Supreme Court Upholds The Deregistration Of 74 Political Parties

The Supreme Court has affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal which upheld the deregistration of the National Unity Part and 73 others.

Last year, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deregistered the parties over their failure to win any election during the 2019 general election.

In a judgment delivered by Justice Adamu Jauri, the Nigeria apex court maintained that the deregistration of the NUP and other political parties was done in line with the law and compliance with the extant provisions of the Constitution and Electoral Act.

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In the appeal before the Supreme Court, NUP challenged the deregistration of the party by INEC at the Federal High court and the Court of Appeal.

The Abuja Division of the Appeal Court on July 29, 2020, affirmed the power of the electoral commission to deregister the political parties.

Delivering the lead judgment of a panel of the court, Justice Mohammed Idris, held that INEC did not err in law in the deregistration of the National Unity Party, which filed the appeal.

The court upheld the judgment of Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja which had earlier in May 2020 nullified the deregistration of NUP and 73 other political parties for being in breach of section 225(a)of the Nigeria Constitution.

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The said constitutional provision spells out the minimum election victory a party must record or percentage of votes it must poll to sustain its status as a registered political party.

INEC, in deregistering the affected 74 political parties in February 2020 stated that they failed to meet the minimum requirement to enable them to remain in existence.