‘INEC Has Constitutional Power To Deregister Political Parties’

A constitutional lawyer in Abuja, Mr Realwan Okpanachi, says the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has constitutional power to deregister any political party.
Okpanachi made this known in an interview with newsmen, yesterday, in Abuja.
The lawyer was reacting to a statement credited to the INEC Federal Commissioner in charge of Nasarawa, Kogi and Kwara States, Mr Mohammed Haruna, that INEC had no power to deregister any of the existing 91 political parties.
Okpanachi said that in response to the proliferation of political parties which metamorphosed into 60 in 2011, the National Assembly amended the Electoral Act 2010.
He stated that the amendment empowered the electoral umpire to deregister any political party which failed to win any election in Nigeria.
He said the position of the law had changed when the Constitution, through the Fourth Alteration, No. 9 Act, 2017, enacted in 2017, was assented by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The legal practitioner disclosed that this assent by the president had conferred on INEC the power to deregister political parties by amending Section 225 of the 1999 Constitution.
“By the said amendment and introduction of Section 225(A), INEC can now deregister political parties on grounds of breach of any requirements for registration,’’ he said.
He listed these requirements to include: “failure to win, at least, 25 per cent of votes cast in one state of the federation in a presidential election, or one local government of the state in governorship election.