The intrigues over the tussle for the registration of the acronym APC with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) heightened on Thursday a third party with acronym APC emerged. The party is called All Patriotic Citizens.
The new APC in a letter to INEC dated March 8 and written by their national Director of Operations, Mr. Oliver Chidi Ike, the party sought registration saying they were formed two years ago as a pressure group.
They further unveiled their logo, manifesto and constitution in Abuja to newsmen.
This comes as the African People’s Congress, APC, same day unveiled its logo, Constitution, emblem and the other All Progressive Congress (APC) comprising the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) vowing not to relinquish the name, insisting that it is their intellectual property, which they had announced on February 6, 2013.
The merging APC has since accused INEC as working together with the PDP to sabotage their effort by giving audience to another party seeking registration under same acronym.
But addressing a press conference in Abuja, the Acting National Chairman of African Peoples Congress, Chief Onyinye Ikeagwuonu rubbished the allegation that the African peoples congress was hurriedly floated by the members of the peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to scuttle the registration of All Progressives Congress, stressing that if the PDP had performed well there would have not been any need to float his APC.
Corroborating, the Legal adviser Mr. Kingsley Nnadi said no group can lay claim to the acronym APC except them adding that any other group making claim to the acronym APC had not made any official request to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
He said “My party has no link with PDP, in fact, our intension is to take over power from the ruling party. If PDP is ruling well, there would have been no need to come up. We are out because PDP has failed to touch the lives of Nigerian.
“We have just one APC (African Peoples Congress), the other one is not existing and INEC is aware of our party. The other APC only did merely negotiation, but we started our party over two years ago with the documents submitted to the INEC we have met the requirement of the constitution and the Electoral Act.
“I believe that the unveiling of our party today, has finally put to rest the contention over APC, which one is authentic or not and we are waiting for INEC’s reply. We have our offices in over 26 states of the federation including our national headquarters and our support is massive,” he said.
Ikeagwuonu further lamented the poverty of leadership in the country since 1999, saying that the APC was on a rescue mission.
He added that government at federal, state and local levels had failed to cleanse Nigeria of corruption regardless of the party at the helm of affairs.
“The PDP, ACN, CPC, ANPP, etc have remorselessly squandered the goodwill of Nigerians. While infrastructure suffers in the states with the economy of the states wound round monthly allocations and diverted council funds.”
He said.
He called on the Economic and Financial crimes Commission, EFCC, to urgently investigate the sources of funds used to purchase private jets by some state governors and also condemned what he called the desperation of some people for power in the country.
But the merging APC, rising from their meeting same day said prior to their adoption of the name APC, they had done their research o existing names of all political parties with extant registration in Nigeria and finding out that none had the All progressive Congress nor the acronym APC “we chose the name and unvieled it.”
Speaking on behalf of the merging APC after a press conference, Chief Tom Ikimi, said “thus by that public announcement the name All Progressive Congress and the acronym APC became our intellectual property which we shall guard religiously.”
He continued “in the circumstance, our message is very clear, we have informed the whole world of our decision to merge under the name All Progressive Congress with the acronym APC. We are determined to pursue the process to its logical conclusion in the interest of our dear fatherland.
The feeble attempt by any entity to pretend to use the same acronym is an exercise in futility which must fail because it amounts to what in law is called passing off”.