African Peoples Congress Ignore INEC, Begins Membership Drive

The controversial African Peoples Congress (APC) has kicked off its membership drive despite the refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to register it as a political party. The registration exercise, which is being conducted online and manual, will precede the launch of the APC’s logo and manifesto in the country’s six geo-political zones.
Already, its mobilisation committee is preparing for the forthcoming governorship elections in Anambra, Osun and Ekiti states.
At a press conference held at the Abuja national headquarters on Thursday, APC’s acting chairman, Chief Onyinye Ikeaguonu, told LEADERSHIP Sunday that INEC’s action would not truncate its registration.
In a letter addressed to INEC chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega which was made available to LEADERSHIP Sunday, Ikeaguonu said, “We received your letter dated 21th March, 2013 captioned: ‘Re-application for registration of political party,’ with grave disbelief and surprise.
I wish to draw your attention to the said section of the constitution which you cited. It merely provides that we should register the names and addresses of our national officers with you and this we clearly fulfilled.
“We provided the names, telephone numbers, local government areas and states of origin of our national officers to your commission.
We strongly believe that the information we provided constitute enough addresses of our national officers for easy contact and identification, as the constitution is silent on what a valid address is”.