The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has accused the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) of either suffering from crass ignorance or
engaging in palpable mischief by saying that leaders of the All
Progressives’ Congress (APC) should have registered the name with INEC
before now.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Wednesday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said it is disturbing that
the ruling party in Africa’s largest democracy can exhibit such
ignorance or mischief, when the legal requirements for a merger are well
spelt out in the Electoral Act.
”For the avoidance of doubt, the law does not make any provision for
any group to reserve a name at INEC, and the legal requirements for a
merger do not allow registration until all the stipulated conditions
have been met. Applying for registration before the conditions have been
met will be like putting the cart before the horse, and would have been
illegal and irregular
”The only other way that the promoters of the APC could have
registered the name before now is to short-circuit the system, like the
PDP would have done. The ruling party’s modus operandi is lawlessness,
underhand dealings and opaque transactions. That is why the fortunes of
Nigeria have deteriorated rapidly under their watch.
”But as law-abiding citizens, APC leaders are following the
stipulated conditions to the letter, and will not allow themselves to be
stampeded into committing an illegality. Not even the PDP’s shameless
act of sponsoring a phony party to instigate an acronym war and give an
increasingly partisan INEC a reason not to register the All
Progressives’ Congress will stampede the APC promoters,” it said.
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