The long-awaited merger of opposition political parties into a stronger entity came to fruition yesterday with the announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission of the registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
INEC said APC's application was successful and was therefore granted, days after media reports said there was a plot to refuse the merger on the grounds of a court case.
"The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has approved the application by three political parties - the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) - to merge into one, to be known as the All Progressives Congress," INEC's out-going secretary Abdullahi Kaugama said in a statement.
"On considering the application, the commission found that the applicant-parties have met all statutory requirements for the merger, and has accordingly granted their request.
"Consequently, the commission has approved the withdrawal of the individual certificates of the applicant-parties, and the issuance of a single certificate to the All Progressives Congress."
There was no mention of the faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), led by Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha, which is aligned with the APC.
INEC's statement came a day after the commission said its decision on APC would be made public today, following reports on Saturday that some officials sympathetic to the ruling People's Democratic Party were plotting to have the opposition's application refused.
Though analysts say the new party represents a strong challenge to the PDP ahead of the 2015 elections, the ruling party remains dominant at all levels of political leadership in the country.
APC has 11 of the 36 state governors against PDP's 23, 32 senators to PDP's 72 and 134 members of the House of Representatives against PDP's 214. These include APGA elected officials who have publicly aligned with the APC.
But APC is upbeat. It hailed the registration yesterday, saying the new party represents an alternative to the PDP.
In a statement in Lagos, APC's interim spokesman Lai Mohammed said "with the birth of APC, Nigerians now have an alternative to a ruling party that has taken the people for a bad ride in the past 14 years."
"With the approval of our merger by INEC and the emergence of APC, today marks the beginning of a new dawn for our country and her long-suffering people.
"We thank Nigerians both here and in the Diaspora for standing by us. We thank the media for their fairness, and we commend INEC for doing the right thing and for not succumbing to pressures from phantom political associations that sought to force it to circumvent the law.
"We promise not to disappoint Nigerians who have reposed much confidence in us. We say that contrary to the lies being peddled by the naysayers, we are not seeking political power for the sake of getting it, but in order to use it to empower our people and allow their long-nursed hopes and dreams to become a reality," Mohammed added.
APC said it would in the days ahead announce its membership registration plans "to give all Nigerians, especially those who have become disenchanted with the way things are going in the country, the much-awaited opportunity to be part of
the country's democratic process in the true sense of the word.
"'We will also be unveiling our plans to turn today's hopelessness into a time of great opportunities, to reverse the downward slide in our socio-economic development, and to ensure that every Nigerian benefits from the commonwealth, instead of the present situation in which a few fat cats are milking the system dry at the expense of the citizenry."
But PDP said, while it welcomes APC's registration, the new party poses no threat.
In a statement, acting national publicity secretary Tony Caesar Okeke said: "This is very healthy for our democracy. We hope that from now the opposition will eschew all forms of bitterness and desperation and desist from politics of propaganda which characterised their former parties."
He said registration of the new party poses no threat to the PDP and that the ruling party still maintains its "pre-eminent position and enjoys the widest popularity and acceptance among Nigerians across the country."
Okeke added: "We hope to see a vibrant opposition that will constructively engage the PDP on issues of governance in a way that Nigerians will be the utmost beneficiaries instead of overheating the polity by promoting violence and hatred among the people."
He said Nigerians are not deceived by the change of flag by the opposition as this does not remove their "dictatorial tendencies and penchant for deceit and propaganda".
In its reaction, the Presidency said APC's registration would deepen the nation's democracy.
Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Political Matters, Barrister Ahmed Gulak, told Daily Trust by telephone that the Presidency had never been opposed to the registration of APC.
"The Presidency has never been against the registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In fact, we have always believed that the smaller parties need to come together so that we can deepen democracy and ensure that political parties are not run like personal estates," he said.
Long walk
ACN and CPC's efforts to work together began ahead of the 2011 general election but were botched because of irreconcilable differences then.
The talks were revived last year, with the two parties opting for merger. The ANPP was then brought into the discussions, and later a faction of APGA also came on.
Signs that the merger talks were serious this time came when opposition party governors met on January 29 in Lagos where they announced their support for the plans.
On February 5, leaders of the merger teams of the parties involved announced agreeing to the merger and unveiled the APC name in Abuja.
However, several hurdles propped up along the way to yesterday's regulatory approval for the new party. Rival groups claiming the APC name came up, quickly filing papers with INEC to claim the name ahead of the opposition parties.
Later on, one of the APCs slowed down but the other took its case to court when INEC rejected its application on the grounds of non-fulfilment of constitutional requirements.
It was this court case that almost scuttled the opposition parties' bid, according to reports on Saturday. INEC had said, however, there was no court injunction before it on the merger of the APC parties.
APC now controls Borno, Yobe, Zamfara, Nasarawa, Lagos, Ekiti, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Edo and Imo states.
Reports during the year had said some aggrieved PDP governors and many National Assembly members were looking to defecting to APC when it gets registered. Some of the governors have publicly denied such moves, while others were not specific in their comments on the reports.
Andrew Agbese, Abbas Jimoh, Isiaka Wakili and Ibrahim Kabir Sule
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