Admin l Friday, May 07, 2021
ABUJA, Nigeria – The National Unity Party(NUP) and 73 political parties battling with the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) for deregistering them lost the battle at the Supreme Court on Friday, when the court ruled in favour of INEC.
The NUP and other parties had gone to court after INEC deregistered them and excluded them from the 2019 general election.
But Justice Adamu Jauro, who read the judgment affirmed the decision of the Appeal Court and held that the de-registration of NUP and 73 other parties, was done in line with the law and in compliance with the extant provisions of the Constitution and Electoral Act.
Recall that the Appeal Court had in July 2020 affirmed the powers of the INEC to deregister political parties. Justice Mohammed Idris had held that INEC did not err in law in the deregistration of NUP, which filed the appeal.
In deregistering the parties, INEC said the parties failed to meet the minimum requirement to enable them to remain in existence.
