Ahead of the 2019 general elections, Nigeria’s political space has been further saturated with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announcing the registration of 23 new political parties to raise the number of registered parties in the country to 91.
This is as the electoral umpire also approved to extend its Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) to August 31, 2018 from the earlier announced date of August 17, 2018.
A statement in Abuja by its National Commissioner and Member, Voter Education and Publicity Committee, Mohammed Haruna, said the new parties’ registration was among decisions taken at the Commission’s regular meeting held on Tuesday.
According to the Commission, 144 applications were received from political associations seeking registration as political parties, adding; “After a rigorous process of evaluation in accordance with the Constitution and Electoral Act, which included assessment of the constitutions and manifestos of the intending parties and verification of membership of their executive committees and offices, the 23 associations met all the requirements and so have been registered as political parties.”
The Commission further said; “This brings the number of political parties to 91 and will be the last round of registration of parties until after the general elections on 16 Feb. 2019.
“This suspension is in line with Section 78 (1) of the Electoral Act, which requires all applications for registration as political party to be concluded latest six months to a general election.”
INEC stated that the new parties would receive their Certificate of Registration on Thursday at its headquarters in Abuja.
Among the newly registered parties are some with easy-to-remember acronyms such as YES – Youth Electorates Solidarity; RAP – the Reform and Advancement Party; COP – Congress of Patriots; and UP – United Patriots. There is also a party AUN – Alliance for United Nigeria that shares the same acronym with the American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola.
Among the 21 parties are Advanced Alliance Party (AAP), Advanced Nigeria Democratic Party (ANDP), African Action Congress (AAC), Alliance of Social Democrats (ASD), Alliance National Party (ANP) and Allied People’s Movement (APM).
Others include; Alternative Party of Nigeria (APN), Change Nigeria Party (CNP), Liberation Movement (LM), Movement for Restoration and Defence of Democracy (MRDD), Nigeria Community Movement Party (NCMP), Nigeria for Democracy (NFD) and Peoples Coalition Party (PCP)
Also registered are Save Nigeria Congress (SNC), United Peoples’ Congress (UPC), We The People Nigeria (WTPN), Youth Party (YP), and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a civil Society Organisation on Wednesday, August 8, urged INEC to extend the deadline for CVR to enable more Nigerians to register.
The Commission said it decided to extend the exercise which commenced on April 27, 2017, truly continuous for the first time by opening permanent registration centres in all 774 Local Government offices and 672 other centres.
It said the decision was to ensure that all-year round, Nigerians who turned 18 years would have the opportunity to register.
“Consequently, the current CVR has been going on for 16 months. As at 11th August 2018, the Commission has registered an additional 12, 139,061 new voters.”
It said that in order to have enough time to clean up the provisional register and print the Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) in good time for the elections, it decided to suspend the exercise on August 17 to resume after the elections.
It however noted that many Nigerians had appealed for the extension of the exercise and as a result the decision to extend the CVR to August 31 was taken.
“The exercise will continue in all the designated registration centres every day, including weekends, but excluding public holidays, between 9a.m. and 5p.m.
“The Commission wishes to inform the public that the on-going collection of PVCs will not end with the exercise. Collection of PVCs will continue until close to the general elections. ”
The Commission said that it would issue Notice of Election for 2019 general elections on Friday, August 17, as “the first of 14 activities in the timetable in accordance with Section 30 (1) of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended).
The issuance of notice will kick-start the countdown to the 2019 general elections, which timetable was issued on Jan. 9, the Commission stated – NAN
