YIAGA Africa Renews Call For Reduction In Numbers Of Political Parties 

… Says Most Political Parties Exists Only On Pages Of Newspapers

By Philip Tayo 

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YIAGA Africa has renewed the call for the reduction in the numbers of political parties in the Country, accusing most of them of only existing on the pages of newspapers and without any presence at the State levels.

The Election Observer Group made the call on Tuesday in Akure, the Ondo State Capital through a member of its Board, Professor Nnamdi Aduba while addressing journalists and members of the Ondo State Civil Society Organizations at a one day engagement / partnership held at the Deja Vu Hotel in Alagbaka, Akure. 

Professor Nnamdi Aduba responding to questions from newsmen faulted the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to register non productive political parties with no base or footing at State levels and lacking the financial capacity to run it’s affairs. 

The YIAGA board member revealed that among the long lists of political parties registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission, only three of them are productive, vibrant and existing. He accused others of not only interested in making noise but lacking the resources to cater for the humongous cost involved in forming and running the expensive political party projects 

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Citing an example, the Professor of Law said, “most of the political parties which only exists in Abuja does not have the wherewithal to pay, let’s say a sum of N10,000 each to their party agents that will be assigned to protect elections in about 4,000 polling booths existing in Ondo State. 

Pointing out, he said, “since the running of political parties, it is only the strong political parties that can squeezed out funds to run it. 

Corroborating the stand of the Chairman of the Nigeria Union Of Journalists, NUJ, Ondo State Council, in person of Comrade Leke Adegbite, Professor Nnamdi Aduba emphasized the need to cut down on it, in order not to continue confusing the electorates with the long lists of the ballot papers. 

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“When YIAGA Africa was going for the NotTooYoungToRun project, I told them, since the young people don’t have the financial capacity to run for elections, that there won’t be a need for them to be worried or bothered. 

According to Professor Nnamdi Aduba, “if we have independent candidature like during the local government elections, they can easily win some councilorship without maintaining an office. 

“To run for an election, one will need an office, a Secretary, some clerical officers and party agents to watch over votes at collation centres”, he submitted.

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The Professor also pleaded with the people of Ondo State not to get themselves involved in any form of violence before, during and after the Governorship election in the State, saying nobody benefits from violence. “There is no point for anybody putting his life on the line because of an election. Adding that life is hard enough for somebody to go and throw away his or her life. He also made them realize that violence does not pay anybody since no dividends comes out from it”. 

Speaking earlier at the event, the Programme Officer of YIAGA Africa, Mr Paul James announced that it’s election observer organization would deploy a total of 324 Observers, out of which 300 of them would be deployed to the field on Election day while the remaining 24 will serve as roving observers to gather reports and information from the election observers.

He hailed the INEC for maintaining a cordial relationship with the YIAGA Africa despite criticisms from some political parties on their report which are products of the datas sampled from the public. 

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“I think the relationship with INEC has been very cordial with quality reception coming from them each time Yiaga engages them. They have been showing commitments towards accepting most critical aspects of our reports. 

“What we see based on those facts, we share with the Commission. What we do is that, we share those findings with the Commission even before they go out to the public”.

On the engagement with journalists and civil society organizations in Ondo State, Paul James, the YIAGA Africa Programme Officer stated that the idea is to get the pulse of the stakeholders to understand how ready they are to engaged the electoral process. At the end, if elections in Ondo is better, they would become that we will use for judging other future elections in the Country. 

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Continuing, Paul James said, for us at YIAGA Africa, “we have been observing the processes and we will continue to observe until the eve of the election, when we would have deployed a long term observer totaling 324 across the 18 local government areas of the State. 

In his own remarks at the engagement, the Chairman of the Nigeria Union Of Journalists, NUJ, in Ondo State, Comrade Leke Adegbite described the role of the YIAGA Africa in monitoring the November 16th Governorship Election in the State as a very important one. He advised that the real actors who are involved in the Country’s electoral processes, the political parties should be engaged. He cited IPAC and leaders of the political parties in Ondo State as some of such actors that YIAGA Africa needed to engage. 

He however assured the YIAGA Africa that they would continue to witness the professional reportage of the activities  leading to the conduct of the Ondo election from journalists in the State, as he described them as the best in the Country. 

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