By SCM Correspondent
ABUJA — The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Monday ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately deregister the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and four other political parties for failing to meet the mandatory constitutional requirements during the last general elections.
The affected political parties are the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Accord Party (A), Action Alliance (AA), Action Peoples Party (APP), and the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
Delivering judgement, Justice Peter Lifu held that the five political parties failed to secure the legally mandated 25 percent of votes in the recent elections, thereby breaching the provisions governing the continuous existence of political parties in Nigeria.
Consequently, Justice Lifu ordered INEC to scrub the identities of the five groups from the nation’s official register of political parties.
This judgement invokes Section 225A of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), which empowers the electoral umpire, INEC, to deregister political parties under specific conditions.
According to the fourth alteration to the constitution, a political party can lose its official status if it fails to win at least 25 percent of the votes cast in one State of the Federation during a Presidential election, or 25 percent of the votes cast in one Local Government Area during a Governorship election.
Parties can also be axed if they fail to win at least one seat in the National or State Assembly elections.
This is not the first time Nigeria’s political landscape has witnessed a massive pruning. Following the 2019 general elections, INEC wielded its constitutional powers to deregister 74 political parties for poor performance, leaving only 18 field-eligible parties.
While several of those axed parties challenged INEC’s powers in a prolonged legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court, the apex court ultimately affirmed the commission’s right to deregister underperforming parties to prevent an overcrowded ballot and streamline Nigeria’s democratic process.
Monday’s judicial directive signals another major consolidation of the country’s multi-party system, forcing smaller political blocs to either merge with dominant forces or face total extinction.
