Edo Guber: NRM Protests INEC’s Exclusion Of Its Applicant

Benin City —The National Rescue Movement, or NRM, Edo State branch, stormed the INEC state headquarters yesterday in protest that the party and its candidate were left off of the list of political parties and candidates that the commission released last week.

The protesters called on the INEC to include the name of its governorship candidate, Dennis Aikoriogie, in the list of those participating in the September 21 governorship election in the state.

In a protest letter to the Commission, signed by its Chairman, Sam Arase; and Secretary, Asemota Solomon, the protesters said that they were surprised that the name of the NRM governorship candidate, who duly participated and won the primaries supervised by INEC, was not among the list of candidates published by the commission.

“Today, we want to register our complaint to you. We are not happy. We, as members of this party, write to inform you that our party’s primary was conducted and monitored by this great office. Your office sent representatives and the police also sent their representatives and at the end of the day, the national headquarters of INEC came with its own representatives.

“We have documents here to show that, and they all signed. They witnessed the primary and election was held and Dennis Aikoriogie was elected as the gubernatorial candidate of the National Rescue Movement but to our surprise, when you announced a week ago that the list of parties that met up with your requirements, our name was not mentioned. We are not happy about it and that is why we have come to register our complaint,” Arase said.

NRM’s NWC Didn’t Inform Us —INEC

Responding, the Head of Department, Voter Education and Publicity, INEC in Edo State, Mr. Timidi Wariowe, said the reason the name of the party and its governorship candidate did not appear was because they did not send their names to INEC headquarters in Abuja.

His words: “On this issue, what we gathered was that there was no letter from the National Working Committee of your party from Abuja.

“There was no letter from the National Working Committee of NRM to the INEC headquarters in Abuja and that is to say, that your party did not send to INEC headquarters the names, the time for the primary and the venue of the primary.

“So, we cannot go and monitor a primary or maybe a letter being sent by the state office, we don’t accept that. We know that primaries are conducted by the National Working Committee of a party and we only receive correspondence from the National Working Committee of the party and it is done via INEC headquarters to the state office and then, we comply.

“You said that some persons from the state office went and monitored, let me tell you point blank that those people that went to monitor are on their own.”