24th July, 2013
There are indications that the All Progressives Congress, APC, would be registered in two weeks’ time.
The National Chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Tony Momoh, disclosed this on Tuesday while addressing the National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting of the party in Abuja.
He said the association had met all the conditions for registration as a party.
Premium Times quotes Momoh as saying that if the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, failed to register it at the expiration of the mandatory 30 days deadline in accordance with the Electoral Act 2010 (amended), the association would deem to have been registered.
APC, the proposed merger of CPC; Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN; All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP; Democratic Peoples Party, DPP; and a section of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, applied to INEC for registration as a party on June 7 after they had announced their intention to merge on 6 February, 2013.
“It is true that we are winding down, but there is no APC until we have the certificate of APC which should be out within two weeks because according to the law, 30 days after we filled our application if the party has not been registered, the party stands duly registered,” Mr. Momoh said at the meeting believed to be the party’s last.
“So INEC”s role is administrative and to do their work to ensure that the party is registered,” he told Premium Times, adding that even after the registration of APC, all the existing interim party positions would still be harmonized while more organs would be inaugurated.
Speaking with P.M.NEWS on phone this morning , the National Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, said Momoh’s calculation might be based on the mandatory 30 days deadline in accordance with the Electoral Act 2010 (amended) to register political parties.
He said that the 30 days deadline will lapse in two weeks’ time.
“The mandatory 30 days deadline for registration of political parties in accordance with the Electoral Act 2010, is in two weeks’ time. Therefore, I am sure he must have been looking at that.
“We had met all the conditions for registration as a party. Everything has been done as stipulated by the rules and we are very confident and hopeful that our party would be registered,” he said.
In a chat with P.M.NEWS this morning, ACN Publicity Secretary in Lagos State, Joe Igbokwe, also affirmed what Momoh said.
Igbokwe said “Momoh is one of the drivers and pillars of APC and he knows what he is talking about. Please take him very seriously. He is not a man known for frivolities and inconsequentials. He is well respected and when he speaks serious minds pay attention.”
—Jamiu Yisa