REGISTRATION OF 21 POLITICAL PARTIES BY INEC: SPN ALSO DEMANDS ITS REGISTRATION AS ORDERED BY COURT

PRESS STATEMENT

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) welcomes the registration of 21 political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

However, SPN is calling on INEC to immediately obey the judgment of the Federal High Court that was delivered by Justice Kolawole Gabriel on November 28, 2017. The judgment ordered INEC to register SPN within 30 days of the judgment. It is eighteen days after the judgment and we expect that INEC would have complied. 

Hopefully, the registration of the 21 political parties will further open up the political space. But only the emergence of a political party with a genuine pro-masses ideology and programmes different from the anti-poor and neo-liberal capitalist programmes of the PDP and APC will truly give more options to the people. This is why the registration of the SPN is crucial to ensure that voters have a real choice.

Some of the new political parties recently registered submitted their applications much after the SPN whose application was submitted on June 12 2013 – more than four years ago!

It is becoming clear that INEC’s refusal to register the SPN despite having fulfilled all requirements and conditions since the year 2014 is politically motivated. Members of SPN have a constitutional and democratic right to form a political party. 

We are hereby using this opportunity to demand that INEC should register the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) and issue the party its registration certificate without any further delay.  

Chinedu Bosah

National Secretary