The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed that the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) is yet to fulfil the prerequisites for registration.
INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mr Sam Olumekun, said this during an interactive session with reporters yesterday in Abuja.
He said while the commission had received numerous letters of intent, none is qualified to meet requirements for a formal application for registration.
“The truth is that we have so many letters of intent presently and none of them is an application yet. They must first meet the criteria before submitting a letter of intent,” Olumekun said.
The development comes as the ADA proponents omitted the word ‘electoral’ from their letter addressed to the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
The application, dated June 19, addressed to Prof. Yakubu, was jointly signed by the interim national chairman of the ADA, Akin Ricketts, and the protem national secretary, Abdullahi Musa Elayo, respectively.
Among those linked to the application are former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former governors of Kaduna and Rivers States – Nasir El-Rufai and Rotimi Amaechi – former Senate President David Mark, and Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
INEC, however, said there is no shortcut to party registration, stressing that associations seeking political party status must comply strictly with the procedures outlined in the 2022 Electoral Act and INEC’s internal guidelines.
Meanwhile, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, is expected to meet with leaders of the 19 registered political parties at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.
The event is part of the consultative stakeholders’ meeting that also includes the media, civil society organisations and the nation’s security agencies, under the coordination of Prof. Yakubu and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, who are co-chairmen of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES).
A senior INEC official said the INEC chairman will speak on ADA and related issues at the Thursday meeting.
