Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Saturday, denied reports that the commission was frustrating the registration of the All Progressives Congress, CPC
Jega who spoke on the Hausa programme, Hanu Dayawa, in Kaduna, disclosed that the APC officially notified the commission of their intention to merge into a political party about a week ago.
The INEC boss also ruled out the possibility of adopting the electronic voting in the 2015 general elections, saying the constitution was against the use of the system.
On merger plans of political parties, Jega said, “The issue has generated controversy in the past few weeks. Firstly, the truth is that no political party wrote to notify us that it is planning to merge with some other political parties until the past five days or so.
“It is not true that we were notified. The issue became serious when one group came out to seek for registration and I guess that was what made them to write and notify us. But that is not the issue. The main issue is that there are guidelines for registered political parties who want to merge to become a new party. There are also guidelines for individuals or groups who want to form a political party for registration.
“The guidelines for registering new political party are different from that of registered political parties who want to merge. For registered political parties who want to merge, they must have agreed to merge and each of the political party in the merger must hold a convention and agreed to withdraw their registration as a political party to become part of the new party to be formed through the merger.
“After their conventions, they are expected to write and request INEC to withdraw their former registration and say they want to join a new party. In spite of all the controversies, none of these political parties who want to merge has held their convention.
“We only read in the newspapers that they have the intention of merging and nobody wrote us until about five or six days ago. If anybody wants to register a political party, you are expected to tell INEC of your intention by saying that you want to register a party with so and so name and you want to know the procedure for doing so.”
“People are just making noise over the name which is in the market while we have not even gotten to that stage. While all these noise were going on, another group came up seeking for registration with the same name.”
Speaking on the use of the electronic voting system in the next general elections, Jega noted that the Nigerian constitution prohibited such, adding that the commission would only use technology to improve on the registration of voters and the electoral process.
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