The blame that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) failed to recognise the new leadership of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) has been laid at the party’s doorstep.
The leadership of the ADC which is in dispute controversially changed hands with the National Chairman, Ralph Nwosu stepping down for former Senate President David Mark while Rauf Aregbesola and Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi are made the party’s National Secretary and Publicity Secretary respectively.
The step which polarised the party has seen INEC not recognising the new leadership, a situation latest report by The Nation, citing sources in the electoral body is due to failure of the party leadership to supply INEC with the report of its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting that ratified its emergence.
“INEC has no problem with ADC at all. It only asked the party to comply with minor but vital guidelines.
“The ADC leadership, including Ralph Nwosu, met with the INEC Chairman on Tuesday to find out was delaying the recognition of the new leaders of the party.
“The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Bolaji Abdullahi, was part of the delegation.
“As at the time the ADC team came, the party was yet to submit the report of its National Executive Committee (NEC), which ratified the new leadership, to INEC.
“It was only on Thursday that ADC said it had forwarded the report, and there was public holiday on Friday.
“We have not got specimen signatures of the new National Chairman, Sen. David Mark, the National Secretary, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and other key leaders of the party.
“The excuse they gave was that Senator Mark travelled abroad for medical treatment.
“More importantly, the former National Chairman of ADC, Ralph Nwosu, was still holding on to the party.
“After notifying INEC of leadership changes, he was still signing all correspondences.
“He has been approbating and reprobating on ADC. And we have to be circumspect in acting on ADC without a formal report of NEC meeting. We, therefore, retained him in our records as the national Chairman of the party.
“So, you can see that INEC has no problem with ADC at all. Once the party complies fully with the requirements, INEC will issue an official statement,” it quoted the unnamed sources as saying.
