INEC officials inspect association’s national secretariat in Abuja.
The interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bisi Akande, said on Tuesday that nobody could stop the association from being registered as a political party by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Mr. Akande stated this when INEC officials inspected the association’s national secretariat in Abuja on Tuesday.
The officials visited the secretariat located at 6, Bissau Street, Zone 6, Wuse District of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, as part of the process for vetting the application the association submitted on June 7.
The INEC Political Parties Monitoring and Liaison, PPML, team was led by its Director, Ibrahim Shittu.
APC is the proposed merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN; Congress for Progressive Change, CPC; All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP; Democratic Peoples Party, DPP; and a faction of the All Grand Progressives Alliance, APGA.
“We have always been confident that no power under the sun will stop us from becoming a political party. The party is already registered,” Mr. Akande said while speaking to journalists after the inspection.
The chairman noted that parties in the merger deal had organized their convention, made joint application and exchanged correspondences with INEC, adding that in response to all this, the commission came to find out whether the association had a home.
Mr. Akande, who is the National Chairman of the ACN, also said that INEC, after going through its attendance register, discovered it was an association of gentlemen.
He said, “From the beginning of this merger negotiation, we have gone to various conventions, we have made joint applications and we have been exchanging correspondence with INEC, but they have never visited us before. So today INEC came to see us in our home, and they are happy we have got a home.
“When INEC team met us through our attendance register, they discovered that we belonged to a party of gentlemen, APC.
“INEC has never faulted what we did, when we wrote the first joint application, we have completed the merger phase of the exercise.
“INEC now needs administrative investigation to show that what we have done was according to their own laid down procedures and because of they kept writing to us and we were replying them. Today they came for verifications as to whether we exist, and where do we exist? We have proved to them that we exist like gentlemen and in a befitting accommodation.
Also speaking, the interim National Secretary of APC, Tijjani Tumsah, said, “The commission came expecting to see some things which we were able to deliver, today. I think everything is in good shape. Our documentation is okay, near perfect, we are expecting INEC’s notification, telling us that we have been registered.”
On the threats of litigation by the African Peoples Congress, Mr. Tumsah said, “I am not aware of any other group and we have not gotten any court notice. Actually we should be the one taking them to court because we the main APC and our papers and application are before INEC awaiting registration notifications.”
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