Non-performance: Catholic group asks INEC to deregister 33 parties

The Justice Development and Peace Initiative of the Catholic Diocese of Ekiti has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to deregister 33 political parties.

The Director of Ekiti JDPI, Reverend Father Emmanuel Akingbade, alleged that the parties were weak and had not performed.

Akingbade, in a letter to INEC Chairman dated, January 12, 2019, hinged his call on the provision of the 1999 Constitution, which he said provided that “INEC has unfettered power to deregister a political party which participates in a governorship election and fails to win at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in one local government area of the state in the said election.”

He said, “We request you to deregister all the political parties that participated in the Ekiti State July 14, 2018 governorship election with the exemption of the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party for outright failure to make 25 per cent of the votes cast in at least one local government area of the state.”

The cleric urged INEC to “exercise the power therein guaranteed against the 33 political parties which participated in the Ekiti State governorship election held on July 14, 2018.”

According to JDPI, the political parties that should be deregistered did not score up to 25 per cent, as contained in a copy of its analysis which it attached to the election results “as one of the accredited domestic observers of the election.”

The group said, “We considered it imperative to bring the above to your notice and to humbly urge you to exercise your constitutional power in the circumstance in the overall interest of our country.”