Atiku, El-Rufai’s ADA yet to meet registration requirements – INEC

Independent National Electoral Commission says the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) seeking registration as a political party has yet to fulfil prerequisites for registration.

INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mr Sam Olumekun, disclosed this while speaking at an interactive session with newsmen in Abuja.

Olumekun said while the electoral body had received numerous letters of intent, none of them had met the requirements that would qualify them for a formal application for registration.

“The truth is that we have so many letters of intent presently and none of them is an application yet. They must first meet the criteria before submitting a letter of intent,” Olumekun said.

The development comes as the ADA proponents omitted the word ‘electoral’ from their letter addressed to the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The application, dated June 19, was addressed to “The Chairman, Independent National Commission (INEC), 436, Zambezi Crescent, Maitama, Abuja FCT.”

The letter was co-signed by the protem National Chairman of ADA, Akin Ricketts, and protem National Secretary, Abdullahi Musa Elayo, respectively.

Among opposition politicians linked to the ADA initiative are former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former governors Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), former Senate President David Mark, and Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi.

But INEC stressed that there is no shortcut to party registration, saying associations seeking political party status must comply strictly with the procedures outlined in the 2022 Electoral Act and INEC’s internal guidelines.

Meanwhile, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, is expected to meet with leaders of the 19 registered political parties at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.

The event is part of the consultative stakeholders’ meeting that also includes the media, civil society organisations and the nation’s security agencies, under the coordination of Prof. Yakubu and the National Security advyiser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, who are co-chairmen of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES).

It was gathered from a senior INEC official that the commission’s Chairman would speak on ADA and related issues during Thursday’s meeting.