A federal High Court sitting in Abuja has granted an order of substituted service by pasting at the secretariat of Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, court processes in the suit filed by pro-democracy activist, Mr Richard Akinnola.

Mr. Akinnola is challenging the registration of UPN and SDP as political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

In an originating summons filed before the court, Mr. Akinnola is praying the court to nullify the purported registration granted the two parties on the account of having been proscribed and dissolved by existing laws.

He also wants the court to determine whether INEC has power to resuscitate proscribed and dissolved parties without first repealing the laws that proscribed them.

The plaintiff argued that UPN and SDP were outlawed out of existence by the Political Parties Dissolution Decrees of 1984 and 1993 respectively.

Akinnola wants the court to determine whether political parties dissolved or prohibited by an existing law from acting as political parties can function or act as parties without the repeal of the law that proscribed them.

He wants the court to declare that having been duly dissolved by virtue of existing laws of 1984 and 1993 are no longer political parties in the country and cannot function as such.

He also wants the court to declare that INEC cannot validly or lawfully register the two parties in the face of the existing laws that legally dissolved them.

He is therefore seeking for order of court compelling INEC to de-register the two parties and its agents, officers, servants and privies by whomsoever from recognizing or treating UPN and SDP as political parties in the country.

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