The President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists
President and Council Members of the NIPR
The Executive Director of the International Press Centre
Media Executives and Heads of Various Media Organizations
Editors and Senior Journalists
National Commissioners of INEC
Other Senior Officials of the Commission
The Chairman and Members of the INEC Press Corps
Ladies and Gentlemen
1. I welcome you all to our second regular quarterly consultative meeting for the year 2025. You may recall that our first quarterly meeting was held on Friday 7th February 2025. Let me therefore express the Commission’s appreciation to you for always responding to our invitation to these important consultative meetings.
2. Today’s meeting is holding in the middle of two electoral activities. First is the conduct of primaries for the Area Council election in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) which, by our Timetable and Schedule of Activities, ends on Monday 30th June 2025. As you are aware, the election will be held in 68 constituencies made up of Chairmen and their Deputies for the six Area Councils, namely Abaji, the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Bwari, Gwagwalada, Kuje and Kwali as well as 62 Wards drawn on the basis of 10 Wards for each Area Council, except AMAC which has 12 Wards on account of its population. The full delimitation details for the FCT are available on our website.
3. The second electoral activity is the forthcoming Anambra State Governorship election. Again, as you are already aware, campaign in public by political parties commenced exactly two weeks ago on 11th June 2025 and will continue until midnight of Thursday 6th November 2025 i.e. 24 hours prior to Election Day.
4. The Commission will continue to update you on these and other electoral activities. I urge you to monitor these activities. At the same time, I wish to appeal to you to promptly upload your applications for accreditation of media personnel for the Anambra State Governorship election holding on Saturday 8th November 2025 as soon as the portal opens so that we can process and deliver your accreditation tags well ahead of the election.
5. Clearly, one of the topical issues on election administration in our country today is the status of the letters of intent we received from associations seeking registration as political parties amidst partisan insinuations in some quarters that the Commission is equivocating on the matter in a manner that compromises our independence. Nothing can be further from the truth. Nigerians may recall that the same unfounded accusation was made under similar circumstances in 2013 that the Commission was not keen on the proposed merger of political parties because INEC had “merged with the ruling party” at the time.
6. For the record, the present Commission registered the largest number of political parties in Nigeria strictly following the provision of the electoral legal framework. For the 2019 General Election, there were 91 political parties and 73 presidential candidates. The Commission was criticised in some quarters for registering too many political parties. After the election, the Commission also deregistered over 70 political parties as provided by law. We wish to reassure Nigerians that under the current situation, we will continue to be guided by law and act with fairness to all associations seeking registration as political parties. We will treat all requests fairly irrespective of the status of their promoters, be they ordinary or prominent citizens. Nigerians will be fully briefed of the actions taken by the Commission every step of the way.
7. As at Monday, 23rd June 2025, the Commission has received letters of intent from 110 associations that wish to register as political parties. We are diligently processing the requests in line with the procedure outlined in the law as well as our Regulations and Guidelines. We have acknowledged all requests received so far except six of them received recently which will be done before the end of the week. For emphasis, I wish to inform Nigerians, particularly those interested in registering new political parties, that the handbook containing the Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties 2022is already available on the Commission’s website.
8. Meanwhile, the Commission is today releasing the full list of the 110 associations seeking registration as political parties indicating their proposed names, acronyms, addresses and the names of their protem Chairmen and Secretaries. For transparency and public information, the list will be uploaded to our website and social media platforms shortly while hard copies are included in your folders for this meeting.
9. I cannot conclude my Remarks without briefing you on the conduct of outstanding bye-elections and the resumption of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR). I am glad to announce that the Commission is now in a position to conduct the bye-elections and to resume the nationwide CVR. The Commission met yesterday and we are finalising the details of the two activities which will be made public in the next 24 hours. As usual we look forward to your support.
10. On this note, I welcome you once again to this meeting. I thank you and God bless.