The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has spoken on the fate of the Labour Party, whose candidate for the Enugu East senatorial district election, Barr. Oyibo Chukwu, was murdered on Wednesday night.
Chukwu and his driver were killed three days before the presidential and National Assembly elections along Amaechi Awkunanaw Road and their remains set ablaze.
Responding to a question of what becomes of the Labour Party following Chukwu’s death, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said: “If the senatorial candidate of one of the political parties has passed on and the party is asking for a postponement of the election, what is the position of the law?
JOURNALIST101 recalls that section 34(3: a-b) of the New Electoral Act states that: If after the commencement of polls and before the announcement of the final result and declaration of a winner, a candidate dies—
(a) the Commission shall, being satisfied of the fact of the death, suspend the election for a period not more than 21 days ; and
(b) in the case of election into a legislative House, the election shall start afresh and the political party whose candidate died may, if it intends to continue to participate in the election, conduct a fresh primary within 14 days of the death of its candidate and submit the name of a new candidate to the Commission to replace the dead candidate.”
“The law is very clear on what should be done. The law provides for countermanding the election in the constituency where the political party has lost a candidate but wishes to continue to participate in the election. But, as we speak, the Commission has not received any official notification from the political party.
“As soon as the Commission received official information and it is satisfied with the cause of death, it would apply the provisions of the law.”