Executive Director of the Peering Advocacy and Advisory Centre in Africa, Ezenwa Nwagu, has described the 110 associations applying to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be registered as political parties as jokers.
Naijaonpoint reports that the INEC Chairman, Mahmoud Yakubu, had on Wednesday, during the Commission’s second Quarterly Meeting with the Media, disclosed that as of Monday, June 23, 2025, the electoral management body has received letters of intent from 110 associations that wish to register as political parties.
Speaking with Arise Television, Nwagu pointed out that certain conditions must be met, stressing that many of the associations lack an acronym, a constitution, a chairman, a secretary, and a valid address, or have addresses that do not exist.
According to him, it is on record that as many as seventy of such associations have had their offices in cemeteries.
He said, “Well, I think it’s the right of people, persons, to associate, to assemble and then desire to transform to political parties. But it’s actually not an all-comers affair.
“There are roadblocks to becoming political parties which are in INEC guidelines for registration of political parties.
“You know, as the register of political parties, INEC has put out those conditions from which associations can become political parties. And if you check the 110 interested associations, you will see that many, quite frankly, are jokers.
“They probably don’t even understand that there are conditions for which…the conditions are clear. First is that you have to have a constitution, you have to have a potent chairman, you have to have a potent secretary. You have to have an address, and you have to provide that address in the application.
“So if you check what INEC has already supplied, many of them have no acronym, they have no chairman, they have no address. And some of them, even the addresses they supplied are indeed addresses you know do not exist. I took time to scan through those 110. Many of them are jokers.
“There are some that it is a lawyer that applied for them when it is clear that your protem chairman and your protem Secretary should be the one applying.
“Then after you have applied, INEC will look at and screen your application and to ensure that, just like you do with this Corporate Affairs Commission, when you send a name, they come back to you and say the name you have sent is available, and then, if it’s available, you will now pay an administrative fee to INEC.
“You know when you pay that administrative fee to INEC the Chairman of the Commission will now send a code to you. When he sends the code to you, it is the code that gives you access to an online platform where you prefill your constitution, your manifesto, members of your intended party with their phone numbers, their email and all of that. If you do not pay that administrative fee, your application is terminated instantly.
“If you remember what we used to have, we had those registered organizations that we talked about, the 70 of them, the addresses were found to be in cemeteries. It was laughable.”