From NOAH EBIJE, Kaduna<\/p>\n
Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, has told applicants for registration of new political parties, particularly the All Progressive Party (APC) not to pre-empt the commission on registration exercise.
\nJega said\u00a0 the commission has legal backing to register and de-register any political party and as such, no applicant should pass imaginary judgment on what INEC intended to do about registration of new political parties.
\nSpeaking with newsmen yesterday shortly after an Hausa programme, Hanu da yawa, on Federal Radio Cooperation of Nigeria (FRCN) Kaduna, the INEC Boss also hinted that there would be delimitation of all constituencies before 2015 general election. The last delimitation of constituencies in the country was done in 1996.
\nHis words: \u201cAs far as I am concerned, there is no controversy in registration of new parties. INEC has not registered any political party with any name. We have not got to that stage, we have conflicting applications, and so far, the process is ongoing, and people are making a mountain out of molehill. I think we should be judged by the action that we have taken, not by speculation of what we are likely to do.\u201d
\n\u201cMy stand on this is that it will be cleared as soon as we finish the process. Nigerians will know what decision we have taken, and why we have taken that decision.\u00a0 We acted according to the law.<\/p>\n
Both the constitution and the electoral law have granted us the power to register as well as to deregister political parties, and what we have done is to deregister political parties with compliance with legal provisions, and as you may know, in the last one week or so, even those who went to court to contest their de-registration have lost in court because the court has judged that we have the power to de-register political parties. So, registration and deregistration are continuous processes ; we will do them as the need arises.
\n\u201cGod willing, INEC will try to do delimitation of constituencies in good time before 2015 general election. We have already finalized preparation in-house, and we have come up with a plan of action. The first stage in that plan of action is sensitization so that people will know what we want to do, how we want to do it, why it is necessary to do it; and we have already commenced that process of sensitization when we met last week with chairmen and secretaries of political parties, he concluded<\/p>\n
——————————————————————————— Not an original publication of DisNaija.Com<\/a> network. DisNaija.Com<\/b> publishes regular posts on Nigeria News,<\/a> Nigerian Newspapers,<\/a> Online Nigeria Gist.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nPosted in Nigerian Newspapers. <\/a><\/p>\n
\nTo visit the source, click here <\/a>, and scroll down the post.<\/p>\n