· Electoral Act demands membership register
· Act not retroactive – Party chieftain
By Emmanuel OGBECHE & Laraba MUREY
The All Progressives Congress, APC, seems to court trouble after trouble as its March 26, 2022 National Convention has yet another hurdle to scale.
The party which only survived a major “coup” against the Mai Buni-led Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee by some governors led by Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state will have to wrangle out of a provision of the Electoral Act 2022 if the convention is to stand.
Section 77(2) of the Electoral Act says: “Every registered political party shall maintain a register of its members in both hard and sift copy.”
The contentious clause is subsection (3) which states: “Each political party shall make such register available to the commission not later than 30 days before the date fixed for the party primaries, congresses or convention.”
With the party laying claims to over 43 million members nationwide, a political analyst, who asked not to be named so as not to be seen as working for the main opposition party, PDP, said “it will be interesting to see the volumes of registers presented to the INEC.
“That is the problem of making outlandish claims and in the General Elections these large numbers are not seen anywhere near.”
The analyst warned that without fulfilling this key requirement as requested by the Electoral Act 2022, the APC convention could be challenged in court.
Section 82 subsection (5) could come into play as it states: “Failure of a political party to notify the Commission as stated in subsection (1) shall render the convention, congress, conference or meeting invalid.”
Efforts to speak to party chieftains were not successful. Calls and messages sent to a key member of the Extraordinary Committee, a Professor of Law, Tahir Mamman, were not responded to.
However, a party official who asked not to be named as he was not permitted to speak, said; “Our party, the All Progressives Congress has complied with all the processes as far as the national convention is concerned.
“The Electoral Act was signed on the 25th of February and the notice of convention was sent to INEC on the 2nd of February. Addendum of the timetable was sent on the 24th.
“You see the law is not retrogressive, the law came into effect on the 25th but despite that the party has complied with all its requirements. Even normally without the new Electoral Act that is how it is. 7 Days to your activities, the party needs to give all those update of which we have all complied to substantially.”
Also, Mr. Festus Okoye, the INEC National Commission for Information and Voter Education, did not respond to calls and messages sent to his known mobile line on ths provision of the Electoral Act 2022.
