Political Party De-registration or De-recognition: The Case of  Benin Republic and Guinea Bissau

Bola A. Akinterinwa

Deregistration is one of the sanctions often meted out to political parties when they breach any critical provision of the electoral code. Some electoral laws require that political parties secure a number of seats in the parliament to qualify to exist as a political party. Parties can also be required to meet certain constitutional performance benchmarks without which an infracting political party may be deregistered. When political parties are considered inactive, they can also be sanctioned. It was because of inactivity, in early 2025, that 53 inactive political parties were deregistered by the Electoral Commission in South Africa. The parties failed to renew their registrations, field candidates, respond to official enquiries, etc. Similarly, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ), and the Registrar of Societies are on record to have deregistered non-compliant parties for various reasons of not holding conventions, updating office bearers, and not providing officially required information.

More importantly, deregistration cannot take place if a political party had not initially been registered and recognized. Registration of political parties is the legal process enabling the electoral management bodies to guide the parties in the sponsoring of candidates, during elections, and when engaging in governance. In this regard, qualifications for registration vary from one country to another. However, some common requirements include the provision of a list of verifiable membership or sponsorship of the party; evidence of geographical spread of the party, a party constitution that must not only promote democratic culture and national unity, but that must also be consistent with the National Constitution of the country may be required. Payment of a non-refundable processing fee may also be required. 

Generally, the conditions required for registration are hardly the reasons for deregistration or de-recognition of a political party. Often, reasons for deregistration result from strategico-political calculations of a country’s leader or from parties’ infractions. But, most disturbingly, when political parties are deregistered, disorderliness and uncontrollable insecurity is often generated. This was the case in Guinea Bissau and Benin Republic in 2025.

De-registration in International Relations 

In Nigeria, there are six major requirements for the registration of an association to be recognized as a political party. First, a would-be political party must get and fill the INEC’s designated forms. Second is the payment of N50 million required as administrative processing costs. Third is the provision of evidence of reflection of Federal Character to show that there is no regional or ethnic dominance at the level of the party’s National and State Executive Committees. Fourth is that the party’s name and symbols must not be in conflict with an already registered and recognized political party. Besides, the names and symbols must not have any religious, professional, and ethnic connotation. Fifthly, the political association must show evidence of location of its national headquarters in the Federal Capital Territory. And sixthly, the association must show a membership list clearly reflecting openness to all Nigerians regardless of origin, ethnic, gender, and religion background. 

Apart from these main requirements, a political association must submit about fifty copies of application for registration as political party. The submission must include the names of all the National and State Executive Committee members, the minutes and proceedings of the meetings during which the executive members were elected. A copy of the association’s constitution must not only be provided, the minutes of the National Executive Committee that approved the wanted proposed name of the party, the constitution, the manifesto, and the logo, must also be provided. It is after the registration process has gone through the name search, that the association has also paid the application fee and submitted its forms, that the INEC has completed its 60-day verification process, and that the INEC is not left with any jot of doubt about the veracity of the information provided that an association can be officially registered as a political party. In this regard, a formal Certificate of Registration is issued. However, when such a Certificate is issued, it does not have a permanent character as it can always be withdrawn in the event of any identified infraction by the party. 

It should be recalled that it was the National Forum of Former Legislators (NFFL) that filed a case against the INEC, asking the court to make the INEC deregister five political parties on the consideration that the five parties had failed to meet the constitutional requirements of Section 225(a). On June 15, 2026 Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja gave an order to the Independent Electoral Commission to deregister five opposition political parties: African Democratic Congress (ADC), Accord (A), Action Alliance (AA), Action Peoples Party (APP), and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP). INEC is on record to have been against the case filed by the NFFL as a co-defendant in the matter. The same INEC agreed with the ruling of the appellate court that there should be a stay of execution of Justice Lifu’s judgment.

Court rulings and judgments are always very interesting in Nigeria, especially when concerning registration and recognition of political parties and qualifications to contest elections. As reported by the European Union election observers, the 21 April 2007 presidential elections were ‘the worst they had ever seen anywhere in the world.’ The elections were reportedly fraught with ‘rampant vote rigging, violence, theft of ballot boxes and intimidation. In fact, the INEC reportedly declared Alhaji Atiku Abubakar ineligible to contest in the presidential elections, considering that Nigeria’s Constitution barred any indicted candidate from running for any election. 

A High Court over-ruled that the INEC had no legal capacity to disqualify any candidate from contesting. The position of the Appeal Court was different: the INEC had the necessary powers to disqualify any indicted candidate. The overall thinking and decision of the Supreme Court on the matter was that the INEC has no constitutional powers to disqualify any candidate, a judgment that enabled the candidature and participation of Alhaji Abubakar. This means that there is nothing to suggest any legal wrong doing by Justice Lifu. He was legally correct in his judgment. We believe that the dynamic of the court decision to de-register the five political parties is essentially political, but only using the factor of illegality or breach of Section 225(a) of the Constitution as a pretext.

At a distance, I see Justice Lifu as a very God-fearing man who makes all efforts to imbibe Godliness, fairness, and justice in various human or inter-personal relationships. I had this impression when he was the trial judge for many years of the case brought against Pastor Mobiyina Oshoffa of the Celestial Church of Christ by the registered Board of Trustees of the Celestial Church of Christ of which I was the Secretary. Justice Lifu made strenuous efforts to prevail on the Board that the dispute be settled out of Court as Christians. Unfortunately, he was transferred from Lagos to Abuja and the case had to be re-assigned. My thinking in the context of this issue of de-registration of political parties is that Justice Lifu might have considered how political parties behave and how they make life difficult for people in applying the law as it is just for the purposes of sanity. Let us look at the specific case of the ADC.

The ADC, founded by Chief Ralph Okey Nwosu, was officially registered as a political party in 2006, that is, about 20 years ago. Before then, in 2005, the ADC answered the name ‘Alliance for Democratic Change’ when it was first formed. This meant that the word ‘Change’ was replaced with ‘Congress’ for the purposes of INEC registration and election in 2007. The ADC had Professor Pat Utomi, a vibrant scholar with vision, as its candidate, but the ADC only scored 50,849 votes representing only 0.14%. In the 16 April 2011 elections, Peter Nwangwu was the ADC’s presidential candidate. He scored 51,682, again representing about 0.14% of the total votes cast. In 2015, ADC’s standard bearer was Mani Ahmad. His performance was worse with only 29,666 votes, representing 0.10%. In 2019, ADC chose Obadiah Mailafia as its candidate. The percentage score increased from 0.10% to 0.36% with 97,874 votes. This is still very far from the minimum 25%s constitutionally required. In 2023, the most relevant year of consideration, the ADC had Dumebi Kachiku as its candidate. His votes were too insignificant to the extent of not being recognised for official documentation. Based on this example, the extent to which Justice Lifu’s judgment can be faulted factually, is, at best, limited. What may be controversial is Justice Lifu’s non-compliance with the order of the Appeal Court.

In our thinking, the reasons for the deregistration of the five political parties are, a priori, legal, but there is no ruling out the possibility of political intendment, simply because of Justice Lifu’s blunt refusal to comply with the higher order of the Appeal Court which directed a stay of execution of all court proceedings before the ruling of Justice Lifu. And true again, many political observers may consider Justice Lifu’s judgment as political, considering the insinuation that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) is often seen as a master strategist. As such, he might have influenced the court judgment in instructing the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister the five political parties. The ultimate objective cannot but be to destabilize and weaken the opposition parties in the preparations for the 2027 general elections.

True enough, Justice Lifu has apparently and reportedly considered that the deregistered parties failed in 2023 to score the constitutionally required 25% of votes, as provided in Section 225(a) of the Constitution of Nigeria. More important, Justice Lifu has reportedly also considered that there was no valid stay of order that had been served on his court by the time of delivery of the judgment and that the case was fit for determination. Put differently, if the Court of Appeal had, on May 22nd 2026, ordered the Federal High Court to stop its court proceedings and delivering any judgment, why was there no valid stay of action before Justice Lifu by the scheduled time of judgment on June 15, 2026?

Whatever is the case, how do we explain the position of the 3-man Court of Appeal that unanimously set aside the ruling of Justice Lifu? The Appellate Court’s ruling appears to have been largely influenced by Justice Lifu’s non-compliance with the higher Appeal Court order, rather than by the public presumption of illegality of the judgment of Justice Lifu. This presumption is sustained by the appellate court: in the eyes of the Appeal Court, Justice Lifu had not only engaged in judicial impertinence and judicial rascality for acting contrarily to the order of a superior court, but has also brazenly disregarded a higher judicial authority. 

The Cases of Guinea Bissau and Benin Republic 

In the mania Bissau Guineans insinuated that their President, Umaro Sissoco Emballo, had personally organized a coup against himself in order to prevent concession of electoral defeat to the opposition contender, the insinuation that PBAT also wants to weaken democratic competitiveness in Nigeria by using the pretext of court judgment to deregister political parties cannot but deepen the already intolerable situation of insecurity in Nigeria. Consequently, lessons must be learnt from the experiences of Guinea Bissau and Benin Republic. This is necessary because the ADC that has been unable to have the minimum 25% of the electoral votes is now the platform choice of all the opposition parties to challenge PBAT in the 2027 elections. Deductively therefore, it is believed that seeking to deregister the ADC is a good battle and war to destabilize the opposition before the 2027 election.

And true, before the general elections of 26 November 2025 in Guinea Bissau, President Embaló dissolved the legislature in 2023 and in controversial circumstances. The dusts of the controversies were yet to settle before the Supreme Court came with its own order, shortly before the November 2025 election, which barring the biggest political party in the country, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), from participating in the general elections. This made the environmental conditionings of the election very fragile and the political environment very autocratic. The popular view was that President Embaló would lose the election. 

But, in an attempt to remain in power, he faked a coup d’état. This belief was justified by many reasons: President Embaló was the very first to tell the world that he had been overthrown. Besides, even though he was allegedly overthrown, he was allowed to fly to Senegal on November 27, that is, immediately after the alleged coup. How would a detainee be able to travel out without the complicity of the putschists?  

Put differently, and perhaps more interestingly, it was the close allies of President Embaló that took over power and who suspended all the state institutions and installed General Horta Inta-A as the new president for one year. Guinea Bissau has not been able to put in place an environment of political stability since then. 

June 19, 2026 witnessed the continued house-detention of the opposition leader, Domingos Simoes Pereira, who has been detained since the November 2025 coup, His house arrest has been deepening the political crisis in the country, as well as raising serious tensions with the international partners of Guinea Bissau. Portugal, for instance, has called for his release, even though Pereira has been freshly accused of plotting a coup against the military government. Bissau government rejected Portugal’s call for his release as an unnecessary interference in the affairs of Guinea Bissau. And perhaps more concernedly, it is probably only in Africa that someone can be under detention and still be able to effectively engage in coup planning. Without doubt, it was the military that ousted President Embaló. It was under President Embaló that Pereira was prevented from acting as the PAIGC leader. 

It is useful to recall here that Pereira was already preparing to stand as the main opposition candidate in the 2025 elections before his political party, the PAIGC, was barred from participating in the election. The Electoral Commission alleged that the party had failed to submit its required application on time. Earlier this month, June 2026, a military court reportedly ordered the continued house-arrest of Pereira, purportedly for engagement in coup making. As this allegation appears difficult to believe, Nigeria ought to be in the forefront in battling political chicanery in Africa. Africa is talking about zero tolerance for unconstitutional changes of government, yet it is the same African leaders that are organizing coups against themselves for self-protection and stay in power. 

The background to the coup of December 7, 2025 in Benin Republic has a similar environmental background of government trying to make life difficult for the opposition in order to intimidate the opposition parties. First, President Patrice Talon had excluded Les Démocrates, the main opposition party from participating in the then forthcoming April 2026 elections. There was no visible intention of people to engage in the use of violence to protest the ban. One major rationale for this is the belief in the culture of always achieving change through political and civil society action rather than by use of force, which was evolved in the early 1990s. In fact, the use of force to oust President Patrice Talon was not at all popular. This prompted the efforts of Nigeria and other intervening countries to help quickly contain the coup within 24 hours.

Secondly, there is no disputing the fact that President Patrice Talon paved the way for his ally, Romuald Wadagni, formerly the Minister of Finance, to succeed him. Wadagni was elected last April with more than 94% of the total votes cast. True, there was a low turnout as a result of the inclement political environment. The election of Wadagni has left the country still divided in terms of the political legacy left by President Talon. There have been massive dismissal of members of staff of the state-run media. A great part of the population of Benin live in poverty. They have limited access to basic social services, particularly in the area of sanitation, healthcare, and education. The issue of food insecurity cannot be over-emphasised. And more importantly, President Talon, who was initially popularly elected, could no more enjoy the same popularity during his second tenure in office basically because of President Talon’s erosion of political freedoms. This is in spite of the fact that he is still on record to have presided over a strong economic growth and services in Benin.

All these problems were there before the last April 2026 election. Reasons given for the failed coup by the Military Committee for Refoundation (CMR), led by Lt. Col Pascal Tigri, were that the government of President Talon had not been able to nip in the bud the deteriorating security in the northern part of Benin and the neglect of the fallen Beninese soldiers. Although at the request of President Talon, Nigeria promptly provided airstrike assistance to neutralize the coup, Béninois problems still remain there. President Wadagni wants to reconcile with the Member States of the Alliance of Sahel States. This is good in itself as many of the terrorists being chased away are coming to settle down in Nigeria. The political tension and animosity being created with deregistration must not be allowed to be complicated by Benin’s own terrorism. 

From the foregoing, it can be seen that the genesis of every coup-making, as shown in the examples of Guinea Bissau and Benin Republic, cannot be separated from either deregistration of political parties or preventing and undermining the major opposition parties from taking part in presidential elections. It was the case of the PAIGC in Guinea Bissau and Les Démocrates in Benin. The two parties are the major opposition parties in their countries. Consequently, seeking to prevent opposition parties from performing their constitutional duties cannot but have dangerous implications beyond the arguments of legality or illegality. True, their legal recognition is stopped if deregistered. With deregistration, they cannot field candidates for election. The registered members are disenfranchised. In short, a deregistered party is no more a corporate legal entity and can neither conduct any official business as a party. Every candidate of a deregistered party is necessarily and immediately disqualified. Above all, the democratic space cannot but be reduced, thereby undermining democratic pluralism. It is therefore most welcoming to have the deregistration of some political parties reversed by the appellate court, even though there is no evidence yet, of any technical legal fault committed by Justice Lifu. The law must find new ways of making political parties perform beyond the exercise of deregistration which has the potential to generate political tension.