Christian Empowerment Forum (CEF), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), has said that the de-registration of 74 political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was aimed at sanitising politics in Nigeria.
Mr Ifunnaya Ogbonnaya, Executive Director of the group said this in an interview on Friday in Abuja.
The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu on Thursday, announced de-registered of 74 out of the 92 registered political parties for failure to meet the requirements of the Fourth Alteration to the 1999 Constitution.
Ogbonnaya lauded the bold step taken by the commission to sanitise the nation’s political scene and urged that more parties be de-listed in the nearest future.
“The too many political parties in Nigeria had done more harms than good to the electorate in the past and most recently in the 2019 general elections.
“With a decrease in number, political parties will strive to provide absolutely spotless, credible and worthy candidates to participate and contest in elections and unworthy riff-raffs candidates will no longer be seen in the scenes.
“Nigerians will also be able to carefully elect candidates that will judiciously represent their interest at all level of governance and not just cast their votes to the air all in the name of voting for a party name rather than a worthy candidate,’’ he said.
He also said that the decrease in the number of parties would also reduce the burden on the country’s electoral body in planning and preparing for elections and that the electoral system would be more transparent in its conduct and practice.
He also said that there would be better security during elections and Election Day violence and other negative occurrences during elections would be better managed by INEC and the security agents.
He, however, said that the move by INEC was a wake-up call to the surviving 18 political parties to re-calibrate, reorganise and restructure their parties to fit and meet international party standards.
Ogbonnaya advised the surviving parties to expect an in-flock of intending new members and urged them to carefully scrutinise them to ensure that they were going to be members that would be goal and vision driven.
“The 18 standing parties should get ready to upbeat their party entry policy to prevent an in flock of unfit members from the 74 de-registered parties who may come to drag the standard of the parties down.
“Thousands of members of these de-listed parties are angry and hungry, desperately searching for new grounds to pitch their tents and lay their bad eggs again.
“This set of people will begin to do everything to ensure that the surviving parties are also de-listed, only a few with clean ambitions will strive to enter the parties to make positive changes,’’ he said.
Ogbonnaya also advised members of the de-listed parties to venture into business and mentor youths with the experiences that they had gathered from politics.
According to him, the de-listing of their parties from the Nigerian political scene should birth and rebirth new ideas that are still going to be impactful to the country at all levels.
He urged aggrieved members of the de-listed parties to take the sad event with good fate for the collective benefit of all.(NAN)
