The Executive Director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), Mr. Clement Nwankwo, has said courts should not give violators of the Electoral Act a second chance.
Nwanko, who spoke during an interview on Roadmap 2023, a pre-recorded programme on Channels Television, said courts are doing by asking the parties to reconduct primaries done in violation of the electoral act is a recipe for chaos and is quite illegal.
According to him, the Electoral Act (2022) was quite clear in its provisions as they relate to conduct of party primaries.
He stated that political parties who have failed to conduct their primaries for selecting candidates for various positions should forfeit the opportunity of participating in the general election in 2023.
“The intention of the legislature is to ensure that the timelines, and INEC did indicate that in some of its submissions as well to the Committee on Electoral Matters.
“When you do have the constitution and indeed the Electoral Act say that you should give notice of elections 360 days before the elections and it gives timelines for the conduct of primaries, parties to submit their candidates’ list and so on, the intention is to ensure that internal democracy is respected,” he said.
“I feel appalled and shocked that courts have failed to understand the intendeds of the Electoral Act. You will see a high court give an order, less than how many days to the election, asking parties to re-conduct primaries.
“I think that if a party has not conducted its primaries in line with the Electoral Act, the court’s responsibility at that stage is to nullify the entire primaries, rather than give that party that has abused the Electoral Act the opportunity again to go back and re-conduct primaries in a system and under a lawfully guided electoral process.”
