The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu has spoken of the possibility of having up to 80 political parties participate in next year’s general elections.

He spoke on Tuesday while delivering a keynote address at the national colloquium organised by the Independent Service Delivery Monitoring Group, ISDMG, in Abuja.

Recall that the electoral umpire had last December announced the registration of 21 new political parties, bringing the number of registered parties in the country as at then to 67.

Yakubu pointed out that at the moment, INEC has received over 100 additional applications for new political parties, while nine had met the criteria.

According to him, “We may end up having up to 80 political parties for the 2019 general election.”

The INEC chairman, however, gave the assurance that the 2019 elections would be better than that of 2015.

Speaking earlier, the Executive Director of ISDMG, Dr Chima Amadi said INEC had been the most responsive of all government agencies involved in the election value chain.

He added that the commission had been taking advice and constructive criticisms and adjusting its activities to reflect same while such could not be said about others within the chain.

In Amadi’s words, “The security agencies continue to behave true to type and are even getting worse, while political gladiators horn their manipulative stock-in-trade.

“However, we are resolved to take them to task with the same resilience that we used in getting INEC to act properly.

“For the 2019 elections, the ISDMG will be deploying cutting edge technology to the field to ensure that history is properly documented,’’ he said.