Ahead of the primaries of political parties scheduled to end on June 3, the Independent National Electoral Commission says it will authenticate the membership registers submitted to it by the parties. It, however, warns that any political party that falsifies its figures or has multiple registrations on its register may have its candidate(s) disqualified.
It said whether the parties choose to adopt direct or indirect primaries, the commission would verify their delegates’ lists against the registers they submitted, adding that no infraction would be tolerated from the 18 registered political parties. Section 77 of the Electoral Act, 2022 mandates all political parties to maintain membership registers and submit the same to the commission not later than 30 days before their respective primaries.
Subsection 2 of the Act states, “Every registered political party shall maintain a register of its members in both hard and soft copies,” while the subsection 3 reads, “Each political party shall make such a register available to the commission not later than 30 days before the date fixed for the party primaries, congresses or convention.”
INEC had fixed party primaries for between April 4 and June 3, and most parties have scheduled their primaries for May. This means the parties have till Tuesday, May 3, 2022, to submit their registers.
