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• Obi, Secondus seek stronger political parties
From Ndubuisi Orji and Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye
Former president General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, has said Nigeria must restructure and devolve power over natural resources to her component units to avoid catastrophe.
He stated this in a keynote lecture at the public presentation of two books written by former Deputy Managing Director, New Telegraph Newspaper, Ike Abonyi, yesterday, in Abuja.
The two books titled: “The Bubbles of Nigeria’s Democracy: The Musings of a Nigerian Journalist” and “Wadata Wonders: Memoirs of a Partisan Journalist” encapsulates Abonyi reflections on Nigerian politics and his professional and partisan experiences.
This is as 2023 Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi and former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus, emphasised a need for stronger political parties in the country.
The Igbo leader and former minister of information, in his lecture titled: “How did we get here” said the process of restructuring the country must commence before the 2027 general elections, in the overall interest of the nation.
While decrying the state of affairs in the country, he stated that though President Bola Tinubu meant when he removed fuel subsidy on his assumption of office two years ago, the failure of the injection of the subsidy funds into vital and productive areas of the economy has resulted in limited growth and an unprecedented high cost of living.
“The intention was to free resources in order to stimulate production and so grow wealth across the board. Unfortunately the administrative organisation of the country and the recruitment process of political heads at the state and Local Governments did not help his vision.
“Most low wage earners can hardly afford a basic standard of living. School fees, transport costs, house rents for homes have experienced, in some cases, one hundred percent increase wiping away the relief, expected from the percentage increase in salary emoluments.”
He recalled that there was a time when the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy was agriculture.
“The North had groundnut pyramids. cotton and livestock; the West had cocoa: the Midwest had rubber and palm oil and the East had palm produce, cashew nuts and cassava.
“At the same time that these agricultural yields were booming we had an exponential growth of import substitution industries. Textile mills were established in the North and in the East, Cement factories, breweries, Iron and steel complexes, power stations flourished, new universities were built and maintained to meet international standards. Our secondary schools attracted students from other African countries. Our reputation in the West African Examination Council results were the highest. Our finished products were demanded in renowned world universities.
“There was only one reason why things worked so well then. We had a regional system of government that allowed Regions to enjoy sovereignty over their national resources whilst paying royalties and taxes to the Federal government. Our domestic security was independent and uncontrolled by the Federal government.
“Suddenly, the army came to power and abrogated our constitution, turned us into a unitary state and imposed a unitary constitution on us. Our constitution was promulgated by a group of military men who were unelected. There was no equality of representation of the various regions.
“They carved us into states and local governments without any known parameter or plebiscite. They seized our natural resources and donated them to the Federal government to share without adequate respect for derivation.
“Our constitution is not autochthonous. It claims to have been made by “we the people of Nigeria” but this was falsehood. We didn’t have a referendum or a plebiscite for it nor did an elected Assembly debate and ratify it. It was simply imposed on us.
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With it has come the worst form of participatory democracy that our country has ever had.”
Nwodo stated that the electoral system in the country has become unattractive to honest persons and accused state governors of hijacking political parties nominations for elective offices.
“Today, there is the dictatorship of the political parties. Candidates are imposed on the people without transparent primaries. In some cases no primary takes place at all. Governors have become appointing authorities for candidates for elective offices in their states.
“You cannot become a candidate without the Governor’s approval. The nomination congresses are just a matter of formality. Where the Governors are resisted in this form of nomination, the richest candidate buys the position.
“The electoral commission, the security services and the courts are constantly manipulated by the rich politicians.
Our electoral system has become corrupted and unattractive to honest and brilliant citizens. The mess continues.”
To avert the coming catastrophe, he said Nigeria must restructure and give its component units sovereignty over its natural resources provided they pay royalty or some form of taxation to the Federal Government to maintain federal responsibilities like external defence, foreign missions, Customs and immigration.
“In this way, true democracy will evolve and the speed of development increased. Emphasis must return to agriculture and education. Education must emphasize on renascent digital orientation..Domestic security must remain in the hands of the federating units. The secularity of the Nigerian State must be respected.”
In his remarks, Obi noted that politicians who are opportune to be in government have contributed to ruining political parties. But he expressed hopes that a time will come when Nigeria will have political parties that are better organized and operated like what obtains in other jurisdictions.
“We are working hard to build that new Nigeria where we are going to have political parties that will outlive us, that are organised, that will be bigger than the government.
“Because as it is narrated here, we now have a situation where those of us who are opportune to be in government have helped to ruin the parties. Let’s hope that one day we will have parties that are bigger than the government that will run the way parties are run in other nations of the world and will be law-abiding.”
Similarly, Secondus stated that until there are strong political parties where an individual can belong to one political party for decades, the country is doomed.
The former PDP leader explained that he had visited the headquarters of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa during his tenure as deputy national chairman of the major opposition party, and discovered it was a strong institution unlike political parties in Nigeria.
“ANC is an institution unlike what we have in Nigeria where one man can be in several political parties and at the same time behaving as if that is the norm.
“We don’t have democracy in Nigeria. What we have is a platform of winning elections. Our country is gradually moving to the direction of liquidation presided by Tinubu. The mechanism for free flow of information is lacking.
“Until we establish a proper democratic party where people can stay years in one party for more than 30 years, we are doomed.”
