Drawing strength from the new amendments to its establishment Act, the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) has set in motion machinery for deepening democratic governance in Nigeria ahead of the 2019 general elections and future polls.
Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Judiciary, Hon. Aminu Shagari, in company with one of the initiators of the amendment bill, Hon. Ossai Ossai, and the Director General of the Institute, Professor Ladi Hamalai, said yesterday in Abuja at a media briefing that this was in line with the institute’s new mandate.
Shagari, who chairs the Steering Committee for the development of a strategic plan for NILDS’ engagement with political actors and political office holders, disclosed that the institute had already scheduled discussions with stakeholders on various aspects of election, legislature and political party administration.
He said that the process of deepening democratic governance would entail rigorous engagements with stakeholders in such areas as election observation, election management, institution building of political parties and effective party management.
According to him, the engagement would also centre on the role of security agencies in the forthcoming general elections, high turnover of members in the legislature, alternative funding sources for political parties, internal democracy, independent candidature, revisiting card reader and electronic report of elections as well as Diaspora voting, among others.
Shagari also explained that the steering committee constituted by the institute with quality membership, comprising among others, former senate president, Ken Nanamani, former deputy senate president, Ibrahim Mantu and former INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, developed a two-year strategic plan “to define the mission of a new Department of Democratic Studies and identify some of the key programmes that should be implemented.”
He said, “The committee undertook several advocacy visits to engage with political actors and office holders in order to come up with programmes and training modules that are relevant to the needs of targeted audience and that are practical in purpose.”
He said that the Governing Council of the Institute approved the establishment of the Department of Democratic Studies as a third core department at its meeting of October 10, 2016.
It should be noted that one of the objectives of the amendments to the National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS) Act was to expand the academic and research scope to cover democratic studies.
With the signing of the amendment bill into law on January 24, 2018 by President Muhammadu Buhari, the NILS has now transformed to National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS).
Shagari announced that “NILDS is working with the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the University of Benin to start a Masters and Post Graduate Diploma Programme in Election Management and Party Politics”, adding that “it is hoped that the programmes will start by the third quarter of 2018.”
