Crisis rocks APC’s registration, new rival group heads to court

• INEC faults merging party’s application

• APC insists it has fulfilled all requirements

THE political party that will eventually use the APC acronym may be decided at the nation’s courts, following the decision of another APC to challenge the registration of the merging All Progressives Congress (APC) by the Independent national Electoral Commission (INEC).

Barely six days after the merging, All Progressives Congress (APC) approached the INEC for registration as a political party, another rival group, All Progressive Congress of Nigeria (APCN) has threatened to take INEC to court to secure an order restraining it from registering any group with such an acronym .

The threat was also coming as the INEC set more hurdles for the merging opposition parties before registration.

There is the fear, however, that the merger group may suffer the same fate with the rival African Peoples Congress (APC) which the commission had earlier rejected its application.

INEC sources Thursday disclosed to The Guardian that the application for registration by the merger group did not come with names and addresses of their national officers, as required by Section 222 (a) of the Nigerian constitution, rather the group submitted an application that was signed by only the national chairmen, secretaries and treasurers of the merging political parties.

But in a swift reaction to claims by the INEC, a member of the opposition merger committee, Osita Okechukwu noted that the committee had fulfilled all the requirements to merge into a single political party, adding that the group carefully involved the National Chairman of the ACN, the National Secretary of the  All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) and the National Treasurer of the  Congress for Progressive Change  (CPC) who endorsed the letter of request for registration to INEC as interim leadership of the party with its national office at Wuse District in Abuja. He added that the office was donated to the party by an official.

“Both INEC and the other group should commend us for showing a little experience in our request for registration. We carefully used and involved the leadership of the three merging parties who signed the letter. We could not have planned to fail when we involved the services of senior legal experts in the country for advice and writing of the letter to INEC,” he noted.

But in a move that suggests more trouble and confusion for the merger group, a third group, the All Progressives Congress of Nigeria (APCN), threatened to take the INEC to court over an alleged attempt to register another group with a similar APC acronym.

The group, which is bearing the same name and acronym with the merger parties (All Progressive Congress) disclosed that it commenced its registration process with INEC with a letter of intent sent to the commission  on March 5, 2013, same time as the controversial African Peoples Congress which is also laying claim to the APC, adding that INEC in a reply signed by its National Secretary Abdulahi Kaugama, dated March 15 advised the group to change the name claiming that a group had earlier come with the same acronym for registration.

According to the National Secretary of the group, Oguzie Ikechukwu, the group acted in compliance with INEC advice and re-applied for registration in March 28 as All Progressive Congress of Nigeria (APCN). But INEC again advised the group to still change the name for the same reason that another group with a similar acronym had approached the commission for registration.

Wondering why INEC couldn’t register his group as a political party even when it has changed from APC to APCN,   Ikechukwu disclosed 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 an acronym relying on the freedom of Information Act.