“We came first!”: Newly Discovered APC Challenges Merging APC

The tussle between the merging parties and the African Progressive Congress (APC) took a new dimension on Thursday, as the sponsors of the new party unveiled its logo and went ahead to deny having any link with the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP).
Things have also been further compounded by new facts that showed that the electoral commission has had two communications with the new party, aside the original letter of the new party dated February 28. In another letter to the new party, dated March 7 and signed by Abdulahi Kaugama, INEC had forwarded 20 copies of the commission‘s prescribed Form PA 1 for completion and return to the commission, while the new party, in another letter dated March 13, required documents as prescribed in the INEC registration forms. The new party distributed the completed forms to newsmen at the unveiling yesterday.

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony at the party secretariat, located at Apo area of Abuja, the acting national chairman of African Peoples Congress, Chief Onyinye Ikeagwuonu, said “the PDP, ACN, CPC, ANPP, etc. have remorselessly squandered the goodwill of Nigerians, with infrastructure down and the economy of the states woven mainly around monthly allocations and diverted council funds.

“Our main objective is to entrench a system that is centered on the people: to reclaim our crumbling institutions and failing nation; and to give Nigerians reasons to believe again,” adding that “Nigerians now have a party that is committed to rebuilding Nigeria.” Commenting on the controversy surrounding the name APC, the legal adviser, Mr Kingsley Nnadi, said that the new party had not broken any law nor contravene the constitution by adopting its name and acronym, adding “that any other group laying claim to the acronym APC had not made any official request to the Independent National Electoral Commission before us.“