The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Friday gave reasons for excluding the name of a former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, from the final list of presidential candidates.
INEC had yesterday published the names of presidential candidates involved in the forthcoming election.
But, the presidential candidate of SDP was omitted from the list.
A Federal Capital Teritory, FCT, High Court in Maitama, Abuja had sacked Duke and declared a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, as winner of the presidential primary election of SDP conducted on October 6, 2018.
However, INEC’s National Commissioner of Voter Education Committee, Mr Festus Okoye, explained that the decision to drop SDP presidential candidate was in line with a court judgement which ordered the Commission not to recognise Duke as the party’s candidate in the general elections.
Appearing on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Okoye said: “The name of Donald Duke was forwarded to the Independent National Electoral Commission as the candidate of the SDP for the presidential election.
“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 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.
“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.”
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