E.E.R: Okorie confronts INEC over UPGA registration

Okorie confronts INEC over UPGA registration

Details: Published on Thursday, 26 April 2012 20:22; Written by Dotun Oladipo; Hits: 44

The Independent National Electoral Commission and the Founder of the United Peoples Grand Alliance, Chief Chekwas Okorie, are engaged in a face-off over the refusal of the electoral umpire to register the new political association.

INEC said it rejected the application for the registration of UPGA because it flouted relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
The rejection letter said the logo of the proposed party had ethnic connotation and its acronym, UPGA, is similar in pronouncement to APGA's.
The letter, dated April 23, 2012 and signed by the INEC Secretary, Alhaji Abudalahi Kaugama, said: "Please refer to your application for registration as a political party. You may recall that you proposed and accepted the verification of the proposed headquarters of your association on April 17, 2012 as part of the processing of your application.
“Having concluded the legal and other reviews of the documents you submitted the commission has established the following notations.
“This in the opinion of the commission offends section 82(2)(c) of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended.
“Consequently, the commission shall not register UPGA as a political party.”
Okorie fired back in anger.
In a April 25, 2012 letter to INEC, Okorie wrote: "This letter is not only belated; UPGA has become a political party by the effluxion of time. We are further surprised that the commission wrote this letter to us shortly after we complained in writing that Chief Umeh declared in a statewide television programme Face The Press in Anambra State that he had sealed the fate of UPGA at INEC.
"Democracy in Nigeria will be doomed the moment outsiders or virtual interlopers begin to direct and decide for the commission how to carry out its statutory functions and even have the audacity to boast in public in advance of the occurrence of what they boasted about.
"The INEC letter under reference is a rehash of the petition written to INEC by Chief Victor Umeh objecting to the registration of UPGA as a Political Party.

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- 16th April, 2012 -
The Hon. Chairman -
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) -
Zambezi Crescent, Maitama, Abuja. -

Attention: Professor Attahiru Jega -

Honourable Chairman,

- RE: OBJECTION TO THE APPLICATION TO REGISTER UNITED PEOPLES GRAND ALLIANCE, (UPGA) -

Our attention has been drawn to a very mischievous petition written to you on the above subject matter. This petition is laced with tissues of lies and superficial sentimentality that are outrightly outside the clear and unambiguous provisions of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended and 2010 Electoral Act on the registration of Political Parties. We have endeavoured in our application for registration of United Peoples Grand Alliance as a political party to adhere to the guidelines furnished to us upon the application. Due diligence was meticulously followed in completing the required documents and providing evidence of the spread of our National Executive Committee in accordance with the law and evidence of effective occupation of our National Secretariat at The Dome, N-Glory Center, Plot 412 Cadastral Zone, Central Business District, Abuja.

In compliance with your letter reference number INEC/DPPM&L/UPGA/428/VOL.1/5 dated 30th March, 2012 (see copy attached), the members of our National Executive Committee shall be on hand to receive the team from the Commission for the purpose of inspecting our National Secretariat and verifying our claims, on Tuesday 17th April, 2012

Commenting briefly on the petition against the registration of UPGA as a Political Party published on page two (2) of Vanguard newspaper of Monday 16th April 2012, we wish to state as follows;

1. Chief Victor Umeh became a member of All Progressives Grand Alliance in July 2002 after the party was already registered on 22nd June 2002. He was not in any position to know what transpired before he joined the party. The United Progressives Grand Alliance of the First Republic was never a political party rather it was the name used by a coalition of political parties that wished to form an alliance for electoral advantage over the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) and the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) that came together to form the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA). The parties that belonged to the United Progressives Grand Alliance were National Council of Nigeria Citizens (NCNC), Action Group (AG), the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC), Northern Elements Peoples Union (NEPU), the Borno Youth Movement etc. This is the brief history of United Progressive Grand Alliance that Chief Umeh referred to as Igbo political party either out of sheer ignorance or outright mischief

2. There is no time INEC rejected the registration of United Progressive Grand Alliance. What happened was that INEC amended its guidelines for political party registration to include that no name or symbol used before by a political party, political association, alliance, or cooperate body should be used again. In other not to be caught up by the amended guideline, we changed the name of our association to All Progressives Grand Alliance and designed the cock representing the party symbol to stand on the acronym APGA to make it different from the NCNC symbol where the cock stood on its own. The party led by the late Alhaji Wada Nas also changed its name from NEPU to Peoples Salvation Party (PSP). Alhaji Balarabe Musa’s Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and other parties approached the court to challenge the INEC guidelines led by the legal team of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi. The Supreme Court declared the INEC guidelines unconstitutional. Before the judgment of the Supreme Court, APGA, NDP and UNPP had been registered to join the PDP, APP and AD. After the judgment of the Supreme Court, INEC proceeded to register 24 other political parties thereby paving the way for the registration of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) as a political party. The two Alliances namely NNA and UPGA never tested the effectiveness of their coalition of parties in any election before the military coup of January, 1966.

3. There is nobody who is literate up to the primary school level that will be confused between APGA and UPGA as Chief Umeh tried to argue unintelligently. Similarly there is no illiterate whose guide is the party symbol for choosing the party to vote for that will be confused by the clear difference between the cock which is the symbol of APGA and the rising sun which is the symbol of UPGA. This has also been made easier for the electorate by the commission that arranges political parties in alphabetical order on the ballot sheet. Upon the registration of UPGA it is likely to be the very last of the registered political parties in alphabetical order. It begs the issue to remind you that there are political parties on INEC Register with the following acronyms; ANPP/UNPP, PDP/PDC, CPC/CPP, ACD/ACN, PPA/PPN etc. The Commission never encountered any clash of identity or confusion among the electorate in respect of the parties with the above mentioned acronyms in all the elections that the Commission had conducted over the years.

4. The mischief intended by Umeh was clearly exposed by his attempt to link the rising sun with the defunct Biafra which was never a political party or MASSOB which is also not a political party in Nigeria. The UPGA rising sun is customized by having the acronym of the party written on the bar on which the rising sun is rested. A political party in Angola uses the rising sun as its symbol. The Channels Television in Nigeria uses the rising sun in one of its popular programme known as SUNRISE. Ondo State uses the rising sun as its symbol. The rising sun is a universal brand. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Some religious adherents look to the sun for their daily prayer. The rising sun signals the dawn of a new day all over the world. It is the height of chicanery and stupidity to attempt to mislead the commission into assigning the rising sun to the Igbo people of the South East as their exclusive property.

5. Chief Victor Umeh should be bothered that their National Secretariat has not been functional for a long time and INEC has a responsibility to withdraw the certificate of a party that has no functional office in the Federal Capital Territory. Chief Victor Umeh should concern himself with how to manage a crisis free APGA instead of being paranoid about an emerging new party that is yet to participate in a general election in Nigeria. Chief Victor Umeh is at liberty to initiate the changing of the name of All Progressives Grand Alliance and the symbol of the party which were never his ideas at the onset since he is a later day joiner. This is if he has any originality or creativity to do so. We doubt that very much. It will appear that Chief Victor Umeh is not tired of coming first in everything that is negative. He is the first National Treasurer of a political party to be imposed as a National Chairman without the due process of a national convention. Now he is making record as the first person to write a petition against the registration of a political party for reasons that are outside the conditionalities prescribed by the requisite and extant laws.

Hon. Chairman Sir, we urge you to discard the baseless petition of the obviously scared Chief Victor Umeh.

Please accept the assurances of our highest respect.

Yours sincerely,

CHIEF CHEKWAS OKORIE

NATIONAL CHAIRMAN, UPGA

08037232929, 08055105281

Cc:

1. Secretary to the Commission

2. All National Commissioners

3. Director, PPM&L

4. Director, Legal