Anambra gov’ship: 22 deregistered parties storm INEC with notice of primaries

Ahead of the Anambra State governorship election, 22 of the deregistered political parties on Thursday stormed the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to submit letters of notice for the conduct of governorship primaries.

The national chairmen of the parties who came to submit the letters were, however, not allowed into the premises of INEC by security agents.

After some persistence, the Special Assistant to the INEC chairman, Abdulrasheed Mohammed, addressed the parties’ officials, and asked them to delegate two people to submit their letters.

The 22 parties, which went to court to challenge their deregistration by INEC, said they have a favourable declarative judgement by the Appeal Court quashing their deregistration by the commission.

The National Chairman of the People for Democratic Change (PDC), Barrister Benjamin Igwe, who spoke on behalf of other party leaders said; "We came here to submit our notice of primary elections for the November 6 Anambra State governorship election and happily INEC has accepted our letters.

Igwe displayed

copies of the letters with INEC's acknowledgement stamp saying, "the reason we came in group to submit the notice is because in the past eight months, we have been making attempts to serve INEC our letters and to participate in the Ondo and Edo states governorship elections and other by-elections but the commission had always rebuffed us. Each time we went they said we have been deregistered.”

On her part, the National Chairman of the Young Democratic Party (YDP), Georgina Dakpokpo, said her party is determined to assert its right as provided by the constitution with regards to participation in elections.