Chief Gani Fawehinmi was a rebel with a cause. He fought the powers that foisted an unjust society on the people, mainly, as an outsider to power. But at some point in his life, he thought it made more sense to wrest power from those who used it to administer injustice, transform it, and use it to give happiness and hope to the great majority. This thinking led Fawehinmi to form the National Conscience Party (NCP) on October 1, 1994. NCP was formed despite a ban on political parties by the military government. Of course, he had a good season of arrest, detention, and court actions thereafter.
NCP was formed as a national platform for the actualisation of the June 12 struggle and a base for genuine pursuit of change in the country.
He became presidential candidate of NCP on April 22, 2002, his 64th birthday.
The registration of NCP as a political party followed a judicial struggle.
Millions of Nigerians who looked up to NCP to salvage Nigeria and restore lost hope were shocked to learn that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not list it as one of the registered parties.
Thousands of people, young and old, male and female, cutting across ethnic and religious backgrounds, expressed disgust at what they believed was an INEC Aso-Rock inspired decision.
Politically, the NCP has presence in every state of the federation. The party, being the oldest political party when compared to the three initial parties, namely, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Peoples Part (APP), which is not All Nigeria Peoples Party, and Alliance for Democracy (AD) – which the military imposed on the country.
NCP is a party for struggle – to emancipate the Nigerian people from socio-economic and political enslavement. The common people of Nigeria have been identifying with the party since 1994. This was reflected in the State-by-State membership forms and files of correspondences with members, which INEC officials verified on 18th June 2002 in Abuja.
One major way in which the 1999 Constitution provides that association seeking registration are not limited to a part only of Nigeria is by ensuring that membership of the NEC reflects federal character. Federal character is reflected in the NEC of NCP by observing the constitutional provision that says NEC members must be from States not being less in number than two-thirds of the States of the Federation including Abuja. The NEC of NCP is made up of 35 Nigerians from 31 States of the Federation as follows:
Ondo - 2
Edo - 2
Imo - 1
Osun - 1
Bauchi - 1
Kaduna - 1
Plateau - 1
Ogun - 1
Oyo - 1
Abuja - 1
Nasarrawa - 1
Zamfara - 1
Delta - 1
Rivers - 1
Abia - 2
Sokoto - 1
Niger - 1
Ekiti - 1
Kwara - 1
Borno - 1
Enugu - 1
Akwa Ibom - 2
Bayelsa - 1
Ebonyi - 1
Kebbi - 1
Katsina - 1
Kogi - 1
Benue - 1
Anambra - 1
Cross River - 1
Lagos - 1
- Blogger Comment
- Facebook Comment
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
0 comments:
Post a Comment