There are indications that mega oppposition party, All Progressives Congress, is considering a name change should the African People’s Congress beat it to the APC acronym.
Both political associations are laying claim to the acronym in their bid to be recognised as political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
SUNDAY PUNCH gathered that APC may add the alphabet “N” (which will stand for Nigeria) to its version of APC, to distinguish it from any other.
A prominent member of the association said adding ‘N’ to the acronym will solve the controversy.
“We may just add ‘N’ to our acronym if this matter drags on for too long. We find it diversionary.”
However, National Publicity Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change, Rotimi Fashakin, said the name change was speculative.
He said, “Whatever anyone tells you about our merger now is speculative and untrue. We have said it over and again that the acronym APC is our intellectual property, whatever the PDP and its agents in the system are doing to frustrate our registration will not succeed.”
Also speaking on the issue, National Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Mr. Lai Mohammed, said the All Progressive Congress would not change its name.
He said, “It is a big lie. We are not changing our name. We are sticking to our name.”
Calls made to the mobile telephone number of the National Publicity Secretary of the All Nigeria People’s Party, Mr. Emma Enekwu, did not go through. He also did not respond to a text message sent to him.
When one of our correspondents contacted the Chief Press Secretary to the National Chairman of INEC, Mr. Kayode Idowu, he said, “No comment.”
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said on Saturday that the commission was neither aware nor frustrating the registration of the All Progressives Congress.
Jega who spoke on the Hausa programme, Hanu Dayawa, in Kaduna which was monitored by our correspondent on Saturday , noted that the APC officially notified the commission of their intention to merge into a political party about six days ago.
JD:It is obvious that the APC has allowed itself to be distracted by the registeration process.Indeed I beleive that the APC should have finished all the registeration processes and gotten its party registered before making a formal announcement of the party name;just like one would want to register a company before commencing business.The APC has a large task ahead of it and the last thing it wants to do is allow the opposition distract it over less important issues
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