The Interview Editors
One of the 74 political parties deregistered by the Independent National Electoral Commission, Abundant Renewal Party (ANRP), has said it will challenge the INEC decision in court.
Tope Fasua, the chairman of the party, made this known to The Interview on Thursday shortly after INEC announced that it had deregistered 74 political parties ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Fasua, who also ran as the party’s presidential candidate in 2019, said deregistering ANRP because the party contested once and did not win is draconian and would only encourage the win-at-all-costs politics in Nigeria.
He said, “We will go to court. I have always made it clear about it.
INEC criteria is that we contested once, we did not win once.
So on the basis of one contest, they are saying that if you don’t win by all means and we are not in the winning by all game. We participated, we contested and we did not win.
I don’t believe we should be hung for that.
“But we fulfilled the other requirements when they came to crosscheck what we have on ground. The little investment we have made in Nigeria is justified.
They are just bullying us and that is typical of the APC government. Even the PDP was not this draconian. Just as they removed the Chief justice, they can do anything.”
