2011: ANPP ASPIRANTS TO SIGN BOND

Political aspirants in the Oyo State chapter of the All Nigeria Peoples Party {ANPP} are henceforth to sign an undertaking not to defect to other parties if elected on the platform of the party. Also, the party is invoking a clause in its constitution stipulating at least a year membership of the party, before an aspirant could fly its flag at the polls.

The state party chairman, Alhaji Rasaq Folorunso, announced the measures at a post state congress, where a 28-man state executive led by him was returned unopposed in Ibadan , the state capital yesterday.

The stringent conditions, the party boss told reporters, were to prevent a situation in which the party would be used and dumped and ensure that only loyal party men were fielded.

The state ANPP, which won11 seats in the state House of Assembly in the 2007 elections, has lost all its members in the Assembly, as they cross carpeted to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Action Congress.

Worst still, its flag bearer in the governorship poll, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, also returned to his former party, AC, from where he joined the ANPP to contest the election.

Apparently smarting from this 'betrayal', Folorunso said the party had decided to forestall a repeat of the experience by enforcing the provision in its constitution that elective position aspirants be at least 12 months old in the party to qualify to contest. In addition, he said such aspirants would now enter into a bond with the party not to change parties if elected on its platform.

The party chairman said the measures were necessary if there was to be discipline and stability in the political parties. His words: 'Such acts by political vagabonds and nomads are not good for democracy. It is not how to build sustainable democracy at all, you must build the party, they must be strong and stable. Let's know where you are and for what principle you stand, that is how we can have a sustainable democracy.

Alhaji Folorunso, who noted that the nation's constitution frowned at defection, blamed the judiciary and the National Assembly for non enforcement of Section 109(G)of the 1999 constitution, which, he said, outlined conditions and penalty for such action.

'That section says you must resign your membership of the party before you join another and that seat you occupy should be declared vacant. I took the case to court, but, unfortunately, the judiciary has not done well in the matter because the court is still sitting on the matter', he said.