The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Mahmud Yakubu has asked political parties to rigorously investigate their candidates before fielding them for elections.

The INEC chairman made the comment while speaking at the stakeholders’ validation conference on INEC’s Strategic Plan in Abuja yesterday.

His call is coming just few days after the court sacked a member of the House of Representatives from Ado, Okpokwu and Ogbadibo federal constituency, Chris Adabah Abah for certificate forgery.

Yakubu, who lamented that parties in some cases nominated ex-convicts and people with forged certificates as candidates for election, stated that the electoral umpire‎ lacked the powers to prevent such candidates emerging from primaries to contest elections.

He said, “If a candidate that emerges from party primaries is changed, how can INEC intervene? We can only appeal to the political parties to respect their rules. The laws say that INEC has no power to reject names submitted by the headquarters of a party.

“In some cases, some of the candidates shouldn’t have been nominated. Some parties recommend ex-convicts for election, certificate forgery, only for the court to nullify that election and for INEC to conduct fresh election. The parties should do basic due diligence.”

Yakubu said that the commission would rather take its own decision and face the consequences of its actions.