Deregister APC now or face court action, IPAC warns INEC

By Lawrence Olaoye

The Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) yesterday called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately deregister the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) or face court action.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja, the Chairman of the Anambra State chapter of IPAC, Chief Ken Emeakayi, said the APC has breached several sections of the Constitution and the Electoral Act.

The chairman also accused the opposition party of breaching the IPAC

Code of Conduct, over heating the polity and consistently attacking President Goodluck Jonathan, some members of his cabinet and the National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh.

“Instead of the APC to attack issues, they are attacking individuals, especially Metuh, who is from Anambra state. We demand an apology for the sponsored and orchestrated attacks. We are not holding forte for any political party, but if any other party should do what APC is doing now, we shall not hesitate to call such to order.

“APC should eschew bitterness and engage in acts that will bring about peaceful conduct of the 2015 general election”.

He added that the continued existence of APC also contravenes Section 222 of the Constitution, which provides for the election of officers of a political party on a periodic basis and “we have brought this to the notice of INEC that more than eight months to their registration, no officer of APC is elected.

“Also, Section 8 (7) of the Electoral Act, says INEC should de-register any political party that fails to fulfill its duties as a political party. We also queried their launch of manifesto nine months after its registration, what manifestos were they registered?

“Also, nine months after registration, they were talking about membership registration, not membership revalidation. So who were the members of the party when INEC registered them?

“They conducted an opinion poll of an unknown candidate. From their published result which says their unknown candidate defeated the President, how did they get the result of their poll with unknown candidate?

“If INEC fails to do what we asked them in our petition, we shall be left with no option than to go to court and seek for mandamus to compel them to de-register APC.”