Only VP candidates can relinquish their mandates – INEC

National Commissioner, Voters Registration, Education and Publicity,  Independent National Electoral Commission, Mr Festus Okoye, has said the submitted names of vice-presidential candidates cannot be retrieved or substituted by the political parties.

Mr Okoye noted that the nominated candidates themselves, who had accepted to be running mates to the presidential candidates, would stand for election come 2023, except they choose not to do so.

According to him, no one can force any of them to give up their seats for another candidate as the concept of “placeholders” is alien to the electoral system.

Reports have it that the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, had submitted the name of Ibrahim Kabiru Masari, as his running mate, stating that Masari would be replaced with a substantive candidate when a proper decision was reached before the window given by INEC closes.

This was the same for the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, who chose his campaign Director-General, Dr Doyin Okupe, as his running mate for now.

Dr Okupe, in an interview, said he was standing in for the substantive candidate who would be made known to the public in due time.

In an interview with Channels TV on Friday, Mr Okoye said, a vice presidential candidate could only be replaced if he died or chose to withdraw from the race.

“In the forms submitted by the political parties, relating to their presidential and vice-presidential candidates, what we have in those forms are the name of presidential and VP candidates; their particulars and their affidavits.”

“None of those political parties indicated that they were submitting a document in lieu of or that they were submitting a name of a candidate in lieu. All the political candidates said they were submitting the list of their candidates and running mates. The issue of submitting a name in lieu of or as placeholders does not even arise.”

“As far as the law and constitution is concerned, we have made it mandatory that the moment a presidential candidate emerges, such candidate must nominate an associate who shall run with him/her as a vice-presidential candidate. Both are seen as Siamese twins who will move and fall together. In the forms submitted by the political parties, forms related to the vice-presidential presidential were submitted.”

Punch/Maxwell Oyekunle