APC urges INEC to de-register more political parties

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to de-register more political parties to sanitise Nigeria’s electoral system. Mr Nwachukwu Eze, the Chairman of Ebonyi Chapter of APC made the call in an interview with our correspondents on Monday in Abakaliki.
Eze said that the de-registration process should continue until the country has a maximum of six political parties to ensure that the electoral space was not ‘unnecessarily congested’. “We applaud INEC for doing the needful as such de-registration had been overdue. “We had a situation where few individuals or family members put-up papers and register with INEC but do not exist in states or anywhere in the country. “They do not have offices, membership bases, structures and one person in most cases, is the chairman, secretary and other members of the executive. “INEC has presently decided to sanitise the system and this can be likened to the deleting of unwanted files in a computer for it to have enough storage space,” he said. The chairman said that such de-registration would sanitise the electoral process, especially by eliminating complexities recorded during voting. “This decision will make logos of political parties appear bold on ballot papers and make voters have enough space to thumb-print. “When we have over 90 political parties on a ballot paper, the illiterate voters would be confused on how to thumb-print,” he said. He urged INEC not to be distracted by complaints over the de-registration, advising it to ‘shut its ears’. “There is no case of victimisation in the decision as the affected parties know they are not in existence. “A situation where some parties will poll over 10million votes in a general election, while others will not have up to 1, 000 votes in a country of over 120million people is appalling. “INEC has an assemblage of the best lawyers in the country either as staff or consultants and its reputation will make it shun acts that will be subjudice before the court. “There is no order restraining INEC from implementing the decision and it is only when such is obtained that the issue of subjudice will arise,” he said. NAN reports that the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, had on Thursday announced de-registration of 74 political parties for failing to meet Constitutional requirements for them to exist as political parties in the country.