Interim Chairman of the yet-to-be-registered Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Dr Frederick Fasehun, said on Sunday that the party was waiting for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to invite it to receive its certificate of registration.
Fasehun said in Lagos that the party had “fulfilled the conditions for registration as contained in the nation’s constitution.”
“It is the prerequisite of INEC to register us within 30 days but there is an electoral law that says if within 30 days the commission fails to write to us, such a party should deem itself registered.
“So what we are doing now is, we are not just waiting for registration, we are waiting to be invited for our certificate,’’ Fasehun said.
Fasehun, also the founder of the Odu’a People’s Congress (OPC), said that without the certificate, the party could not operate as a political party and actualise its programmes as required by law.
INEC had on April 29 acknowledged the receipt of an Ecobank cheque No. 130905 for N1 million as a non-refundable registration fee from the UPN.
UPN was inaugurated by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1978 following the lifting of ban on party politics by the military government.
Awolowo contested presidential election twice in 1979 and 1983, while the party won all the governorship seats in the South-West before it was banned alongside other parties in December 1983 following a coup d’état.
