The All Progressives Congress, APC, announced on Tuesday that it had formally applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for its registration as a political party.
This disclosure was made in Abuja on Tuesday by Tom Ikimi, a leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN.
The chieftain said the application was made to the Commission last Friday and was signed by nine people as required by the electoral law.
He added that those who attested to the application were the National Chairmen, Secretaries, and Treasurers of the three merging parties; ACN, Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, and the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP.
Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has denied speculation that it was under pressure to deny APC’s application.
Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Kayode Idowu, chief press secretary to INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, said neither the electoral umpire nor its Chairman, was under influence from any quarters in the discharge of their constitutional duties – including registration of political parties.
He was reacting to a newspaper story, wherein Jega was said to be under pressure from “high quarters” not to register the coalition.
Idowu maintained that the “story is entirely fictitious and betrays wholesale misunderstanding of how the Electoral Commission under the present leadership works.
His words: “The Chairman did not confide in anyone that he is under any kind of pressure, as your story reports. He does not need to, because he will not allow himself to be pressured in the first place.
“Both the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic (As Amended) and the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended) prescribe specific conditions that any group seeking registration as a new political party or intending to evolve from a merger process must fulfil. INEC is a regulatory body whose duty is to make sure that applications for registration meet those conditions as applicable.”
He said applications to INEC for registration as political parties are a purely routine operational matter, and they are treated as such in the light of guiding statutory provisions.
“The present leadership of the Commission will uncompromisingly protect its integrity and the statutory rules of engagement. It will not be pressured by anyone to register, deregister or not register any party; and neither will it be stampeded or blackmailed into ignoring statutory provisions in regard of any application. The Commission, it must be restated, will do only what is right and lawful at all times”,Idowu said.
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