Crisis within the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) had further degenerated as the High Chief Peter Ameh led faction and the Seven- man Interim Management Committee faction led by Dr Leonard Nzenwa spoke at cross purposes issuing directives and counter directives.
The two factions on Wednesday addressed two press conferences at two different locations in Abuja.
While the Ameh led IPAC executive held that INEC proceeded in error to deregister parties since the matter is still pending in court, it also stressed that the code of conduct establishing IPAC did not make provision for an Interim Management Committee which now parades itself as the Councils executive.
Chairman of the Interim Management Committee, Leonard Nzenwa at his press conference however said “the Interim Management Committee steering affairs of the 18 registered political parties in the country will not detain itself not to undertake crucial functions beholden to it to exercise towards promoting dialogue and adjudicating between and/among the political parties and several stakeholders seeking to reach out and engage with registered political parties under the banner of IPAC.
He said the interim committee was “driven by this overriding need to ensure an environment conducive for successful elections going forward, and also for the greater obligatory requirement not to create vacuum in our electoral system and in the leadership of IPAC by ceasing not to act while the political system is brought to a halt on account of the deregistration of the 74 political parties.”
Nzenwa said, “a 360 degrees engagement(s) needs to be activated without delay to collectively engage with INEC and other core and adjunct stakeholders saddled with the responsibility of planning, coordinating, supervising , monitoring and managing elections matter in the country.”
It therefore directed state chapters “to amicably replicate the institution of an Interim Management Committee to oversee affairs of the council in their respective states pending when election is to be conducted.”
But the second Vice Chairman of IPAC, Hon Eyiowawi Razaq of the Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN) while addressing another press conference on behalf of the Ameh led faction described the Interim Management Committee as illegal urging its membership at the state chapters to discountenace with their directive.
“The so-called press release today by the illegal committee and the instructions to state IPAC is childish, fraudulent, unlawful and absolutely illegal and it should be totally discarded.
“The 7-man committee is not known to IPAC code of conduct and as such the council is using this medium to instruct all executive members of IPAC accross the states of the federation to desist from taking such instructions.
“Take notice that the purported 7-man committee should be clearly guided that this kind of unlawful misconduct is punishable under the law,” he said
Eyiowawi stated that “Until the matter in court is concluded, High Chief Peter Ameh-led IPAC remains the lawful and legally constituted executives . Any instructions or comments that is not from the National Secretariat of the IPAC is absolutely invalid.”
He further said, “What INEC did by disregistering political parties when the issue of deregistration was before a competent court of law and therefore subjudice is what the Supreme Court of Nigeria described as self help in the case of Ojukwu vs Lagos State Government and therefore illegal null and void.”
