Nigerians Commend Inec Boss, Want More Slash In The Number Of Political Parties In The Country.
A LEGAL luminary and socio/political analyst in Nigeria, Mr. Moses Abayomi Obaditan on Monday 10th February, 2020 commended Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Professor Yakubu Maimud for the timely, brave and active step taken to reduce the number of political parties in the country from 93 to 18 to sanitize and remove the enormous problems associated with multiparty electoral system in the country.
He made the call in Ilesa, Osun state Nigeria as special guest in an interview with Mr. Bode Adewoye, host and moderator of Unique 103.1fm Radio weekly socio/political program: "Oro to nlo."
Contrary to public opinion and steps taken by stalwarts of many affected political parties that INEC's move to de-register political parties in the country is too early, unconstitutional and has a selfish ulterior motive to thwart the efforts of young and upcoming political parties in the country.
Barrister Obaditan says INEC's move to cut down the number of political parties in the country is constitutional and a move in the right direction to sanitize the country's electoral system and remove all bottle necks or obstacles that has been a stumbling block to the hard work and success of INEC in the country.
He observed that government spends huge sum of money in each election held in the country and despite intensive voter information and education of the people for success in each election, the problems associated with the registration of many political parties in the country has not solved the problems of corruption and other election malpractices that takes place during party primaries and election proper which in many cases has resulted in crisis and loss of innocent lives.
He went down the memory lane on the growth, success and problems of multiparty system in democratic governance in the country since independence in 1960 and how successive military government interventions tried to improve the country's electoral system before it handed over to civilian government through the ballot box.
He says establishing parties in politics is important for a viable democracy and gives freedom to the people to choose a competent and dignified leader whom they will financially, faithfully and morally support, follow and vote for in an election to rule them for the growth and benefit of the people.
He observed that in 2019 general election in Nigeria, many of the newly registered smaller political parties in the country had very low votes with very scanty followership that did not meet INEC standard or recommendation to stand as virile political parties that can meet the need of the country for growth and development.
Barrister Obaditan advocated that in his own opinion, Nigeria must not have more than two political parties so that electorates should not have more than those two choices. He said they either support the right or left party as it is practice in developed countries of the world. He says smaller parties can gather their votes for any of these two major parties in the country.
He says this will be of great advantage for peace, lower election cost, remove corruption and ambiguity associated with multiparty system in the country and will again reduce the enormous task INEC and its staff has to face for the conduct of a free, fair, credible and violent-free election in the country.