Skip to main content

APC Versus APC: PDP Proxy Party, "African People’s Congress", Sues INEC

The African People’s Congress says it has filed a lawsuit at the Federal High Court in Abuja in the search for judicial review of what it called “the decision of INEC to deny the APC registration, based on grounds we view as inconsistent with the provisions of the law,” and expressed confidence it will soon “take” its registration certificate.

The African People’s Congress says it has filed a lawsuit at the Federal High Court in Abuja in the search for judicial review of what it called “the decision of INEC to deny the APC registration, based on grounds we view as inconsistent with the provisions of the law,” and expressed confidence it will soon “take” its registration certificate.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });

In a statement, the African People’s Congress said that the Independent National Electoral Commission and the party merger known as the All Progressives Congress have shown “complicit involvement in the desperate attempt to stampede and stifle our right-of-association and aspiration to register a political party via a legitimate process,” and thereby revealed what they truly represent.

“Unfortunately however, they have so clearly misjudged the content of our character and expectedly so, with such self-sided ambition that blinds objectivity,” the statement said.  

The group then expressed the curious confidence that it can already see its registration and that it is simply a matter of “taking” it.  “We are fierce believers in the rule of law and due process and wish to reassure our teeming members and supporters that our certificate of registration is within view and just a ‘taking distance away,’” the statement said.  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });

The African People’s Congress said that its legal team will be led by Awa Kalu (SAN), supported by over 30 senior lawyers drawn from Lawyers in Defence of Democracy and the legal department of the proposed party.

“There is no iota of doubt that the court of law will adequately redress the injustice meted out on the African People’s Congress and will in clear terms inform those Lagos politicians that have over time nurtured an exaggerated opinion of their worth and importance in the Nigerian political space, that they are not more Nigerian than other Nigerians!”

The African People’s Congress, also indicating that it was preparing for a long war that could travel all the way up to the Supreme Court, further said, “Let this serve as another Notice to INEC, that by virtue of the commencement of this Judicial review process as required by Section 79 of the Electoral Act, that nobody or group of association seeking registration or merger as apolitical party shall be assigned or allowed to parade or seek to register any political party bearing same logo, acronym as ours. The APC application is still valid until the Supreme Court finally rules otherwise. We shall remain vigilant in the coming days to watch and firmly defend our legal name and acronym which are currently a subject of judicial review before the Federal High Court.”

In language brimming with innuendo, the statement said, “We are therefore confident that having brought this matter to the Temple of Justice; not underestimating the ‘long reach’ of the Lagos merger group though, we hopefully shall get fair hearing and ruling,  untainted by ‘Lagos’, such that at the end of the day, justice would have been adequately served.”

The African People’s Congress is believed to be a clever tool of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) aimed at delaying and hurting the All Progressives Congress, the party mega-merger, announced last February, of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change, and the All Progressive Grand Alliance.  

In his preliminary response to news of the merger, PDP National Chairman Bamanga Tukur, who is currently in hospital in London, promised that his party would dribble and dominate the new party in the manner of Lionel Messi, the Argentine soccer star.  

“Tell them [the] chairman said PDP is the Messi (of Nigerian football),” Tukur said.
 

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });