Political Parties Ask Electoral Body, INEC To Extend Timeline For Primaries

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been urged to extend the timeline for the 2023 general elections by two months.

Political parties in the country made the call on Tuesday, saying they wanted slight changes to the primaries’ timeline, as stipulated by the electoral umpire.

This was made known by the Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Yusuf Yabagi, on Tuesday at a meeting of the electoral umpire and leaders of various political parties at the INEC headquarters in Abuja.

Yabagi said the meeting, that was well attended by national chairmen of various party, including Abdullahi Adamu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Iyorchia Ayu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) resolved that the extension was necessary to help political parties put things in order for the forthcoming general elections.

However, the INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu informed the party leaders that the commission would not review the existing timelines and appealed that primaries be conducted creditably in order to minimise litigations.

While reminding them of the forthcoming governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states, he called on all the parties to comply with the provisions in the Electoral Act.