Part of the Senate’s recent amendment of the Electoral Act, have been faulted by political stakeholders across the country, including the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Akwa Ibom State, who considers certain clauses in the amendment, disturbing.
Speaking on position of his party, the Akwa Ibom State Publicity Secretary of PDP, Mr. Borono Bassey, said the seeming imposition of direct primaries on political parties, by the Senate through the amendment, is against ideal democratic practice, pointing that parties should be allowed the freedom to decide which method to adopt according to peculiarities and circumstances.
Arguing further, Bassey noted that direct primaries for the election of party candidates is cost-intensive and will raise the budget of primary elections higher than realizable; a concern he said is capable of causing various degrees of corrupt practices and logistics crisis during the exercise.
“We are talking about a system where every member of a political party votes in a primary election and in this state, we have seen a situation where a certain party that is an opposition to the PDP adopting the direct primaries and their members fighting over authentic party register and allegations of hijacking the process by certain paymasters who fund the party”
“Different political parties have tested various kinds of primaries and the flaws there constitute part of the inconveniences of this new system.”
“Imposing direct primaries on all political parties reeks of undue interference on the internal democracy of Political Parties by the Legislature”, he said.
While speaking of the credibility of the direct primaries, he referred to the antecedents of failures of the method in previous practices by parties that had earlier adopted it.
In his words, “through the direct primaries, there is a question of credibility as votes are usually allotted in an arbitrary manner to preferred candidates.”
“In 2018 a certain political party allotted 14.8 million votes to her presidential candidate only for the same candidate to go to a general election and have votes less than half of that figure. The Same thing played out in the Lagos State Gubernatorial Primaries.”
Recall that the Nigerian Senate within the week passed an amendment to the just Electoral Act which changed some clauses in the act to include the practice of direct primaries by political parties, electronic transmission of result by INEC, among others.
