•The INEC, court connections
By ADE ALADE
Notwithstanding the submission of the application of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for registration as a political party last week Friday, the coalition of opposition political parties will still have to contend with a fresh move by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to scuttle the process.
Saturday Sun gathered that the PDP is making a last-ditch effort to frustrate the registration of APC. An inside source revealed: "We are aware they (merging parties) are at the last stage of their registration, but we have the last dose of our joker for them. Mark my words, some developments in INEC and the courts in the coming days will determine their fate."
Two of the political parties in the merger, which spoke on the development, said they were not unaware of the ruling PDP's desperation to scuttle the on-going registration process, but warned that such, if successful, would have catastrophic effect on the nation's survival.
Leading opposition parties in the country, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) as well as factions of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) recently came together to form a bigger party, APC, with the aim of taking over the leadership of the country from the PDP through the 2015 general elections.
Though the move was initially received with skepticism and scorn, especially by the PDP leadership, which had regarded the coalition as a gathering of strange bedfellows that can not stand. The continued commitment of APC leaders to subsume their individual and group interests under their larger mission of dethroning PDP in 2015 has, however, forced the ruling party not only to change its initial position but to publicly acknowledge that the emerging opposition party is indeed a threat to its (PDP) survival.
Chairman, Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih, recently gave credence to this claim while addressing the governors, federal lawmakers and state chairmen of the party from the South-South geo-political zone, in Asaba, Delta State.
"We must not live under the illusion that our party is invulnerable. Although, the existing opposition parties are still too small, fragile and sectional, we must not ignore the possibility that a merger of these parties may constitute a threat to our current dominance of the political terrain," Anenih had told his party men and women.
Saturday Sun had two weeks ago exclusively reported that the three main parties forming APC (the ACN, ANPP and CPC) would, the following week, present a letter jointly signed by their national chairmen, national secretaries and national treasurers to the INEC Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega, informing the electoral body of their resolution to relinquish their old identities for the newly formed APC. The submission of the joint letter to INEC, by the merging parties, the report had stated, was the last stage in the merger process, since the political parties had held their national conventions, where the merger and their new identity were ratified.
Indeed, last week Friday, after the meeting of the joint merger committee in Abuja, a chieftain of the ACN, Chief Tom Ikimi, confirmed that the APC's application was submitted to INEC that day. He revealed that the document was signed by the national chairmen, secretaries and treasurers of the three main merging parties, ACN, CPC and ANPP.
In his words: "I am aware that millions of Nigerians await the final registration of our new party, the APC, so that they can avail themselves of the opportunity to take up its membership. The plan, hope and commitment of the merger committee are that the new party will be broad-based, open and truly belong to all its members equally. To this end, we have all subscribed to our new constitution and it defines, quite clearly, the leadership structure of the party. This principle underscores equality and fair play among party members without prejudice.
"We will therefore, strive to guarantee transparency and internal party democracy, particularly, at this stage of registration. We expect all of us involved in the process to also subscribe to and respect these fundamental principles.
"The final document for registration, in accordance with INEC regulations, has to be signed by the national chairman, national secretary and national treasurer of each of the merging parties. Everyone committed to providing our country this new platform of change must be prepared to make the necessary sacrifice."
Saturday Sun gathered that soon after Ikimi made his statement, "a meeting of five" was called in the Asokoro home of an influential leader of PDP to "review the effort of the task team on APC." The meeting was said to have "among other things, decided to explore the INEC option and if that fails, mobilise quickly towards helping our APC (African Peoples Congress) to get a favourable court judgment stopping the registration of the merger."
When prodded for details of the "INEC option," the source said this means the PDP will have to work with its "contacts within INEC to generate queries and hurdles for the opposition parties, which will pre-occupy them till elections will come," adding, "that way, nobody will say they have been denied registration."
While also giving a hint of the court option, the source stated: " A task team is already working with contacts in APC (African Peoples Congress) to secure them a favourable court order that will either compel INEC to register them as the first group to file an application for registration or stop INEC from recognising either of the parties, as an amicable way of settling the dispute. The suit has been left hanging since for the appropriate time to strike and now the time has come."
Indeed, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja recently granted leave to one of the associations jostling to be registered under the acronym of APC, African Peoples Congress, to proceed with hearing in its suit seeking a judicial review of the decision of the INEC, which rejected its application for registration as a political party.
Delivering ruling on the ex-parte application brought by the party, Justice Gabriel Kolawole granted the party leave of the court to hear and adjudicate on the application filed in suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/224/2013. The court subsequently gave the party a week to file all its processes and serve same on INEC. The ruling consequently paved way for a full-blown legal battle over the APC name and acronym. The trial judge however fixed no date for the hearing in the substantive suit.
On its part, the electoral body has given assurance that neither it nor its national chairman, Prof. Jega, would succumb to any pressure to scuttle the registration of the merging All Progressives Congress (APC).
To emphasise its neutrality in the emerging game plan, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Kayode Idowu, had said: "Neither the INEC nor its chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, is under pressure from any quarters in the discharge of their constitutional duties, including registration of political parties.
"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.
"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 fulfill. INEC is a regulatory body whose duty is to make sure that applications for registration meet those conditions as applicable."
In its reaction to the unfolding threat to the mega party registration, CPC, through its spokesman, Engr Rotimi Fashakin, said the plot, if allowed, would spell doom for the nation's democracy.
His words: "Plurality of opinion is an essential hallmark of standard democratic practice. There is a systematic and determined gravitation towards providing Nigerians with alternative political platform for governance. It is not in the interest of this regime to truncate the effort. It may not ultimately be in the corporate interest of the nation state. We are not unaware of the clandestine moves by the PDP to use certain elements both in INEC and its surrogates in the African Peoples' Congress to scuttle APC's registration. The Nigerian people shall view this capricious effort as an affront which, undoubtedly, shall be resisted."
The ACN, which also reacted through its spokesman, Lai Mohammed, expressed doubts if such move will sail through in INEC under the leadership of Prof Jega or the judiciary under the current Chief Justice, Mariam Aloma Mukhtar.
He said: "All I can say is that the parties have complied with the relevant electoral laws. The three national chairmen and secretaries of the parties that have held their national conventions approving the merger are those who signed the application letter for APC registration and that is what is provided by the law."
"We have no reason that INEC will be compromised, but if INEC is compromised, we leave the judgment to Nigerians because there will be great consequences. I must also say that we are confident we have a lot of integrity in the CJN and under her watch, such shenanigan will not happen. But should we be denied unlawfully, we in the party and Nigerians as a whole will not take it lightly; it's a move that will be met with serious mass resistance.
"I must emphasise that we have no evidence to believe that both INEC and the judiciary will be compromised. However, if we are unlawfully denied registration, there will be great consequences for the government and the nation because Nigerians won't just fold their hands and allow some people to destroy our democratic experience on the altar of an individual or sectional ambition."
Original Page: http://sunnewsonline.com/new/cover/fresh-move-to-stop-apc-registration/
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