The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday presented the certificate of registration to the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), one of the two political parties the Commission recently registered.
Protem National National Legal Adviser of NDC, Reuben Egwuaba, who received the certificate on behalf of the party, said with the presentation, NDC joins the registered political parties “in the contention for provision of democratic leadership and contest for power in ways that would make Nigerians at home and the diaspora proud”.
Egwuaba said: “Today’s event marks the culmination of NDC’s long and tortuous fight for registration, a journey which started as far back as 2017, when the association first applied to INEC to be registered as a political party,” moments after he received the certificate from INEC’s Director Elections and Party Monitoring, Barrister Joan Arabs.
“NDC was among the original 171 political organisations that applied for registration as political parties. After meeting all the requirements requested by INEC, NDC was denied registration by INEC at the last minute.
“The reason the then INEC leadership gave for refusing to register NDC was that its logo and insignia bore a close semblance to those of the All Progressives Congress, APC, a claim that was clearly untrue.
But the Commission stuck to this position, so much so that when the list of the last 14 associations that were to be considered for the final stage of the screening process was published by INEC, NDC was conspicuously excluded.
“NDC subsequently went to court to challenge the grounds for INEC’s decision, which NDC said was not only based on wrong assumptions, but also amounted to an improper use of executive discretion on the part of INEC.”
According to Barrister Egwuaba, “The court not only upheld that the NDC logo was not only distinct from that of the APC, but that the second association which INEC had initially cited as also having a similar logo as the NDC’s was not even a registered entity, let alone a political party.
“Following these conclusions, and in the absence of any other tenable grounds for its stance, the court subsequently directed INEC to register NDC, and proclaimed NDC registered.”
Barrister Egwuaba who was also the lead lawyer that appeared for NDC in the suit, thanked the court and the entire judiciary for standing by truth, justice and fairness on the matter.