Section 35

On What amounts to multiple nominations.

PDP v. INEC & 2 ORS (SC/CV/501/2023) (Unreported) Pg. 8 Per Okoro, JSC.
In ruling on when a candidate would be held to have obtained multiple nomination either within his own political party or in two different political parties held that:
“The Sequence of the occurrence of the events is not what determines the existence of multiple nomination. It is the intention, design or purpose to hold two or more nominations as candidate for election that shows that the person so nominated knowingly did so. The 2nd Respondent (APC) did not intend that the 4th Respondent should be its candidate for Borno Central Senatorial Election and its Vice Presidential candidate for the Presidential election and the 4th respondent (Kashim Shettima) did not understand or know that he was so nominated”

Agim JSC in his concurring Judgment added that:
“there cannot be double nomination on the part of Kashim Shettima, because he did not contest for any primary election for Vice President, but "was merely selected to run for a different office as an associate, a scenario envisaged by Section 142(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended."

ALLIED PEOPLES MOVEMENT v. INEC, APC, TINUBU BOLA AHMED, KASHIM SHETTIMA & KABIR MASARI. CA/PEPC/05/2023 (Unreported) @ page 481

On Section 35 of the Electoral Act being targeted at candidates:
Section 35 of the Electoral Act is targeted at the candidate and not the political party. That is why it uses the terms "a candidate" and "knowingly allows himself to be nominated" by more than one political party or more than one constituency. Thus, to prove that a candidate "knowingly" allows himself to be so nominated, both the intent and actual act of nomination, i.e. mens rea and actus reus of the act prohibited must be proved, the stipulation in the section being a penal provision.

On the need to prove multiple nomination:

JIME v. HEMBE (2023) LPELR-60334 (SC) cited in CHIEF OKECHUKWU AMBROSE AHIWE & PDP v. INEC; DR. ALEX CHIOMA OTTI & LP (SC/CV/1250/2023)
"It is not the duty of the Court to encourage practices that do not support democratic principles, but it is also not the duty of the Court to deliberately misapply the law in order to uphold moral democratic principles outside the contemplations of the legislation. The 1st Respondent in JIME V. HEMBE (SUPRA) was running from party to party, hopping from APC to NNPP to Labour Party. Unfortunately, the law as it stands does not sanction his behaviour so long as only one party finally nominates him. In this case, the Appellant changed his case from double nomination to double participation midstream. Be that as it may, he was not able to prove double participation in two primaries of two different political parties by the 1st Respondent and neither was the Appellant able to prove double nomination of the 1st Respondent by two political parties to make the latter fall foul of Section 35 of the Electoral Act" - Per KUDIRAT MOTONMORI OLATOKUNBO KEKERE-EKUN, JSC (@ Pp. 28-29 paras A-D).

NWOSU V. APP (2020) 1 6 NWLR (Pt. 1749) 28 at 62

The Supreme Court voided the candidature of Uche Nwosu the Imo state governorship flag bearer of the Action Alliance (AA) in the 2019 general elections over a case of double nomination. The candidate was nominated by two political parties – he had a valid ticket from the All Progressives Congress (APC) in addition to that of AA – and the Court held that the nomination was invalid, null and void and in violation of Section 37 of the Electoral Act 2010 (now section 35 of the 2022 Act). It held that a candidate who is nominated by more than one political party for the same political office shall be disqualified from contesting the election.

See Section 115 1 (d) – Offences in respect of nomination