The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has trained political parties on how to use the new INEC Candidate Nomination Portal (ICNP) for the 2023 general elections.

At the training on Friday, INEC chair Mahmood Yakubu advised political parties to adhere to the deadline for submission of candidate nomination for 2023 general elections.

Mr Yakubu’s spokesman Rotimi Oyekanmi in a statement said the INEC chair visited all the six groups under the training to ascertain that the party officials understood what they were being taught.

The INEC chairman urged the officials to carefully note the respective commencement dates and deadlines for the submission/uploading of the candidates’ nomination forms for the national and state elections to the portal.

Mr Yakubu reminded the party officials of all information contained in the timetable and schedule of activities for the coming general elections.

He said that the online submission of nomination forms EC9A, 9B, 9C, 9D and 9E for national elections – presidential and national assembly would start from June 10 and end June 17.

Mr Yakubu added that the dates for the submission of nomination forms for state elections – governorship and state assembly remained between July 1 and July 15.

He assured the party officials that INEC would render technical or any other support they might require while using the portal.

The training began on Wednesday June 1 and would end on Saturday 4 June.

INEC National Commissioner, May Agbamuche-Mbu, while declaring open the four-day training workshop in Abuja on Wednesday, said that ICNP had been in use since the 2020 Edo and Ondo State governorship elections.

Ms Agbamuche-Mbu said that the portal was recently redesigned to accommodate the greater demands of a wider and general election nomination process.

She said that the new provisions in the Electoral Act (2022), which makes provision for several technological innovations, had given INEC the discretion to apply technology where necessary.

(NAN)