INEC Registers Five New Parties

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last Wednesday said that it has registered five political associations as political parties.
The Commission’s statement issued after its management meeting in Kaduna listed the newly registered parties as, Young Progressive Party (YPP), Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA), New Generation Party of Nigeria (NGP), All Democratic Peoples Movement (ADPM) and Action Democratic Party (ADP).
The statement said out of 95 associations that applied to the commission for registration, two voluntarily withdrew their applications. While the commission approved the applications of the five associations which fulfilled the constitutional requirements for registration.
Meanwhile, the  Commission said that the successful execution of the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) at the 120,000 polling units across the country would require N137.4 billion.
The Chairman of the Commission, Mahmood Yakubu,who disclosed this at the opening of the commission’s meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) on Wednesday, in Kaduna, said the cost was calculated based on five staff currently deployed for the exercise in its offices in the 774 local government areas.
He said that the cost comprised daily expenditure of N1, 379, 689,000, variable cost of N4, 323,409, 080 and one-off-cost of N131, 763,990,000.
He explained that 629, 858 personnel needed to be deployed at the polling units for the daily registration, adding that for security, on the basis of two officers per unit, 239,946 security personnel would be required.
Yakubu explained that the ad hoc staff to be engaged for the job would be paid N2, 000 per day, at N1, 000 as honoraria, N500 for transportation and N500 for feeding, adding that N1.2 billion would be required for the daily allowance.
Meanwhile,  INEC, has  announced the registration of five new political parties, bringing the number in the country to 45.
Announcing the decision at a late evening press briefing in Kaduna, INEC commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education, Solomon Soyebi, said the associations met the requirements for registration, while two associations, which had earlier applied for registration as political parties, voluntarily withdrew their applications.
The new associations registered as political parties by the electoral commission are Young Progressive Party, (YPP),  Advanced People’s Democratic Alliance,( APDA); New Generation Party of Nigeria,  (NGPN); All Democratic People’s Movement of Nigeria, (ADPMN), and Action Democratic Party, (ADP).