First, the truth is that no political party wrote to notify us that it is planning to merge with some other political parties until the past five days or so.
“Therefore, it not true that we were notified. The issue became serious when one group came out to seek registration and …I guess that was what made them write and notify us. But that is not the issue. The main issue is that there are guidelines for registering political parties which want to merge to become a new party. There are also guidelines for individuals or groups which want to form a political party for registration.
“The guidelines for registering a new political party are different from that of registered political parties which want to merge. For registered political parties which want to merge, they must have agreed to merge and each of the political parties in the merger must hold a convention and agree to withdraw their registration as a political party to become part of the new party to be formed through the merger.
“After their conventions, they are expected to write and request INEC to withdraw their former registration and say they want to join a new party. In spite of all the controversies, none of these political parties which want to merge has held their convention.
“We only read in the newspapers that they have the intention of merging and nobody wrote us until about five or six days ago. If anybody wants to register a political party, you are expected to tell INEC of your intention by saying that you want to register a party with so and so name and you want to know the procedure for doing so.
“Only one group came. The group asked one lawyer to write INEC saying it wants to form a political party with a particular name and it wants to know the rules and procedures for registration as a political party.“..