Professionals, Activists Launch New Party
LAGOS, July 07, (THEWILL) - Consequent upon what was attributed to absence of value-oriented politics in Nigeria, a group of professionals, youth leaders and women activists today launched National Transformation Party (NTP), a new political party established to entrench democratic culture.
The launch took place during a world news conference, which the national leaders of the party addressed today in Lagos pledging to make impact in such areas as infrastructure, security, inter-group relations and other areas of national life.
At the conference were the National Chairman of the party, Mr. Emmanuel Mok, Board of Trustees Chairman, Dr. John Dara, Mr. Oditta Odi-Alala, Otunba Babs Abosede, Mr. Bola Balogun, Mr. Ademola Adedokun and Mr. Clinton Peters, who are members of the board.
In his address, the national chairman seized the launching of the new party to contribute to the on-going debate on zoning of political offices, which he described as symptomatic of how low Nigeria "has sunk in our effort to build a united country we crave for."
Mok added that the current voters’ register could not guarantee credible elections, which the people of Nigeria earnestly crave for, saying Nigeria urgently "needs electronic registers with full biometric data. We also need to adopt electronic voting to eliminate all forms electoral frauds."
According to him, the real cause of the Niger Delta crisis is Nigeria’s failure to practice true federalism, which includes fiscal federalism. Each of the federating unit should be allowed to have a state police while the federal police will continue to handle all the inter-state matters of law and order" in the country.
He explained how political parties deprived the countrymen of their right "to freely participate and freely choose their leaders and representatives that create financial, social, psychological or physical barriers against the aspirations of common citizens."
On the NTP launch, Mok stated that practical measures have been taken "to discourage money politics in the party primaries. Any aspirant involved in any form of corruption or use of violence will be disqualified for running on this platform."
He added that the new party would play different roles in the country’s polity given the fact that its objectives centre on such values as nationalism, excellence, integrity and humanitarianism, which he said are not entrenched in the existing political parties.
The chairman said NTP "is a party that will promote godly values in society and in government; execute a people’s programme for national transformation; and monitor, evaluate and where necessary, sanction leaders serving on the platform of the party."
"The party plans to make Nigeria the biggest economy and a model of democracy and good governance in Africa and mobilize funds, materials and services through the voluntary contributions and participations of all citizens for the successful prosecution of that national transformation project," the chairman explained.