The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Tuesday announced the registration of 23 new political parties, raising the number of registered parties in Nigeria to 91. The election that is set to hold in 184days will likely experience more participation as new parties have been added to the race. The parties include 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). Also registered were 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).
Others are Save Nigeria Congress (SNC), United Peoples Congress (UPC), We The People Nigeria (WTPN) , Youth Party (YP), and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP). The registration of the new parties was one of the decisions taken at its regular meeting held on Tuesday, stated by the Commission in a statement issued by Mohammed Haruna, its National Commissioner and Member, Voter Education and Publicity Committee, in Abuja. This was after the Commission said it received 144 applications from political associations seeking registration as political parties. “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. 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.”
According to The Commission, the new parties would receive their Certificate of Registration on Thursday at its headquarters. The Commission also approved the extension of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) to Aug. 31 from Aug. 17 it had earlier announced. A civil Society Organisation on Wednesday, Aug. 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 Aug. 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 Aug. 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, Aug. 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.
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