THE newly formed All Progressives Congress, APC, is likely to face registration challenges as its acronym, APC, had been registered by another political party.
Fact has emerged that the newly formed All Progressives Congress may consider an early name change due to a discovery of another political party already being registered as APC with the Independent Electoral Commission of Nigeria, INEC.
The party already registered with the same acronym is Africa Progressive Party, APC.
Inside sources within the APC that plead anonymity revealed that reports from INEC indicated that another party, African Progressive Congress (APC) is already a registered political party which still subsists within the commission‘s registry.
Since another party is already bearing APC, the report indicated that INEC might refuse to register the newly-formed APC unless it changed its name to avoid conflict with the existing registered political party.
As of the time of filing this report, it was not clear who the leaders of the African Progressive Congress were and when the party was registered by the electoral body. The party is, however, not among those deregistered recently by INEC.
Further checks showed that the said African Progressive Congress was in existence all along though some APC insiders were already crying foul, accusing the ruling PDP of being the brain behind the plot.
“African Progressive Congress was newly-registered with the goal of denying the newly formed APC registration,” said a furious APC stalwart in Abuja over the weekend, accusing the INEC of working in league with the PDP.
“You know General Buhari was right when he said INEC has merged with the PDP. We are seeing the sign now. There is a grand plot to deny us registration and we will resist all attempts in that direction,” the source said.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and a former Justice Minister, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, however, fired back at the insinuations of PDP plotting to stop the new party, declaring that “APC and ADC are registered political parties long before now.
“Why must they shift their problem on PDP? They should have done their home work properly by checking INEC before announcing their name. APC and ADC have always been there as registered political parties. If they did not check with INEC, is that the fault of PDP? Kayode who is also a chieftain of the PDP asked.
The former minister who described APC as “a still-birth baby” said “we are not losing sleep over them and they should face their problem instead of blaming us for their woes.
Further investigations, however, showed that APC leaders are yet to officially approach INEC with their request for registration even though it was learnt that the doubt being raised about registration hurdles emanated from the report of the registration and liaison sub-committee of the party.
The sub-committee which submitted its report last Wednesday was reported to have made preliminary contact with INEC during which the existence of African Progressive Party was discovered. It is not clear yet what the APC leaders will do if INEC finally confirms the need for them to change the name of the new party.
Some leaders within the APC are already considering the name change if that will pose a problem for the party’s registration with the electoral body. According to a source close to the new party, the party is considering the name change from APC to APCN, which it full name will be All Progressives Congress of Nigeria; as it was in the case of AC, the Action Congress and the ACN, the Action Congress of Nigeria.
- Tribune