Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The Inter-Party Adversary Council (IPAC) has described the court judgement stopping the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from deregistering political parties as a victory for democracy and the unborn generation.
National Chairman of the council, Peter Ameh who made the comment while addressing newsmen shortly after the ruling, said that late Gani Fawehinmi gave the 33 political parties that went to court the courage.
He insisted that there was no way the commission would have succeeded in the illegality it perpetrated against the parties and the fundamental human rights of Nigerians.
“We have every reason to thank everybody who stood against this illegality especially Okey Raph Nwosu, who despite his party scaling the deregistration hurdle, still joined in the suit because he believes in democracy.
“We believe in the spirit of the constitution as stated in section 40 which gives Nigerians the right to freely belong to any political association and the Constitution stipulates that no agency of government can restrict that right.
“We started this case since last year when we saw that there was plan to put Nigeria upside down. It is our right to defend the constitution through Section 225 to challenge the Commission to stop it from taking this illegal action.
“INEC should know that if the interest of a political party is to talk about free education, the party should be allowed. If the interest is to talk about tree planting in the North East, it should be allowed to continue with it.
The viability of a political party should not be restricted to winning election alone. A political party is about education and civic mobilisation.
“The ruling of the court today is victory for democracy, victory for the unborn generation, victory for the sustainability and development of our country. It is a victory for the judiciary that will ensure that Nigerians should not result in protest that can cause disaffection among ourselves,” he said.
Speaking further, Ameh who was surrounded by several IPAC members, said: “Today is the day that we honour Gani Fawehinmi for standing against dictatorship, against the expansion of the democratic space.
“We honour him because it is his own spirit that gave us the courage to fight. The IPAC has today decided to give him a post hummus award,” he said.
“33 parties went to court nine months ago, but two of those parties went on solidarity to support us because they were not deregistered by INEC.
“The ruling is that the court stopped INEC from deregistering the 33 political parties that went to court and others. The court made it clear that the deregistration was illegal and restrained it from carrying its action,” he said.