INEC may not register APC

by By Osedebamen Isibor

Despite the euphoria that greeted merger of four opposition parties into the All Progressives Congress, APC, last week, there are indications that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, may not register the party given unfolding events within and around it.
Last week, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP and All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, announced a novel merger into the APC in what analysts saw was a bid to give the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, a fight come 2015.
However, according to investigations by Nigerian Pilot, INEC may not be disposed to register the new party should current inhibiting factors prevail.
While INEC had given a green light to APC stating that such merger of political parties is in line with the 2010 Electoral Act and that they are within the 90 days stipulated by the same Act, as amended, the commission insists that “all relevant provisions incidental to the registration of political parties must be complied with by APC” before the party could be registered.
For instance, no sooner had the merger announcement been made that APGA, one of the parties believed to be part of the new party, denounced the development arguing that Imo State governor, Rochas Anayo Okorocha was not officially designated to represent APGA at the talks that led to the merger.
Besides many party men who are opposed to the governor’s alignment with APC see his move as overly ambitious. “He wants to run for the presidency in 2015. So, he thinks he can use the new party as a platform to get there. We know his tricks. It is either he is plotting to do that or he is a mole for those opposed to the merger and just will tag along until the right time he will rock the boat,” said an aide to a former governor of Imo State.
As a divided party, APGA cannot be party to the merger, especially as the group’s meeting of last Wednesday was stalemated over the adoption of a logo and name sign over the matter.
To underscore the fear of non-registration, one principal actor in the build-up to the merger disclosed last night that “even with the personality of CPC’s Muhammadu Buhari and ACN’s Bola Tinubu, it will still be difficult.”
He said with the feelers they are getting from INEC, “once there is any signal about division or feud among or within us, there will be problem. And we fear that will soon come. Buhari will like to run for presidency in 2015; and Tinubu, though he has said to the contraqry, could just stand to run. Then when you consider others like Rochas, Oshiomhole, Fashola and some PDP strongmen who don’t want to be identified now, there will be crisis in the house. Then INEC will turn its back on us.”
One South West deputy governor spoken to on phone last night expressed the same fears, adding that “if we allow this looming division to befall the APC, we should forget any form of opposition against PDP for 2015 and even beyond.
NigerianPilot