Femi Falana in an article on Sunday, titled, “INEC’s fresh power to deregister political parties”, stated that only 10 parties will survive deregistration by INEC.
According to Femi Falana, if INEC
followed the constitutional provisions on deregistration of political
parties, not more than 10 of the 91 political parties would survive
based on their performances in the just-concluded general elections. The
renowned lawyer and activist cited the May 2017 amendment to Section
225 of the 1999 Constitution, which empowered INEC to deregister any
political party on the grounds of “(a) breach of any of the requirements
for registration; (b)failure to win at least 25 per cent of votes cast
in: (i) One state of the federation in a presidential election; or (ii)
one local government of the state in a governorship election; (c)
failure to win at least – (i) one ward in the chairmanship election;
(ii) one seat in the national or state House of Assembly election; or
(iii) one seat in the councillorship election.”
He further
added; “From the foregoing, it is indubitably clear that INEC has been
conferred with enormous powers to deregister political parties that fail
to meet the fresh constitutional prerequisites.“Going by the results of
the 2019 general elections, the 91 registered political parties may
have been reduced to less than 10 that may have scaled the
constitutional hurdle.”
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