LEADERS of political parties driving the All Progressives Congress (APC) are not willing to leave their acronym for anybody. They are boasting that neither the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP nor the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could stop them from using the acronym ‘APC’.
This is against the backdrop of INEC’s confirmation of receiving an application from a political association, African People’s Congress, APC, for registration as a political party to contest the 2015 general elections. The All Progressives Congress is yet to apply to the electoral umpire for registration.
Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of the INEC, Mr. Kayode Idowu said in a telephone interview with Vanguard that the commission received the African People’s Congress application last week and that the process of registering it would follow laid down rules.
Process of party registration
Idowu said, “Yes, it is true that a group applied for the registration of the African People’s Congress last week. This does not mean it has been registered because the law stipulates the process of party registration, which the must comply with. The APC group that has applied for registration is different from the APC group that has not yet applied.”
Promoters of African Peoples Congress had in a letter dated February 28 and signed by Barr Nwokorie Samuel Chinedu of Legal World Chambers, Abuja applied to the INEC “for approval to register ‘African Peoples Congress’ as a political party in Nigeria, having carried out a search on the proposed name to the effect that no other political party registered in Nigeria bears same.”
Leaders of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) have accused the ruling PDP of propping up the African People’s Congress, to scuttle their merger.
We’ve nothing to do with PDP – African Peoples Congress
Responding to this allegation, Barr Chinedu said on phone that there was no financial or political attachment between PDP and African Peoples Congress.
Asked if PDP was funding the association, he said: “No, there is nothing like that.” On when the political association was formed, he said “it was formed long ago.” Asked how long, he responded, “I can’t remember, I am not interested in things like that.”
No force can stop us from using ‘APC’: The INEC clarification triggered furore within the political parties with the opposition parties castigating INEC for trying to work with the ruling PDP to still its registration midstream. The CPC and ANPP however warned that no force under the sun could stop the emergence of the All Progressives Congress with Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, spitting that INEC could ill-afford not to register the merger APC.
A member of the Joint Merger Committee and National Deputy Secretary of CPC, Chief Okoi Obono-Obla and the Secretary of the ANPP who is also a member of the merger committee made the claim at different fora in Abuja. Obono-Obla told Vanguard that the confusion brought about in the name of the mega party, ‘APC’ and the alleged registration of African Peoples Congress, APC by the INEC to frustrate the merger arrangement was the handiwork of the PDP and INEC.
He said: “It is all part of the intrigues; the PDP and INEC are apprehensive. Already, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari had said that there is no difference between PDP and INEC, so that is the pressure we are seeing. They are filled with anxiety as they have seen that these merged parties will have a landslide victory in 2015.
“We are registered political parties, whereby we cannot be placed on the same level as a political association. On February 5, it was announced that merged parties have formed All Progressives’ Congress, APC, and by law it is to notify INEC that these parties have formed a party.
“The process of registration between a political association and merging political parties is different. A letter written by a law firm is not the process. They can only stop us by giving a name if the process is proper; a process contemplated by the Electoral Act and the Constitution.
Political association
”It is required that a political association is to submit name, symbol, logo, manifesto, constitution, national and state headquarters addresses, and so on before it is registered, but this political association has not done that, so INEC cannot say they have applied to be registered.
“So we are not worried. APC has come to stay, and no Jupiter can stop us from using that name; and we are going to use that name. INEC cannot stop us because our party APC was dated February 6 and this other one written by a lawyer is on February 25.
“The three major political opposition parties merging have given notice to INEC that that name be reserved for APC solely, whose letters were signed by their party’s National Chairmen and Secretaries.
INEC was served the letter last week Friday and it was received and acknowledged, and we have it. “Although, officially, INEC has not replied to us, as I said, the process of registering the other party is defective by law, let them come out with evidence that the so-called APC has complied with what is required by law,” ObonoObla stated.
In his reaction, the ANPP stated that nobody could stop the merger of the opposition parties. Speaking with Vanguard, Secretary, ANPP National Rebuilding and Inter-party Contact Committee, Dr George Moghalu said “the alleged registration of another APC by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to me is still a rumour.
INEC’s Electoral Act
We have notified INEC of registering the All Progressives’ Congress, APC, and we are in the process, which is important to follow according to INEC’s Electoral Act.
“We do not want to do things haphazardly, so we have officially informed INEC, and there is no need to panic, if not let INEC come out to tell us that we cannot be registered for so and so reason then we will respond,” Moghalu said.
The National Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Alhaji Lai Mohammed yesterday lambasted INEC for trying to work with the new APC, which he described as “phantom” to stall the registration of the merged parties.
In like manner, Oshiomhole said merger by political parties was a right that could not. ”I know that it is the right of political parties to merge. We have merged to form APC, All Progressive Congress; so, if people choose to trivialise it, it is up to them. I know that INEC will register APC because if they don’t they leave themselves open to accusation.
”Everybody knows that this has been on the national discourse over the period; it is not a new issue. And if people want to play these cheap games, first it shows that they are panicking and I don’t see any reason why people should be panicking.
”In a genuine democracy, it is in our interest, those in power and those out of power, to create viable alternative platform for people to make an informed choice. No party is too good to rule forever, nor is any party too bad to be out of power forever. We have seen what is happening around the African continent. Nigeria must live by example in many respect,” he said.
Nigeria must not be entrusted in the hands of APC
Countering, the PDP warned Nigerians not to entrust the socio-political economic life of the country to the APC. PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, said in a statement that the nation would be doomed if the electorate hand APC power.
According to Metuh, the inability of the leaders of APC to dully reserve or register the proposed name of their party before embarking on bleeping jamboree and propaganda was the hallmark of political naivety, planlessness and a foreboding that the party would drive Nigeria to socio-political and economic brink should it be entrusted with power.
He said that the reality on ground had shown that the leaders of the APC were all the while grandstanding; writing footnotes and glossary even when the first chapter of their history was yet to be successfully written. “Nigerians are here confronted with an irony! It is an irony of a political party who without adequate planning, without a solid working rhythm, yet wishes to be entrusted to its effete, shaky shoulders, the fate of over 160 million Nigerians.”
Also Chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum, Godswill Akpabio has dismissed as blatant lie claims by former Governor of Zamfara State and APC chieftain, Senator Sani Ahmed Yerima that some PDP governors had concluded plans to join the APC.
Akpabio who spoke at the end the forum’s meeting in Abuja on Monday night said, the statement “is not true and it is false in its entirety”.
He said that, rather than dump the PDP for the APC, the governors from the ruling party were working round the clock and “determined to bring more governors into the PDP fold”.
