour Party, submitted names of vice-presidential candidates whom they described as “placeholders or dummies” to meet up with INEC June 17 submission deadline.
But INEC Commissioner for Voters’ Education and Information, Barrister Festus Okoye, while speaking on ARISE TV on Monday said “placeholder is a unique Nigerian invention” for which the commission’s law has no provision.
According to him, the constitution makes it very clear that you cannot run alone as a presidential candidate and must nominate an associate to run with you for that position, and as far as INEC is concerned, the presidential candidates have submitted their associates to run with them in the presidential election.
“As far as we are concerned, there’s no form submitted by the presidential candidate where they said ‘we’re submitting this person’s name as a place or placeholder,” he said
According to him, political parties’ candidates have submitted names of associates to run with them, and that is the position of the law as at today and nothing has changed.
He added that for there to be, a substitution of a candidate, the vice-presidential candidate must write to INEC, with a sworn affidavit stating that he is withdrawing from the race within the time frame provided by the law.
That’s the only way there can be a substitution of candidates.
