Presidency: Merger will deepen democracy
.We remain dominant party, PDP says
The long-awaited merger of opposition political parties into a stronger entity came to fruition yesterday
with the announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission
of the registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
INEC
said APC’s application was successful and was therefore granted, days
after media reports said there was a plot to refuse the merger on the
grounds of a court case.
“The Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) has approved the application by three political
parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples
Party (ANPP) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) – to merge
into one, to be known as the All Progressives Congress,” INEC’s
out-going secretary Abdullahi Kaugama said in a statement.
“On
considering the application, the commission found that the
applicant-parties have met all statutory requirements for the merger,
and has accordingly granted their request.
“Consequently, the
commission has approved the withdrawal of the individual certificates of
the applicant-parties, and the issuance of a single certificate to the
All Progressives Congress.”
There was no mention of the faction of
the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), led by Imo State Governor
Rochas Okorocha, which is aligned with the APC.
INEC’s statement
came a day after the commission said its decision on APC would be made
public today, following reports on Saturday that some officials
sympathetic to the ruling People’s Democratic Party were plotting to
have the opposition’s application refused.
Though analysts say the
new party represents a strong challenge to the PDP ahead of the 2015
elections, the ruling party remains dominant at all levels of political
leadership in the country.
APC has 11 of the 36 state governors
against PDP’s 23, 32 senators to PDP’s 72 and 134 members of the House
of Representatives against PDP’s 214. These include APGA elected
officials who have publicly aligned with the APC.
But APC is upbeat. It hailed the registration yesterday, saying the new party represents an alternative to the PDP.
In a statement in Lagos, APC’s interim spokesman Lai Mohammed said
“with the birth of APC, Nigerians now have an alternative to a ruling
party that has taken the people for a bad ride in the past 14 years.”
“With the approval of our merger by INEC and the emergence of APC,
today marks the beginning of a new dawn for our country and her
long-suffering people.
“We thank Nigerians both here and in the
Diaspora for standing by us. We thank the media for their fairness, and
we commend INEC for doing the right thing and for not succumbing to
pressures from phantom political associations that sought to force it to
circumvent the law.
“We promise not to disappoint Nigerians who
have reposed much confidence in us. We say that contrary to the lies
being peddled by the naysayers, we are not seeking political power for
the sake of getting it, but in order to use it to empower our people and
allow their long-nursed hopes and dreams to become a reality,” Mohammed
added.
APC said it would in the days ahead announce its membership
registration plans “to give all Nigerians, especially those who have
become disenchanted with the way things are going in the country, the
much-awaited opportunity to be part of
the country’s democratic process in the true sense of the word.
“‘We will also be unveiling our plans to turn today’s hopelessness into
a time of great opportunities, to reverse the downward slide in our
socio-economic development, and to ensure that every Nigerian benefits
from the commonwealth, instead of the present situation in which a few
fat cats are milking the system dry at the expense of the citizenry.”
But PDP said, while it welcomes APC’s registration, the new party poses no threat.
In a statement, acting national publicity secretary Tony Caesar Okeke
said: “This is very healthy for our democracy. We hope that from now the
opposition will eschew all forms of bitterness and desperation and
desist from politics of propaganda which characterised their former
parties.”
He said registration of the new party poses no threat to
the PDP and that the ruling party still maintains its “pre-eminent
position and enjoys the widest popularity and acceptance among Nigerians
across the country.”
Okeke added: “We hope to see a vibrant
opposition that will constructively engage the PDP on issues of
governance in a way that Nigerians will be the utmost beneficiaries
instead of overheating the polity by promoting violence and hatred among
the people.”
He said Nigerians are not deceived by the change of
flag by the opposition as this does not remove their “dictatorial
tendencies and penchant for deceit and propaganda”.
In its reaction, the Presidency said APC’s registration would deepen the nation’s democracy.
Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Political Matters,
Barrister Ahmed Gulak, told Daily Trust by telephone that the Presidency
had never been opposed to the registration of APC.
“The Presidency
has never been against the registration of the All Progressives Congress
(APC). In fact, we have always believed that the smaller parties need
to come together so that we can deepen democracy and ensure that
political parties are not run like personal estates,” he said.
Long walk
ACN and CPC’s efforts to work together began ahead of the 2011 general
election but were botched because of irreconcilable differences then.
The talks were revived last year, with the two parties opting for
merger. The ANPP was then brought into the discussions, and later a
faction of APGA also came on.
Signs that the merger talks were
serious this time came when opposition party governors met on January 29
in Lagos where they announced their support for the plans.
On
February 5, leaders of the merger teams of the parties involved
announced agreeing to the merger and unveiled the APC name in Abuja.
However, several hurdles propped up along the way to yesterday’s
regulatory approval for the new party. Rival groups claiming the APC
name came up, quickly filing papers with INEC to claim the name ahead of
the opposition parties.
Later on, one of the APCs slowed down but
the other took its case to court when INEC rejected its application on
the grounds of non-fulfilment of constitutional requirements.
It was
this court case that almost scuttled the opposition parties’ bid,
according to reports on Saturday. INEC had said, however, there was no
court injunction before it on the merger of the APC parties.
APC now controls Borno, Yobe, Zamfara, Nasarawa, Lagos, Ekiti, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Edo and Imo states.
Reports during the year had said some aggrieved PDP governors and many
National Assembly members were looking to defecting to APC when it gets
registered. Some of the governors have publicly denied such moves, while
others were not specific in their comments on the reports.
Source: Daily Trust
