LAGOS
Nigeria's House of Representatives has suspended plenary sessions until next Tuesday to make way for the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC)'s membership registration process.
"This is to allow members of the house who are APC chieftains to participate in the registration exercise of the APC, which begins today," Imam Imam, spokesman for House Speaker Aminu Tambuwal, told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.
The APC's membership registration process is meant to measure the party's popularity in this country of some 170 million.
Registration will be done at polling units across the country as party chieftains mobilize supporters to join what APC interim national spokesman Lai Mohamed told AA was "a progressive mass movement to salvage Nigeria from the claws of misrule, corruption and underdevelopment."
Membership registration is a statutory requirement for all Nigerian political parties.
Political activities, such as party congresses and conventions, from which party executives emerge, cannot be held without a register of party members who vote as delegates at the congress or convention.
Delegates are also required to decide who flies the political party's banner in various elections for public office.
The APC, registered last year by the country's electoral commission, is an amalgam of five political parties. It currently controls at least 16 of Nigeria's 36 states.
President Goodluck Jonathan's People's Democratic Party (PDP), which has ruled Nigeria since 1999 when the country returned to democracy after three decades of military dictatorship, controls 18 states.
The country's two remaining regional governors are affiliated with smaller parties.
The APC enjoys a slight majority in Nigeria's House of Representatives, where it has used its newfound majority to threaten the ruling party. The Senate, meanwhile, is controlled by the ruling PDP.
Nigeria's electoral commission has set the next general elections for February 2015.
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