The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has published eighteen names that are jostling for the number one seat in Nigeria.
The commission also cleared the name of Mohammed Bukar, who passed away last week for 2023 election.
It was gathered that Bukar’s death had not been officially communicated to INEC.
Late Bukar was nominated to represent Gujba, Gulani, Tarmuwa and Damaturu Federal Constituency in the next year’s election.
He died at the Yobe State Teaching Hospital after a protracted illness.
The independent body has listed the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr Peter Obi of Labour Party, LP, others as the Presidential candidates for the forthcoming 2023 election.
The circular released by the electoral body on Tuesday, captured the origin, age, and other details of the candidates.
No fewer than 18 presidential hopefuls and 4,223 National Assembly aspirants have made the final list of candidates published by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Tuesday.
INEC released the list after its weekly meeting held at its national headquarters in Abuja.
Festus Okoye, INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, said the list was published in line with “section 32(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 and item 8 of the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2023 general election”. The final list of candidates for governorship and state assembly elections would be published on October 4.
Giving a breakdown of the published names, Okoye said: “In summary, all the 18 political parties have fielded candidates and their running mates for the Presidential election. For legislative elections, 1,101 candidates are vying for 109 Senatorial seats and 3,122 candidates for Federal Constituencies i.e. House of Representatives seats, making a total of 4,223 candidates contesting for 469 legislative positions. In terms of gender distribution, 3,875 candidates are male, made up of 35 for Presidential and Vice Presidential, 1,008 for Senate and 2,832 for House of Representatives.
Similarly, 381 females comprising 1 for Presidential, 92 for Senate, and 288 for House of Representatives are contesting. There are also 11 Persons with Disability (PWDs) in the race. The list for specific constituencies is published in each State where they are located while the comprehensive nationwide list has been uploaded to the Commission’s website.”
Meanwhile, in the list of National Assembly candidates published by INEC, the name of the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, was missing.
The commission refused to publish the name of any All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the section for Yobe North Senatorial aspirants.
It took the decision in line with its earlier declaration that it would not recognize any APC candidate for the senatorial election over the controversy that trailed the APC Yobe north senatorial ticket after the APC submitted Lawan’s name to INEC instead of Bashir Machina who won the primary election monitored by the commission.
The full list of the names of presidential and National Assembly candidates can be downloaded HERE.
