ACTION People’s Party (APP) has kicked against the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) for failing to inform the party that it has been listed for deregistration.
INEC Chairman, Mahmoud Yakubu on Thursday announced the deregistration of 74 political parties in Nigeria following assessment of the parties after the 2019 general elections.
The leadership of APP, one of the parties earlier listed among the parties to be deregistered, have argued that they were not informed that the party is facing deregistration by the Commission.
Speaking to The ICIR, National Deputy Chairman of the Party, Uche Nnadi said INEC did not inform the party of the deregistration.
“We were not informed that we are going to face deregistration, rather INEC wrote us a letter that they are coming for verification,” he said.
The party argued that INEC lacks the power to repeatedly demand mandatories of party registration from political parties.
“Our position is that they lack the power to continue to ask the prerequisite of party registration continually from political parties and that was why we went to court to challenge that decision,” the Deputy Chairman stated.
He said it was the court order that stopped the Commission from deregistering the party.
INEC spokesperson, Rotimi Oyekan did not answer his calls for comment.
With the deregistration of the 74 political parties, Nigeria now has 18 registered political parties compared to the previous 92 registered parties.
The political parties that remain on the list are the ruling All Progressive Party (APC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Action Alliance (AA).
According to INEC other parties in the list are African Action Congress (AAC), African Democratic Congress (ADC), Action Democratic Party (ADP), All Progressives Congress (APC), Allied People’s Movement (APM), Action People’s Party (APP), Boot Party (BP), Labour Party (LP), New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), National Rescue Movement (NRM), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Young Progressive Party (YPP), and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94