The Independent National Electoral Commission has vowed not to extend the June 3, 2022 deadline for party primaries.
This is coming even though as of Monday, none of the 18 political parties had conducted their presidential primaries three weeks before the deadline.
According to a document obtained from INEC, the Accord Party scheduled its primaries for June 2 while the Action Alliance fixed its own for June 3.
The All Progressives Congress will complete its presidential primary on June 1; the Peoples Democratic Party will hold its own on May 29.
It was learned that the Social Democratic Party, which had fixed its primary for May 14, failed to do so.
Sources told our correspondent that parties had fixed their presidential primaries for the last minute to carry out negotiations and also lobby INEC.
A PDP chieftain said, “What many of these smaller parties usually do is to hold their primaries very late to adopt the candidate of one of the big parties. They use this to get funding. Also, because everyone is still lobbying INEC for an extension of time, everyone is trying to push their primaries towards the deadline just in case INEC obliges.”
In a related development, INEC has said that it is too late to tinker with the schedule of activities for the 2023 general elections.
