Donald Duke And Jerry Gana’s Names Missing As INEC Releases Final List Of Presidential Candidates, INEC Explains Why

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has explained
why it removed the name of a former governor of Cross River State,
Donald Duke, from the final list of presidential candidates published on
Thursday.

INEC
National Commissioner, Voter Education Committee, Mr Festus Okoye, said
this on Friday during his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise
Daily. According to him, the electoral umpire took the decision in line
with a court judgement which ordered it not to recognise Mr Duke as the
presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the
general elections.

“The name of Donald Duke was forwarded to the
Independent National Electoral Commission as the candidate of the SDP
for the presidential election,” Mr Okoye said.

“Thereafter, the
Independent National Electoral Commission received a court order to the
effect that all the votes that were scored by Donald Duke during the SDP
primaries were wasted votes, and that the candidate of the SDP in the
presidential election should be Professor Jerry Gana.”

The
national commissioner stressed further that it was the action of the SDP
that led to the exclusion of the name of Professor Gana – a former
minister – from the list. He said INEC expected the party to forward
Gana’s name as its presidential candidate and not the responsibility of
the commission to do so.

“The court went further to direct that it
is the political party itself, the SDP, that should submit the name of
Jerry Gana to the Independent National Electoral Commission,” Okoye
stated.

He added, “As at the time we published the list yesterday,
the SDP has not forwarded the name of Jerry Gana as the presidential
candidate of the party.

“So, we are waiting for the party to
submit the name of Jerry Gana … that is why we removed the name of
Donald Duke from the list that has been published.”

The INEC
official said they are ready to include Professor Gana’s name on the
ballot as the SDP candidate as soon as his party obeys the court order.
He insisted that the court never instructed the commission to include
the name of the former minister, stressing that the onus lies on his
party.

Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf had nullified the candidacy of
Mr Duke as the flagbearer of the SDP in a ruling in December 2018. He
had consequently declared Professor Gana as the winner of the
presidential primary conducted by the party.