ABUJA — It was a landmark victory for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday as the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal which upheld the deregistration of 74 political parties by the Electoral Commission.
INEC, in deregistering the affected 74 political parties in February 2020, stated that they failed to meet the minimum requirement to win any election during the 2019 general elections.
The constitutional provision spells out the minimum election victory a party must record or percentage of votes it must score to sustain its status as a registered political party.
The National Unity Party (NUP) and the 73 others had challenged the deregistration by INEC at the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal.
The Abuja division of the Appeal Court had on July 29, 2020 affirmed INEC’s powers to deregister political parties.
In the judgment prepared by Justice Chima Nweze, the apex court said the deregistration of the National Unity Party (NUP) and the 73 others were done in line with the law and compliance with the extant provisions of the constitution and the Electoral Act.
Delivering the lead judgment of a panel of the court, Justice Adamu Jairo held that INEC did not err in law in deregistering the NUP which filed the appeal.
The court then faulted the judgment of Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja which had earlier in May canceled the deregistration of the NUP and the 73 other political parties for being in breach of Section 225(a) of the constitution.
After Justice Taiwo’s judgment on the NUP in May, other judges of the Federal High Court in Abuja had also upheld the deregistration of almost 40 other affected parties.
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