The three political parties merger that birthed the All Progressive Congress are to submit their certificates of registration to the Independent National Electoral Commission in April.
This would happen after they must have held special conventions to ratify their merger. The three parties are the Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change and the All Nigeria Peoples Party.
Investigations reveal that the merger committee for the three parties, headed by Chief Tom Ikimi on Wednesday morning, received the logo, motto and slogan of the yet-to-be registered party. Also submitted were the drafts of manifesto, constitution and INEC/legal compliance from the three committees, which were given two weeks deadline to submit their reports when they were inaugurated a few days ago.
The National Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who is also a member of the merger committee, briefed journalists in Abuja on Wednesday that the new party’s logo, slogan and motto were unanimously adopted after the meeting of the larger committee and the opposition alliance governors which ended late on Tuesday night.
He said contrary to the rumors in some quarters the logo, slogan and motto were not imposed on the new party by the governors. He said the committee worked in harmony with the alliance governors and that there was no member of the committee that objected to the logo, slogan or motto when they were presented for adoption at the meeting.
Mohammed said, “Only the merger committee has the final authority on any issue about the proposed merger. “The governors explained that all their decisions arrived at in their own meeting was presented to the larger committee for approval and we all deliberated on them and arrived at a consensus on the grounds that there must be give and take by all the intending merger political parties. “Amazingly, at Tuesday’s meeting, there was no descent from any group after the meeting of the governors with the merger committee.”
