The president of the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC), High Chief Peter Ameh, has described Monday’s Federal High Court interlocutory injunction granted to the 31 political parties as triumph of citizens’ rights to freedom of association.
The 31parties had last May challenged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at the Federal High Court Abuja, praying the court to stop INEC from de-registering the parties.
According to the IPAC president, who doubles as national chairman of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), the court ruling has reinstated the 74 de-registered political parties.
The IPAC president noted that with the ruling, the INEC had lost the right to deregister political parties.
He commended members of the council for not taking laws into their hands while the matter lasted adding that INEC’s action of deregistering the parties penultimate week was provocative.
He also stressed that the significance of the court ruling indicated that the political parties believed in the rule of the law.
The IPAC president stated that with the ruling the right to freedom of association would be reinforced as INEC would no longer deregister parties unlawfully.
“We are speaking in favour of the unborn Nigerians who will have the right to associate. We believe in the spirit and letters of the law. We approached the Court last May to be able to defend that right to make sure that every Nigerian will not afraid to belong to an association would be registered unlawfully and in that light we went court.
“We were provoked when this thing happened (party de-registration) and we said we will not be provoked to do the wrong thing, that we stand for the law. Now INEC has been stopped from saying that the parties have been de-registered.
Some 31 parties went to court, 41 were not in court but the decision of the court today said the 31 and all others that were purportedly de-registered remain registered political parties.”
