Section 5: Procedure on receipt of application for registration.

(1) Where an application for the registration of a trade union is received by the Registrar, the following provisions of this section shall apply:
Provided that if the application appears to the Registrar to be defective in any respect, he shall notify the applicant accordingly and shall take no further action in relation thereto until the application has been amended to his satisfaction or a fresh application is made in place thereof.
(2) The Registrar shall cause a notice of the application to be published in the Federal Gazette, stating that objections to the registration of the trade union in question may be submitted to him in writing during the period of three months beginning with the date of the Gazette in which the notice is published.
(3) Within three months after the end of the said period of three months the Registrar shall consider any objections submitted to him during that period and, if satisfied-
(a) that no proper objection has been raised;
(b) that none of the purposes of the trade union is unlawful; and
(c) that the requirements of this Act and of the Regulations with respect to the registration of trade unions have been complied with, shall, subject to subsection (2) of this section, and to section 6 of this Act, register the trade union and its rules.
(4) The Registrar shall not register the trade union if it appears to him that any existing trade union is sufficiently representative of the interests of the class of persons whose interests the union is intended to represent.
(5) If the Registrar refuses to register the union-
(a) he shall forthwith send to the applicants a notice in the prescribed form to that effect, stating the grounds of the refusal and specifying the date from which the time for appealing against the refusal is to run, and shall publish a notice to the like effect in the Federal Gazette; and
(b) any official or member of the union may within the period of thirty days beginning with the date so specified appeal to the appropriate High Court against the refusal.
[1996 No. 26.)
(6)
The Registrar on registering a trade union shall issue a certificate of registration which, unless it is proved that the registration of the union has been cancelled, shall (except in any proceedings for the cancellation of the registration of the union on the ground that its registration was obtained by fraud or as the result of a mistake) be conclusive evidence that the requirements of this Act and the Regulations with respect to the registration of trade unions have been complied with, and that the trade union is authorised to be registered and is a trade union for the purposes of this Act.
[1999 No. 1.]
(7)
Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act to the contrary, the Registrar, shall on the coming into effect of this section, register without any conditions whatsoever, the trade unions specified in Part A and Part C of the Third Schedule to this Act; and on such registration the said trade unions shall have all the powers and duties of a trade union registered under this Act.
[1999 No. 1. Third Schedule