THE NATIONAL Conference Committee on Political Parties and Electoral Matters has recommended that all elected and appointed office holders in the country who defect from their political parties to another be made to automatically lose their offices or seats.
he committee equally recommended independent candidacy and unbundling of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, so that a different body can be solely responsible for registration and regulation of political parties in the country.
Subventions to political parties
The committee, which is co-chaired by two former Senate Presidents, Ken Nnamani and Iyorchia Ayu, also recommended that Federal Government should stop giving subventions to political parties.
Barr. Remi Olatubora, a member of the committee and Ondo State delegate, disclosed these, yesterday, while addressing newsmen on progress of the committee’s assignment.
Olatubora, who is the Ondo State Commissioner for Technical and Vocational Education, said it would no longer be business for elected office holders in the country to abandon their political parties for other parties. He said his committee discovered that some politicians were feigning what he called ‘phantom factions’ in their parties to seek greener pastures in others.
“We have recommended that if you cross carpet, you lose your seat. So when you are appointed or elected on the platform of a political party and then you cross over to another party, you lose your seat. According to our recommendation, it is no longer going to be excuse that there is a faction because we believe that some people and individuals will deliberately create some phantom factions in their political parties as an excuse for decamping to another political party.
“And so, if you cross carpet now, you lose your seat. And then, we have also extended it to other political offices even to the position of governors, chairmen of local government councils and councilors because the law, as it is now, is restricted to only members of the National Assembly and members of the House of Assembly but you have seen that in recent past, there are governors that crossed from their parties to other parties and we see that this is a serious indiscipline in the system.
Independent candidacy
On independent candidacy, Olatobura said: “We are all of the view that one other means through, which we can strengthen internal democracy in political parties is to make provision for independent candidates. Individuals who want to contest election and who are popular but are schemed out of the political processes in their political parties should be able to go out as independent candidates and contest elections. We are also looking at the situation where people who are not comfortable with the shenanigans of political parties can as responsible members of the society, as responsible members of their states and local governments, come back and contest for elective positions.”
He said the committee also recommended that the Federal Government be made to stop giving subventions to political parties, saying that “political parties should now be sponsored by their members”, adding “we have recommended the placement of ceiling on how much a particular individual can use to sponsor a political party so that some big men will not hijack the political process.
This will depend on the regulation and constitution of the party, you could recommend that every member of the party is required to pay N500 every quarter or every year and you put a ceiling on the amount of the money that the big man around there can put in the party so that a billionaire will not just come around and then put two to even N20 billion in the coffers of a political party and then begin to suggest who will go to the House of Assembly in Taraba State and Ondo State and who will go for the House of Representatives seats available in Lagos and Enugu state.”
He disclosed that other recommendations of the committee include retention of multi-party system in the country, code of conduct for parties and unbundling of the INEC.
Speaking on the committee’s plan towards the reformation of the INEC, Olatubora said: “We are thinking of unbundling INEC so that there could be a commissioner that will be responsible for the registration and regulation of political parties and then, we will have a body that will be concerned only with the elections, like we unbundled the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN.”
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