The Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA) has said decision by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister 74 political parties will bring further reforms to Nigeria’s electoral process.
The group in a statement by its executive director, Faith Nwadishi described INEC decision as a bold one, urging politicians to take it in good faith.
IVOTESNG recalls that INEC had on Thursday announced the deregistration of 74 political parties, leaving the country with only existing 18 parties.
While commending INEC, the CTA boss called on Nigerians, to join INEC in this journey of reforms to sustain the nation’s democracy.
She said, “CTA welcomes the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to de-register 74 political parties out of the 92 registered political parties for the reason that the 74 political parties failed to meet the constitutional requirements to continue to exist as political parties in Nigeria.
“With this decision, only 18 political parties having met the constitutional requirements are therefore allowed to exist.
We may recall that by 1999, at the inception of this new political dispensation, we had 3 political parties but by 2019 the number has risen to 92 political parties prompting INEC to exercise its mandate to access the performance and existence of the political parties.
“CTA commends this bold move by INEC to de-register the non-performing political parties and call on the political class to accept this development. For those politicians whose political parties have been de-registered, we call on them to align with any of the 18 political parties whose ideologies are in line with theirs.”
“According to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu “following the conclusion of the 2019 general election, including court-ordered re-run elections arising from litigations, the Commission was able to determine the performance of political parties in the elections. In addition, they were also assessed on the basis of their performance in the Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) which coincided with the 2019 general election.”.
She said the reasons adduced by INEC for its action has the backing of the 1999 constitution (4th alteration number 9), Act 2017, section 225A, which empowers the Commission to deregister any political party if; failure to win at least 25% of votes cast in one state of the federation in the presidential election or one LGA of a state in a governorship election
Others include Failure to win at least One Ward in the Chairmanship election, one seat in the National or State Assembly election or one seat in the Councillorship election.
