Barring any last minute legal battle to save their deregistration, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will commence the deregistration of more than 55 political parties, including Orji Uzor Kalu’s Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) that failed to win at least a seat in the state House of Assembly elections.

There are 63 registered political parties, but only eight of them were able to win at least a seat in the election.
In the general election, only 18 political parties fielded presidential candidates and 23 fielded governorship candidates across the states of the federation.

According to the 2011 Electoral Act as amended, section 78 (1) (7) (2), “the commission shall have power to deregister political parties on the following grounds: For failure to win presidential, governorship election or a seat in the National or State Assembly election.”
From INEC records, the following political parties were able to win at least one state House of Assembly seat: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Accord Party, Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), Labour Party (LP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN) and Peoples Democratic Congress (PDC).

Of the registered political parties, 30 of them took part in the elections that ended with the governorship and state Assembly elections, while others did not field candidates at all, while the rest were complacent unlike in the previous general election.
The amended Electoral Act gives INEC power to deregister any political party that did not win a single seat at the state House of Assembly election.

PDP, as the leading political party, has spread in all the six geo-political zones at both the National Assembly and the Houses of Assembly including the South-west, while the ACN won mainly in the South-west and a few places outside the zone.
LP has its representations both at the National and State Assembly in Ondo State, while ANPP won in Zamfara, Borno and Yobe States. The CPC won six senatorial seats in Katsina, Kano and in Nasarawa State, where it won the governorship.
APGA won a senatorial seat in Imo State and other state House of Assembly seats in some states. Accord Party won a senatorial seat in Oyo State and also some House of Representatives seats in some states, including Delta State where it won the Ika North House of Representatives seat.
PPN redeemed its name with some seats in the state House of Assembly election in Ogun State.

Some of the parties that would be visited by the INEC hammer for not winning a single seat in the state House of Assembly election include the Musa Balarabe-led People’s Redemption Party (PRP), Kalu’s PPA, Nigerian Democratic Party (NDP) and Dr. Olusola Saraki’s Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN).

At the inception of democratic election in 1998, only three political parties were registered. They are the PDP, the All Peoples Party (APP) that later transformed to the ANPP and Alliance for Democracy (AD), but with a Supreme Court ruling, it opened the flood gate for the registration of more political parties, bringing the number today to 63.

An INEC National Commissioner told THISDAY that the commission was still compiling data of the April elections and would soon commence action on the political parties that failed to meet up with the letter of the Electoral Act as amended.
“We are right on course and when we get to this bridge, full course of the law will take its position as spelt out in the Electoral Act as amend,” the INEC Commissioner said./quote]

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/inec-may-deregister-orji-kalu-s-party/90640/

I think it is about time, those parties where wasting our ballot paper space and time, even the remaining 10 need to merge!!

This is rubbish! Why should they deregister parties? I think it'll be a clear violation of freedom of association.

I hope this is not what I think it is.

Bye bye to the likes of Chris Okotie and Fresh Party.

What'll be OUK's next? And if any of the parties happens to get their mandate through the court, what will happen?

They should deregister the 55 of them as long as its not in violation of the law.

This will bring about do or die politics, cos failing parties will do everything to escape extinction. The best solution is to desist from funding the parties with public fund.

In as much as INEC will continue to register more parties, even after scrapping the moribund ones, it should simply stop funding them. The weak ones will die off in the course of time.

use and dump  -  The same 55 parties that endorsed GEJ as their presidential candidate.  Now it seem fit to wipe them out.

Nigerians dont be fooled -  Nobody complained when mago mago endorsements of GEJ was going on

if a party has one or two support it is nobody business and it will be injustice to erase them from the register. Any attempt to turn Nigeria into two party state should be rejected

I laugh in somali

Gej will formed new ones he can use to tore the oppositio apart.

Obiagu1:

This is rubbish! Why should they deregister parties? I think it'll be a clear violation of freedom of association.

I dont think so. They can remain political associations, but to be a duly registered political party, it should meet certain minimum requirements after a period of time.

I have been thinking along this line for long time now especially, when the opposition parties were endorsing other party's candidates. If their primary reasons for registration was to win elections, they should stand on their own, not this political prostitution we witness in the just concluded elections. I strongly believe that, the time to de-register them is now.

This is pure bullshit. The parties should be given the opportunity to restrategize and re-enforce for the next elections. What about party candidates who have electoral cases in courts, if the courts rule in their favour, what would be their fate?

INEC hammer falls

• 52 political parties to go
• PDP, ACN, CPC, 7 others to survive
By OBIDIKE JERRY
Saturday, May 14, 2011
• Photo: The Sun Publishing

More Stories on This Section



By the time cases at election petitions tribunals are determined, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will invoke a section in the amended Electoral Act to deregister more than 50 political parties, Saturday Sun can authoritatively reveal. When this provision is invoked, only 10 political parties would survive.
Part V, Section 7 of the Electoral Act 2011, as amended, stipulates: “The Commission (INEC) shall have powers to de-register political parties on the following grounds: (i) breach of any of the requirements for registration, and (ii) for failure to win a seat in the National Assembly or state Assembly election.”
A very reliable source in INEC confirmed to Saturday Sun that the Electoral Act is clear on this. But INEC will not take a definite action on the deregistering of the parties until the pending petitions at the tribunals are handled.
The caution is to enable the party know the parties that would not make the survival list and those that would be weeded off.

In the last elections, 63 political parties participated and were expected to win at least one seat in the National Assembly or state Houses of Assembly or risk deregistration. Results of the elections showed that only 10 parties fulfilled the requirement. They include Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Labour Party (LP), Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN), All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Accord Party (AP), Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) and KOWA Party.

About 53 other parties did not meet the requirement and, therefore, maybe deregistered by the time cases at the election petitions tribunal are concluded in 180 day, as stipulated by the Electoral Act. The parties include Action Alliance (AA), Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD), African Democratic Congress (ADC), African Liberation Party (ALP), African Political System (APS), African Renaissance Party (ARP), Alliance for Democracy (AD), Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Better Nigeria Progressive Party (BNPP), Change Advocacy Party (CAP), Citizens Popular Party (CPP), Community Party of Nigeria (CPN), Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), Democratic Alternative (DA), Democratic Front for Peoples Federation (DFPF) and Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA).

Others are Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), Freedom Party of Nigeria (FPN), Fresh Democratic Party (FRESH), Hope Democratic Party (HDP), Justice Party (JP), Liberal Democratic Party of Nigeria (LDPN), Masses Movement of Nigeria (MMN), Mega Progressive Peoples Party (MPPP), Movement for Democracy and Justice (MDJ), Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy (MRDD), National Action Council (NAC), National Conscience Party (NCP), National Democratic Liberty Party (NDLP), National Democratic Party (NDP), National Majority Democratic Party (NMDP), National Movement of Progressive Party (NMPP) and National Reformation Party (NRP).

Yet other parties that will be affected are National Solidarity Democratic Party (NSDP), National Transformation Party (NTP), National Unity Party (NUP), New Democrats (ND), New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Nigeria Advance Party (NAP), Nigeria Elements Progressive Party (NEPP), Nigeria Peoples Congress (NPC), People for Democratic Change (PDC), Peoples Mandate Party (PMP), Peoples Progressive Party (PPP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Peoples Salvation Party (PSP), Progressive Action Congress (PAC), Republican Party of Nigeria (RPN), Social Democratic Mega Party (SDMP), United Democratic Party (UDP), United National Party for Development (UNPD) and United Nigeria Peoples Party (UNPP).
Investigation revealed that the realisation that INEC may wield the big stick has caused a division in the polity. While some sections ask INEC to bare its fangs and delist the erring political parties, others, especially the beneficiaries, urge INEC to cause no harm to the offending parties, in the interest of democracy. Those in the latter group have also threatened to drag INEC to court if it dares implement the law.
Barrister Sonnie Ekwowusi, who contested the 2011 election as the deputy governorship candidate of National Transformation Party in Lagos State, told Saturday Sun that his party will drag INEC to court if it goes ahead to implement the provision of the Electoral Act. He further said that democracy is not about winning elections but rather a forum for propagating developmental ideas.

His words: “The late Chief Gani Fawehinmi went to court over this issue and got a favourable judgment from the Supreme Court, which led to the opening of democratic space. We shall go to court again to test the validity of the new law. Democracy is not about winning elections. Democracy is about contributing ideas that nurture democratic culture. There are many political parties in US that have not won election and they still exist.”

He warned INEC not to play into the hands of PDP and ACN, which are agitating for two party-state. He said: “If INEC goes ahead to implement the law, it will lead to one or two party state, which does not augur well for our democracy. This is what PDP and ACN want, but we shall resist it.”
The NCP, which led the crusade for registration of more parties in 2002, has also declared the provisions of the Electoral Act on deregistration of political parties as illegal and threatened to go to court again. Speaking through its national chairman, Chief Femi Falana, the party argues: “The law is illegal. You cannot abort a child that has been born. Parties that are already in existence cannot be destroyed by the law because the interest of the members and their fundamental right to associate has accrued. You cannot wipe out such fundamental right.”

Other Nigerians disagree with some of the submissions of Ekwowusi and his group. They argue that the proliferation of political parties has given rise to an unintended evil of resort to primordial tendencies, as political parties are formed not on issues but religious and ethnic proclivities. According to Joe Igbokwe, Lagos State publicity secretary of ACN, INEC would be doing the polity well if it goes ahead to de-list these parties, as democracy will grow faster taking a cue from the era of NRC and SDP.

He said: “During the NRC and SDP period, both parties won almost equal number of governorship and legislative election. Such situation will create a ruling power but also an equally stronger opposition party.”
Igbokwe added: “All these me-and-my-wife parties should be allowed to go into oblivion, where they belong because they came into existence because INEC was giving them subventions. Now that INEC has stopped doing that, they have no business existing. The only thing they do is to endorse a candidate and PDP has been using them to win election by giving them money to cause division, while PDP run away with rigged victory.”
Other analysts are of the view that parties “without sustainable structures” should be allowed to die natural death, since INEC has stopped funding the parties.
On whether INEC will have the courage to implement the law, some analysts believe that the commission has no discretion in this matter, since it is the requirement of the law. However, they added that INEC’s power to deregister must be supported by an equal power to regulate registration of political parties, otherwise as you deregister, more parties will spring up based on the judgment of the Supreme Court in 2002.

At the dawn of civil democracy in 1999, the Electoral Commission registered only three political: PDP, All Peoples Party (APP) (which later became ANPP) and Alliance for Democracy AD. After the 1999 elections, politicians began agitations for the political space to be increased to accommodate more political parties. When INEC released the guidelines for the registration of parties on May17, 2002 these politicians were disappointed, as they claimed the guidelines were stifling. Some of the provisions of the guidelines demanded that a group seeking to be registered as a political party must have offices in at least 24 states of the federation. Also, the party must submit “the names, residential addresses, and states of origin respectively of the members of its national and state executive committees and the records of the proceedings of the meetings, where the officers were elected.”

Fawehimni and his unregistered party, NCP, headed to court to challenge some of the provisions of the 2002 Electoral Act that empowered INEC to issue such guidelines. The NCP was later joined by PRP led by Alhaji Balarabe Musa, M.D Yusuf’s MDJ, NPC and CP. The suit progressed from Federal High Court and eventually to the Supreme Court then headed by Justice Mohammadu Uwais. On November 8, 2002, Justice Uwais, in a lead judgment, held, among others, that the INEC power to issue the guidelines contravened the 1999 Constitution and thus pronounced the guidelines as invalid. This epochal judgment opened the democratic space, leading to 28 political parties contesting the 2003 elections.

Political analysts believe that as good as the judgment was, in terms of removal of restrictions on party registration, it gave room for mushrooming of parties for political showmanship and self-aggrandizement. The 2006 Electoral Act did not help matters, as it compelled INEC to give yearly subvention to registered political parties. The number of registered political parties moved from 28 to about 54, as parties were formed mainly on the pecuniary interest, with politicians interested only in the subvention doled out by INEC.

If INEC deregisters political parties, this would be the second time this is happening in the country. During the General Abdulsalami Abubakar government, parties were registered based on their ability to win local government elections, which were first conducted. The political associations that did not win any local government seat were not registered to contest the general elections of 1999. In the exercise, only PDP and APP met the provisions, but the government added AD, to appease the South West.

Likely victim parties

10. Better Nigeria Progressive Party (BNPP)
11. Change Advocacy Party (CAP)
12. Citizens Popular Party (CPP)
13. Community Party of Nigeria (CPN)
14. Congress for Democratic Change (CDC)
15. Democratic Alternative (DA)
16. Democratic Front for Peoples
Federation (DFPF)
17. Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA)
18. Freedom Party of Nigeria (FPN)
19. Fresh Democratic Party (FRESH)
20. Hope Democratic Party (HDP)
21. Justice Party (JP)
22. Liberal Democratic
Party of Nigeria (LDPN)
23. Masses Movement of Nigeria (MMN)
24. Mega Progressive Peoples Party (MPPP)
25. Movement for Democracy
and Justice (MDJ)
26. Movement for the Restoration
and Defence of Democracy (MRDD)
27. National Action Council (NAC)
28. National Conscience Party (NCP)
29. National Democratic Liberty Party (NDLP)
30. National Democratic Party (NDP)
31. National Majority Democratic
Party (NMDP)
32. National Movement of Progressive
Party (NMPP)
33. National Reformation Party (NRP)
34. National Solidarity Democratic
Party (NSDP)
35. National Transformation Party (NTP)
36. National Unity Party (NUP)
37. New Democrats (ND)
38. New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP)
39. Nigeria Advance Party (NAP)
40. Nigeria Elements Progressive Party (NEPP)
41. Nigeria Peoples Congress (NPC)
42. People for Democratic Change (PDC)
43. Peoples Mandate Party (PMP)
44. Peoples Progressive Party (PPP)
45. Peoples Redemption Party (PRP)
46. Peoples Salvation Party (PSP)
47. Progressive Action Congress (PAC)
48. Republican Party of Nigeria (RPN)
49. Social Democratic Mega
Party (SDMP)
50. United Democratic Party (UDP)
51. United National Party for
Development (UNPD)
52. United Nigeria Peoples Party (UNPP)

Source: http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2011/may/14/national-14-05-2011-01.htm

About time.