TheCable

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare vacant the seats of lawmakers elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

In a statement by Kola Ologbondiyan, its spokesman, the opposition party also asked INEC to officially deregister APC.

He was reacting to the dissolution of the APC’s party structures by the national executive committee (NEC) of the party on Tuesday.

Ologbondiyan, who said APC no longer has an operational structure required by law, added that December 8, 2020, should be remembered as a “liberation day” for Nigerians “as their tormentor for five years has finally dissolved out of our political firmament”.

“The APC being overburdened by the weight of failure, humongous corruption as well as the plagues of economic recession, violence, killings and hardship it has brought to our people, forcefully exited itself from the nation’s political firmament by dissolving all its national, zonal and state structures,” he said.

“With this exit, December 8, 2020 has gone into the history of our nation as liberation day, especially given the spontaneous jubilation by Nigerians over this step towards political oblivion by a political party that has brought so much pain on them.

“Now that the APC has become defunct, the PDP invites the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to officially deregister the APC and recall its certificate of registration, given that it no longer has operational structures as required by law.

“In the same vein, INEC should immediately declare the seat of all lawmakers elected on the platform of APC at the federal and state levels as vacant and commence the process of bye-election to fill the seats, as required by law.

“Furthermore, government agencies, civil society organizations, as well as the international community, should immediately gazette the APC as a defunct political organization in our country.”

He asked leaders of “the fizzled APC to get ready to answer Nigerians for their misdeeds, and not to think they can get away with their atrocities by forming or joining another political party”.