APC Dares INEC, Insists On March 26 Convention Date

The All Progressives Congress (APC) is lurching towards a showdown with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the party’s plan to hold its National Convention on March 26, 2022.

This comes as the ruling APC, on Friday, openly reacted to a letter by INEC warning that the party must adhere to the minimum “21 days’ notice” required by parties to inform the commission before holding “any convention, congress, conference, or meeting”.

THE WHISTLER earlier reported that INEC had referred the APC to the requirement in Section 82 (1) of the newly-signed Electoral Act 2022 regarding the mandatory notice while hoping that “these issues are noted for compliance” by the party.

While the APC, at a press briefing on Friday, claimed that it had earlier notified INEC of its plan to hold the convention, INEC’s letter suggested that the party has yet to do the needful as regards the 21 notice.

The interim spokesperson of the APC and member of the party’s caretaker committee, Ismaeel Ahmed, at the press briefing, claimed that the party’s letter notifying INEC of its initial plan to hold its convention on February 26 was still valid, saying all the APC needed was a letter notifying the commission of the rescheduled March 26 date.

Ahmed said: “I’m not only a youth leader or internal spokesperson, but I’m also a lawyer and we have served a notice to INEC for the 26th of February earlier. We served that notice on the 5th of February and that was the required 21 days.

“If you are going to make any adjustment to that date, all you need is a letter, making an adjustment to the date. You don’t need another 21 days and that letter was since written about two weeks ago when we realised that we couldn’t hold it on the 26th of February. At that moment, the CECPC agreed on the 26th of March, that letter was written to INEC, INEC has accepted that letter. So that is long gone[and] is not an issue.”

He added, “the issue of the date of the convention is not in question, not in INEC, not certainly with us. That is settled. It is sacrosanct that 26th of March [the convention will hold] and we have complied with all the rules and we have notified INEC as appropriately expected for us to do that. So that’s no longer an issue.”

Meanwhile, in its earlier letter sighted by THE WHISTLER on Friday, INEC had asked the APC to be “reminded of the provision in Section 82(1) of the Electoral Act 2022, which requires at least 21 days’ notice of any convention, congress, conference, or meeting convened for the purpose of ‘merger’ and electing members of its executive committees, other governing bodies or nominating candidates for any elective office.”

Our correspondent had put several calls across to INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, for comment on the party’s remarks but the calls were not answered.