The spirited battle for survival by the African Peoples Congress (APC) today came to end as Nigeria’s electoral umpire, theIndependent National Electoral Commission (INEC) finally rejected its application for registration.

Although the African Peoples Congress (APC) was the first to approach INEC for registration, the commission after, initial grandstanding, appears to have bowed to pressure from the emergent mega party All Peoples Congress, which claimed that the acronym APC is its intellectual property.

The decision to deny the African Peoples Congress registration was communicated to party leaders today via a letter signed by its Secretary, Alhaji Abdullahi Kaugama.

Theletter addressed toAfrican Peoples Congress protem chairman, Chief Onyinye Ikeagwuonu, was entitled “Re-Application for Registration as a political party.” The letter said as follows:

“Your application for registration as a political party dated28th February, 2013refers. The Commission has observed that your association is in breach of Section 222 (a) of the Constitution of the Federal republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) which stipulates as follows:

“No association by whatever name called shall function as a political party unless; the names and addresses of its national officers are registered with the Independent National Electoral Commission. A close observation of your submitted form PA 1 established that it does not contain the addresses of your national officers as stipulated in the provisions above.

“Consequently, the commission shall not register the proposed African Peoples Congress (APC) as a political party.”

Reacting to the development, Chief Ikeagwuonu in a statement in Abuja dismissed it as “a rape of our democracy which we in APC would resist with everything we have got.”

He reiterated his party’s claim of March 21 that INEC was about to bow to pressure from a “Lagos mafia” to deny his party registration through “black market transaction.”

The African Peoples Congress protem chairman vowed that his party would challenge the decision in court, disclosing that upwards of 30 lawyers have already undertaken to offer the party free legal services in this regard.

•Photo: INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega.