The apex electoral body, in a letter dated March 21 2013 and addressed to the chairman of the group, threw out the application because the group did not include the names and addresses of its national officers in its application form, thereby breaching section 222(a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
The letter, which was written and signed by the secretary of INEC, Abdullahi Kaugama, and entitled “Re-Application for registration as a political party” was in response to the application of the political group dated February 28, 2013.
The letter reads in part, “The Commission has observed that your Association is in breach of Section 222 (a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) which stipulates as follows: ‘No association by whatever name called shall function as a political party unless: (a) the names and addresses of its national officers are registered with the Independent National Electoral Commission’.
“A close observation of your submitted form PA I established that it does not contain the addresses of your national officers as stipulated in the provision above. Consequently, the commission shall not register the proposed African Peoples Congress (APC) as a political party.”
The African Peoples Congress and All Patriotic Citizens are jostling for the APC acronym while the merging All Progressive Congress had insisted that it owns the intellectual property to the APC.
The merging APC, comprising the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), has maintained that the APC acronym remains its identity, since they announced their acronym on February 6 this year.
‘We’ll challenge INEC’s decision’
But the chairman of the African Peoples Congress , Chief Onyinye Ikeagwuonu, at a press conference in Abuja yesterday, said his group would contest the attempt by INEC to halt the group’s registration as a political party.
Ikeagwuonu, who alleged that the plot to deny his political group party registration had long been hatched, also described as flimsy the reason offered by INEC for rejecting their application.
In his statement entitled “A brewing storm” Ikeagwonu said, “Our attention has just been drawn to a desperate effort by some paid INEC officials to conclusively consummate the black market transaction we warned about last Thursday, to deny the African Peoples Congress registration citing purported irregularities in the addresses of our national officers while the INEC documents required either residential address or phone number.
No going back on merger - ANPP
Meanwhile, the leadership of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) has assured that there is no going back on the opposition merger.
Rising from a meeting between the Board of Trustees and the merger committee of the party which held in Abuja yesterday, the BOT chairman of the party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, dispelled rumours that the party might pull out of the merger, saying that “this meeting basically was to discuss the merger talk and to resolve issues with the committee and we all agreed that there is no going back on merger”.
Sheriff also said the controversy over the registration of the APC was between the INEC and APC, adding that the ANPP was yet to be formally briefed on the matter.
“As a party, when we submit registration request, anything INEC tells us is what we will take. I will like you to know that it is just the way you have been reading in the newspapers that we also read. So the issue still depends on the outcome at INEC,” he said.
Former governor of Kano State Ibrahim Shekarau, governor of Borno State Kashim Shettima, senators, party state chairmen and other members of the party attended the meeting.
SOURCE: LEADERSHIP NEWSPAPER
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