INEC ignoring court order on deregistration — IPAC

The Inter-Party Advisory Council of Nigeria (IPAC) has accused the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, of ignoring the unanimous judgment of the Court of Appeal on August 10, 2020, invalidating the decision in deregistering political parties.

The National Legal Adviser of IPAC, Chukwudi Ezeobika, said this in a statement on Saturday in Abuja.

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But INEC in a reaction denied any disobedience to the court order on the matter.

Ezekioba, who is also the National Chairman of United Patriots (UP), said the unanimous judgment delivered by the president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, remained a declaratory judgment for which stay of execution cannot be sought and or obtained by INEC.

“It is indeed of great concern that since the judgment of the Court of Appeal was delivered, the INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has deliberately refused to abide by the judgment by immediately re-enlisting the political parties,” Ezekioba said.

When contacted INEC National Commissioner and chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee (IVEC), Festus Okoye, told Daily Trust that INEC had the constitutional right to appeal against a judgment that it disagrees with and that the commission had made it very clear that it had two conflicting judgments and thus not in a position to pick or chose which of them to obey.

“And since we are a law-abiding institution, we decide to explore legal means of resolving this particular issue.

“And this legal issue is approaching the Supreme Court which is the highest court of the land, so that the case of the NUP, that is already in the Supreme Court and this case of the ACD and others can be consolidated into one.

“So that we have a final and conclusive pronouncement by the Supreme Court on the powers of the commission in relation to the registration and deregistration of parties and also the limit of that power in relation to political parties,” Okoye told Daily Trust.