APC franchise: APCN in court to stop registration BY JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU ABUJA—THE battle for franchise of the APC acronym has resurfaced few days after the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had acknowledged the letter of merger from the All Progressives Congress and given the necessary forms to the merger group to fill. The three merging political parties, Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN; Congress for Progressive Change, CPC; All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, and a faction of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, had met, Tuesday, to harmonise the positions of all the committees set up for the ongoing merger process after leaders of the merging parties had met in Abuja last week. INEC, in a letter by its Secretary, Abdulahi Kaugama, had acknowledged receipt of the merger request from the merger groups and issued the necessary forms to them, which they filled and the commission promised to carry out verifications on the information supplied in the forms. However, another group, All Peoples Congress of Nigeria, APCN, which had on March 5, applied to the commission to be registered with the same name and acronym of All Peoples Congress, a request INEC turned down on the ground that another group had applied with the same acronym, has threatened to challenge INEC in court to restrain it from registering any group with the acronym. Hurdles All Progressives Congress seems to be facing another hurdle apart from the battle for franchise, as the merger group was accused of not furnishing the commission with the addresses of the national officers that is part of the requirements for registration by Section 222(a) of the 1999 Constitution as amended. This was the reason INEC rejected registration of African Peoples Congress, another group in contention for the APC acronym. A source in INEC had, yesterday, claimed that the application for registration by the merger group did not come with names and addresses of their national officers. The source said the application was signed by only the national chairmen, secretaries and treasurers of the merging political parties. Efforts made to confirm the allegation did not yield result as the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, neither picked his calls nor returned the calls at press time. The rival group, All Progressives Congress in its application for registration on March 5, was advised in a reply letter by INEC’s Secretary, Abdulahi Kaugama, dated March 15 to change the name as another group had earlier applied with same acronym. INEC’s letter The commission, in the letter, said: “To avoid this likely conflict in acronym and in our view of the fact that the other application was received earlier than the one you submitted, you are advised to re-submit the application under a different acronym, please.” The group, however, re-applied for registration in March 28, with the name All Progressive Congress of Nigeria, APCN, but INEC again advised its promoters to still change the name to avoid conflict in acronym. However, the group, yesterday, threatened to drag the commission to court to secure injunction stopping INEC from going ahead to register any other group with the APC acronym. National Secretary of the rival APC, Oguzie Ikechukwu, claimed that the party had also in a similar letter to INEC dated May 22, asked the commission to furnish it with the name of the group it claimed had earlier applied for registration under such acronym. Reply He said: “In view of our earlier application with the name All Progressive Congress, which you advise us in your letter dated March 15, to change name as our acronym is similar to that of another association seeking registration, we therefore demand to be furnished with the name and application of any association whose name is All Progressives Congress of acronym APC and whose application is still pending before your commission. “We hereby rely on Sections 2 and 5 of the Freedom of Information Act to seek this information.” AD asks to be joined in suit Meanwhile, a faction of Alliance for Democracy, AD, has applied to be joined in the suit filed against INEC by African Peoples Congress at the Federal High Court, Abuja, over the commission’s rejection of its application for registration. AD, in the application for joinder, is seeking an order of the court to be joined as a second defendant and a necessary party in the suit, claiming that it was interested in the merger efforts of All Progressives Congress and the acronym, which the plaintiff (African Peoples Congress) is contending. African Peoples Congress reacts However, reacting to the request, African Peoples Congress, through its national legal adviser, Kingsley Nnadi, said its suit against INEC had reached advanced stage for the upturning of INEC’s decision not to register it as a political party. He said that after all necessary pleadings, affidavit and counter-affidavit had been filled and exchanged between it and INEC, the court has fixed July 5 for the adoption of written addresses and possibly judgment in the case. BoT meets Meanwhile, the leadership of African Peoples Congress has scheduled its emergency Board of Trustees, BoT; National Working Committee, NWC; National Executive Committee, NEC, and its caucus meetings for Monday, June 17. The meeting, according to Nnadi, is convened to take decisions on issues, especially the submission of merger application by All Progressives Congress, AD suit, some leadership changes, and the fate of its court action.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:19:32 +0000
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