INEC to Deregister 60 Parties
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- Category: Politics
- Published on Friday, 29 April 2011 12:42
- Written by Admin
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Abuja and Katsina — As the 2011 general elections draw to a close, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is set to deregister no fewer than 60 registered political parties, we can now authoritatively report.
No fewer than 30 of them took part in the elections that ended yesterday while the rest were complacent. Unlike in the previous general elections, the Electoral Act 2010 (amended) in Section 78 (7i, ii) gives power to the electoral umpire to deregister political parties on the following grounds; Breach of any of the requirements for registration, and failure to win a seat in the National or State Assembly election.
LEADERSHIP checks at the INEC headquarters revealed that only eight of the political parties would escape the hammer. They are the People's Democratic Party (PDP), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress For Progressive Change(CPC),All Nigeria People's Party(ANPP), Labour party(LP),All Progressive Grand Alliance( APGA), Accord Party(AP) and People's Party of Nigeria (PPN).
PDP has its spread in all the six geo-political zones at both the National Assembly and the States's Houses of Assembly including the Southwest where it was stripped naked by ACN which dominates the whole Southwest except Ondo State where Labour Party domiciles.
ANPP has its presence in Zamfara, Borno and Yobe States, CPC has presence in the National Assembly as it won some seats in Katsina, Kano and Nasarawa where it has become the ruling party, just as APGA is the ruling party in Anambra, Accord Party is spared with the political influence of its defeated gubernatorial candidate in Oyo State, Senator Rasheed Ladoja while the out-going Governor of Ogun State, Gbenga Daniel saved the PPN in his state .
The victims of this new law include, Balarabe Musa led People's Redemption Party(PRP), Orji Uzo Kalu's People's Progressive Party (PPP), Nigerian Democratic Party (NDP) and Dr. Olusola Saraki led ACPN which failed woefully to win a single seat in the Kwara State's House of Assembly in the Tuesday poll.
But it seems Prof Attahiru Jega is not in a hurry to wield the bid stick until the general elections are concluded. Speaking through his spokesman, Kayode Idowu, he said, "The elections are yet to be over. And so, deregistration of political parties has not become an issue yet for INEC".
When the on-going Republic began in 1999, it began with three political parties, PDP, All People's Party (APP now ANPP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD now 'becoming' ACN). However, with the intervention of the late fire spitting Lagos lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi who challenged the constitutionality or otherwise of INEC to disallow some political associations from being recognized as parties and this opened the floor to them to participate but of about 50 parties that participated in the 2007 general election, only seven of them have seats in the National Assembly especially in the House of Representatives. (Leadership)
