The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) will organise an inter-party debates on topical socio-economic and political issues ahead of the 2015 general elections on its Nigerian Political Parties Discussion Series (NPPDS) platform. The key objective of this intervention is to promote issue-based politics and transparency and accountability in government’s engagement with citizens. Starting from Thursday, 18th of December, 2014, leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress will be invited as guests on NPPDS to debate and enlighten Nigerians about its policies and programs, as contained in their respective manifestos, designed to address the lingering development challenges in all sectors of the country. Thus, NPPDS will provide political parties a rare and unique opportunity to present parties’ programs, on sector basis, to Nigerians as a way of institutionalising culture of issue-based politics and fostering democratic accountability in the country.
It is undoubtful that political parties are key actors in a democratic system, especially in Nigeria where independent candidature is yet to be statutorily allowed. In Nigeria, political parties serve as platforms for recruiting candidates for political office, forming government, and mobilising for public support around identifiable sets of policy programs – manifestoes. The manifestos provide useful insight into the policy frameworks of existing political parties to mitigate inherent challenges in different sectors of the country in order to bring about long desired development.
The euphoria over the advent of democracy in 1999 was largely due to people’s high expectations for effective delivery of services and protection of lives and properties by the democratic government. However, since 1999, the country has been bedeviled with varying development challenges, including insecurity, economy downturn, unemployment, decadence in education sector, decrepit health facility, etc. Existing narratives about these problems have empirically linked them to weak governance structure, corruption, inequality, inept civil service, etc. Since government is formed by political parties in Nigeria, addressing these seemingly intractable challenges lies solely in the capacity of political parties to prioritizing issue-based politics rather than engaging in fluid, scandalous and indicting political statements.
The spate of insecurity as occasioned by Boko Haram insurgency, Farmers/Pastoralist conflicts, citizenship crisis and ethno-religious uprising, calls for sustainable intervention from political parties. In addition, the increasing corruption in the oil and gas sector, derelict state of education and health facilities, huge housing and economic problems require an unambiguous and result-driven agenda from political parties. CDD strongly believe that political parties should provide a formidable platform for direct engagement and consensus-building on crucial national issues through a functional party system that will answer the nation’s developmental challenges.
The debate series will be livestreamed and broadcast on national television. The project is supported by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).
Idayat Hassan
Director
