By Ayo Kehinde
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) stated on Thursday that 14 out of 171 political associations that applied for registration as political parties met the pre-registration requirements to proceed to the next stage.
Among the associations is the All Democratic Alliance (ADA), which is being floated by Dr Umar Ardo, former aide to former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. It has Chief Akin Rickett as protem National Chairman and Musa Elayo as protem National Secretary.
Other associations that met INEC’s pre-registration requirements are the Advance Nigeria Congress (ANC), African Transformation Party (ATP), African Alliance Party (AAP), Abundance Social Party (ASP), Citizens Democratic Party (CDP), Democratic Leadership Alliance (DLA), Grassroots Initiative Party (GIP) and Green Future Party (GFP), among others.
INEC, in a statement by the chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun, explained that each of the 171 associations that applied to the commission for registration, was “assessed based on its prima facie compliance with the provisions of Section 222 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), Section 79 (1, 2 and 4) of the Electoral Act 2022 and Clause 2 (i and ii) of the Commission’s Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties 2022.”
Olumekun, who said 157 failed, added that “the commission shall officially communicate the decision arising from today’s meeting to all the associations in the next 24 hours.”
The National Commissioner stated that the interim chairmen and secretaries of the pre-qualified associations are invited to a briefing on Wednesday, 17 September, at 11:00 a.m. at INEC’s headquarters in Abuja. He added that “final determination of the registrability of the associations as political parties will be made after the physical verification of all their claims to determine compliance with the legal framework.
“We wish to reiterate that party registration is a continuous process under the law. The commission remains open to the consideration of applications that meet the criteria as provided by law.”
