Hours after the African Peoples Congress unveiled its logo and national secretariat in Abuja, the All Progressives Congress said the acronym, APC, remained its intellectual property and it will not relinquish it.
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Hours after the African Peoples Congress unveiled its logo and national secretariat in Abuja, the All Progressives Congress said the acronym, APC, remained its intellectual property and it will not relinquish it.
This is just as news emerged that another political association with a similar acronym, All Patriotic Citizens, has also applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for registration as a political party.
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The African Peoples Congress and the All Progressive Congress had been laying claim to the acronym, APC, before the emergence of All Patriotic Citizens.
Tom Ikimi, chairman of the Merger Committee of Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, insisted at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday that the All Progressives Congress will not let go of the acronym.
He also accused the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, of masterminding the formation of the African Peoples Congress and All Patriotic Citizens.
He spoke on behalf of the leaders of the other parties in the merger – Annie Okonkwo of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA; Ibrahim Shekarau of All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP and; Garba Gadi of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC.
‘’The emergence of opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, strong as it is, is giving jitters to some people,” Mr. Ikimi said.
“They are trying to muddy the waters by establishing all forms of APCs. Apart from the name of the party, it is the names of individuals that make the party. Nigerians are tired of PDP.
“We have it on good authority that the establishment, gravely troubled by the emergence of a united opposition, has set up a high powered team headed by a very high ranking officer of government and furnished with unlimited resources from public funds with a clear mandate to corrupt the democratic institutions and destabilize the opposition,’’ he added.
Mr. Ikimi explained that the legal and constitutional process required to formalize the merger was in place.
‘’All legal and constitutional processes required to formalize the merger and register our new party with INEC in the name of the All Progressives Congress are already in progress, in top gear and includes our earlier announcement on the 6th of February, 2013 of the decision of the three parties to merge,” he said.
He debunked claims that the four parties in merger talks did not carry out thorough research before proposing All Progressives Congress as the name of the merger group.
According to him, a careful research was done and it was established that no other group had the name and the acronym.
“Thus by that public announcement, the name All Progressives Congress and the acronym, APC, became our intellectual property which we shall guard jealously,’’ he stated.
Attempts by PREMIUM TIMES to confirm the application of All Patriotic Citizens with the INEC representative were not successful as he did not respond to calls made to his mobile telephone.
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