Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Director General of the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Professor Abubakar Suleiman, has said that the multiplicity of political parties was not adding value to the country’s democracy.
Suleiman , who stated this at a pre-convocation press conference of the institution, on Friday, in Abuja, said it is not in the interest of the country to have more than three registered political parties.
The NILDS DG urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to take the initiative towards the pruning down number of registered political parties in the country by proposing an amendment to the electoral law.
He noted that many of the registered political parties are merely occupying space on the ballot papers, as they do not even have offices in most of states across the country.
According to him, “I want to believe that most of the political parties that we have in Nigeria are nothing but ‘jankara’ political organisations, that are adding no value to democracy and I want to subscribe therefore that for us a well deepen political culture, the earlier we take recourse to three political party, the better for us.
“Some political parties today don’t even have offices in various states level, but then they occupy space in the ballot paper, thereby causing confusion.
“When you talk about inconclusive election, over voting, some Nigerians in the rural areas could not differentiate between certian symbols because we have a ballot paper that is as lengthy as 1 kilometre”
Suleiman added that “so, the earlier we have guided democracy, the better for us. INEC come our with, maybe that will take to another amendment in the Electoral Act, but they must initiate that move
“I remember the late Gani Fawehinmi was the one that adocated for it. He spoke for it, but one of the things we observed in Nigeria is that it is not only power that is being abused, at times freedom too is being abused. Our people take freedom for granted, we are abusing the freedom and if care is not taken in the next two or three years,we would have up to 200 political parties.”