Amidst criticism by some of the recently delisted political parties in Nigeria, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it would not review the recent deregistration of the affected parties because they had failed to meet the constitutional requirement for their continued existence.
INEC had on February 6 delisted 74 political parties; the commission had also said the deregistered parties breached their requirement for registration having failed to win at least 2596 of votes cast in one states of the federation during the Presidential election.
The commission also said the parties, since their existence, did not win one local government of a state in a governorship election.
The deregistered parties, according to INEC also failed to win at least one ward in the chairmanship elections in local governments.
But some of the affected parties have disagreed with the commission, saying that they had met some of the criteria but were unjustly delisted while threatening legal action.
But in an interview with BusinessDay Thursday, Festus Okoye chairman information & voter education committee of INEC, said the commission was not contemplating or planning to review the list of deregistered parties despite complaints, stressing that the aggrieved individuals or association should go to court.
According to him, “The commission deregistered political parties that had failed to meet the constitutional and statutory threshold for continued existence.
“The commission is not contemplating or planning to review the list of deregistered parties, despite criticism. The political parties no longer have legal existence.
“We are a constitutional body and any individual or association with a grievance has the right to go to court to ventilate his or her grievances”.
About 90 political parties took part in the 2019 general election in Nigeria; however, only 18 parties are presently recognised by INEC.
Iniobong Iwok
