A legal luminary and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mallam Yusuf Olaolu Ali has faulted the idea of government funding political parties in Nigeria saying it is unethical to democratic principle.
Ali is of the view that political parties should not have owners while monetisation of politics and money politics must be eradicated.
He expressed these views in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital in his lecture at the 2020 Press Week of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Kwara State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), titled, Effectiveness of Party Supremacy in Strengthening Democratic Principles and Promoting National Development.
According to him, the democratic ethos started to wane when the regime of former Head of State Ibrahim Babangida funded two political parties, namely, SDP and NRC, with programmes and manifestoes written by the military authority.
He said that the federal government should discontinue the arrangements in order to encourage good governance.
“Political parties should not have owners. They should be mass organisations that give high and low, the rich and the poor the same opportunities. Ownership of political parties by individuals is directly antithetical to the democratic principle. If a political party will be all inclusive, it is important that it should be owned by a wide range of individuals drawn from all segments of the society,” he said.
Mallam Ali said there was lack of internal democracy in the nation’s political parties, explaining that the situation has created serious intra-party conflict which he said could likely threaten regime stability and good governance.
“This has played out several times in the Nigerian politics, as soon as the disputes arise within the party, the effect is usually felt in the quality of governance,” he said.
The legal icon, who described the present proliferation of political parties in the country as a mockery and should be eradicated, said that Nigeria does not need more than four political parties.
According to him, as much as politics should be all inclusive, that does not mean every family should set up a political party.
He said at present, Nigeria has well over 50 registered political parties explaining that some of these parties often have nothing on the ground in terms of membership, influence or geographical spread, and may not even have more than a couple of offices in a few cities.
The Senior Advocate said the proliferation of parties was usually a ploy by politicians to plunge electorate into confusion and to pose administrative hurdles for the electoral umpire during national elections.
He also called for an end to vote buying, noting that it was almost becoming a norm for political parties, on election day to give cash, ranging from N2,000 to N20,000 to prospective voters to influence them to vote for particular political parties.
The Chairman of the Correspondent Chapel of the NUJ, AbdulHakeem Garba said the choice of the theme for this year’s press week was based on member’s commitment to the principle of free press, to reinforce the fourth estate of the realm function and the watchdog role of media in a democracy.
