INEC to Commence Deregistration of Non-performing Parties...

Lists measures to strengthen electoral laws

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will soon commence deregistration of political parties that did not meet the requirements of the 1999 Constitution as amended with regards to votes scored during the last general election, THISDAY has learnt.

This is in line with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (Fourth Alteration, No. 9) Act, 2017 enacted on May 4, 2017 that amended section 225 of the Constitution, which empowers INEC to de-register political parties that do not meet some specific requirements.

This is also to discourage what is described as using the political parties for commercial purposes.

INEC National Commissioner in charge of Voter Education and Public Enlightenment, Mr. Festus Okoye, told THISDAY that the exercise would be done during the commission's assessment of the 2019 general election.

According to Okoye, "Section 225 of the 1999 Constitution as amended relating to the fourth alteration has also given INEC constitutional powers to de-register political parties that do not meet certain requirements.”

He explained: "Part of it is first, breach of any of the requirements for registration. So, the moment any political party breaches any of the requirements, INEC has the powers to de-register such party.

"Secondly, any party that fails to win at least 25 per cent of the vote cast in one state of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in a presidential election or one local government in the state in a governorship election or failure to win one ward in the chairmanship election or one seat in state House of Assembly or councillorship election.

"These are constitutional provisions and the commission will in the next few months begin to take a critical look at the performance of political parties in relation to meeting this threshold. And I can assure you that the parties that have not met any of these thresholds, as at the time the commission will begin its assessment of the 2019 election, such a party will be de-registered by the commission."

The INEC national commissioner, who also spoke on the plans of the commission to strengthen the electoral act, said: "Having said that, since the last election we have also seen that, there are challenges both within the constitutional framework and within the legal framework. And we are also going to propose some needed amendment of electoral framework that we have seen.

"Part of it is related to the conduct of party primary and the determination of dispute arising from party primary. The commission felt strongly that all actions relating to the conduct of parties primary election should be filed and determined before the conduct of the actual election.

"Secondly, the commission believes that the 108 days given to the court to determine an election matter is too much and overlapped into the election. So, we believe court of first instance should have maybe 50 days for the determination of preelection issues, while court of appeal and the Supreme Court can have 45 days each to make a determination in relation to pre-election matter.

"That is an aspect that we are looking at. INEC is also looking at the changes relating to Section 68 of the Electoral Act and whether the commission does not have the power to cancel an election or review the declaration and return made by a coalition/returning officers when the person has been put under pressure or when the commission has determined that the officer has been compromised.”

Okoye said the commission was also looking at what it termed duality of transmission of election results.

According to him, “So many people have proposed that INEC should transmit results electronically, the commission doesn't have anything against that. But the point we are making is that there are many states in the federation where there is no network, in such instances it will be impossible to transmit election result electronically.

"So, we are looking at a situation where we can transmit electronically and manually, that is dual transmitting of election result. We are also looking at the promulgation of electoral offences bill and tribunal. Nigeria must break the circle of impunity, we have allowed impunity for so long and that is why it has been recycling itself. When we have an agency that does arrest and prosecute electoral offenders, I believe that we will break the cycle of impunity.”

He said the commission was looking at a situation where a different agency could handle registration of political parties and even voters. He, however, said the commission had not finalised its position in relation to the registration of parties and voters.

“We are looking at all the recommendations made by international and local organisations; we will review them and propose an amendment,” he said, adding that the commission was determined to continue to improve and to conduct an election that Nigerians would be proud of.