PMP No Longer Registered: NDC Reports It Is No Longer in Use

National Secretary of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Ikenna Enekweizu, has provided a key reason why the court judgment against the party’s registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would not hold.

The Daily Post reported that a Federal High Court judgment in Lokoja, Kogi State, issued on Friday overturned its earlier ruling that directed INEC to register the NDC as a political party.

Speaking on Arise News, Enekweizu noted that the court had already determined that the Peace Movement Party (PMP) does not exist and was not among the parties that applied to INEC for registration.

He said, “In fact, we’re not just registered. The original substantive judgment of the court was that we’re deemed to have been registered by INEC, deemed registered.”

“But if you read the entirety of that judgment, a lot of consequential orders were made that made it look like we were actually registered by INEC from when we actually applied.”

“INEC had a duty to register us, refused for no justification to register us after we had met all the requirements for registration. That is what drove us to court, and the court held that we, when INEC, in course of hearing, admitted that the only reason for which we had refused to reach us, which was that our logo resembled that of APC, not Peace Movement Party.”

“The letter they wrote to us, and on the basis of which we went to court, stated that our logo resembled that of APC, All Progressives Congress, that is why we went to court, and that is why it was not necessary at the time we went to court, to join any other party other than the other than INEC.”

“In fact, we’ve had any reason to have joined anybody at that stage, it will have been APC itself, because the reason for refusing to register us was that our logo resembled that of APC, not a non-existing PMP.”

“Now it was only when we got to court, after we had filed and served our originating summons, that INEC, in their response to originating summons, mentioned the name PMP, stating that our logo looked like that of PMP. It is a fundamental principle of law that you