Mr Malik Addo-Ibrahim, the presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), has blamed absence of vibrant opposition party in Nigeria on lack of party ideology.
Addo-Ibrahim said this when he spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
He also blamed the problem on lack of patriotism, as most Nigerian politicians were self-centered.
“The present situation in Nigeria is that the ruling party dominates everywhere leaving no space, so we don’t have a vibrant opposition party in the country for now.
“It’s all the same, the guy that is in the All Progressives Congress (APC) today, will be in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) tomorrow and then the next day he has gone back to the other side.
“You can’t criticise each other because you know that you are going to go back to that party,” he said.
Addo-Ibrahim said that the problem of absence of concrete party ideology called for concern among stakeholders as there was no vehicle to drive the passion and vision of the politicians.
According to him, in U.S, we have the Republicans and the Democrats in the UK we have the Social democrats, the labour party and the conservative party, all are driven by ideologies.
“In Nigeria we have the broom and the umbrella.
“The umbrella sits under the broom or the broom sits under the umbrella, I don’t know which one it is.
“But there is no ideological difference. If the president and the administration is making mistake, there is no opposition party to say there’s a mistake.
“Everybody keeps quiet and then we change the rules again,” he said.
The YPP presidential candidate said that the 9th National Assembly was not able to perform up to the expectations of Nigerians, especially in checkmating the executive.
He said that the assembly only fueled the activities of the executive by moving bills and motions for the benefit of the government without thinking about the people.
He, however, acknowledged that this was because the 9th assembly was dominated by lawmakers from the ruling APC, giving little or no room to input by opposition parties.
Addo-Ibrahim said there was need for opposition parties, especially the PDP to map out strategies to checkmate the activities of government for the benefits of the people.
He said that when the main opposition party held the government accountable for its actions and inactions, government would realise the need to uphold its mandates to deliver good governance to the people.(NAN)
