Amid speculations that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had registered a group with the acronym, APC, to frustrate the merger by major opposition parties under the name of the All Progressive Congress (APC), INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has finally put paid to the controversy and internecine battles that have been raging in the media over the APC abbreviation, saying the move by the opposition parties can only be legally actualized after the various parties in the coalition hold their party conventions to officially endorse the merger.
Speaking yesterday on a live interactive Radio Nigeria Hausa program, Hanu Dayawa, the INEC boss disclosed that, despite the controversy trailing the purported registration of another APC, the Commission was yet to register any new party.
“The guidelines for registering new political parties 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 them must hold a convention and agree to withdraw their registration as a political party in order 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,” Jega explained.
The INEC boss disclosed that the Commission only got official notification of the merger intention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) five days ago. “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.
“Only one group came. The group asked one lawyer to write INEC saying they want to form a political party with a particular name and they want to know the rules and procedures for registration as a political party.
“If these other groups had done so, we would have replied them and tell them the rules and the procedures they are supposed to follow to be registered. So, the issue of whether we have collected the name of this other group and whether we have agreed to register them does not even arise because we just replied to their letter by telling them the procedure.
“This 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. Therefore, 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 the merging parties write and notify us. But that is not the issue.”
He said what the Commission was doing at the moment is to screen those that approached it. “Except INEC comes out to announce that it has registered so and so party, all the bickering is unnecessary. We have written to them that a group has come to seek registration with that name and if they want us to look at their application, they will have to look for another name.”
“We must operate according to the rules and we will work with anybody who fulfills the provisions of the law. Somebody first came with the name and we have explained that we are already screening the person who first came with the name.
“So, if you want your application to be considered, go and change your name because it is not possible to register three groups with the same name. We have not even reached the stage of registering any group. When we get to that stage, we will take the appropriate decisions”.
Jega also turned down the idea of using electronic voting for the 2015 elections, saying it was against the spirit and letter of the Constitution.
