Action Alliance tackles INEC over alleged plans to exclude its candidates

From Godwin Tsa, Abuja

The Action Alliance (AA) has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, of plans to jeopardise the outcome the forthcoming general elections by deliberately excluding its candidates from the polls in defiance of various court orders.

The party, which has already passed a vote of no confidence on the electoral body under the leadership of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said it has no trust that he can organise free, fair, and credible general elections.

Speaking at a press conference in Abuja, the National Chairman of the party, Adekunle Rufai Omoaje, said his party is at the receiving end of a calculated plan/agenda of the INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, “going by his wicked meddlesomeness through INEC in the internal affairs of our party.”

Omoaje who was in the company of members of the National Executive Committee (EXCO) of the party, disclosed that the Action Alliance had fulfilled all INEC electoral guidelines and requirements according to the 1999 constitution, yet the INEC chairman was “hell bent on excluding Action Alliance from the coming 2023 elections.”

He accused the INEC boss of working in cahoots with the former national chairman of the party, Kenneth Obidiche Udeze, who had been expelled from the party, to frustrate the recognition of its candidates for the next general elections.

Omo-Aje said the actions of the INEC chairman were against court judgments that recognised the Exco of the party as presently constituted.

“INEC is in possession of a judgment from a superior court, but Prof. Mahmood Yakubu chose to respect a questionable judgment from a lower court as submitted by Kenneth Udeze, who is not even a member of our party, despite our letter to INEC pointing out the illegality of respecting a lower court judgment over a superior court,” Omoaje said.