Nigeria News
Abolish Political Party System
By Oluwole Sholanke
It is a general perception that politicians are corrupt and that they use political parties to loot the nation’s treasury. It is lamentable that this kind of situation is having negative impact on the nation’s economy. The so-called representatives of the masses that were voted for by the masses to cater for their needs could not do so but care for themselves and their political godfathers with only the crumbs reaching the people where possible.
You may ask: who are the political godfathers or the cabal? They are the unseen elements that helped the representatives rig elections and win. Another big challenge is that parastatals of government are headed majorly by politicians whose parties are ruling at a given time rather the use of technocrats to meet the desires of the country. In some situations, government agencies are dominated by politicians from the same political party that won the election without considering their experience. At times, you will discover that it is a case of square pegs in round holes!
It is on rare occasions that you see opposition parties being nominated into the cabinet at the federal and state levels. This system does not exclude the national and state assemblies. All ministers, commissioners, directors-general etc are selected on party basis. With this, all government activities including the economy are subjected to the dictates of politicians of the same political party.
The electorate are made to believe that they are the appointers of those to be selected from the constituency, e.g. senatorial districts. Each of those people being selected for election may have been subjected to scrutiny by the ruling political party or the cabal. Indeed, the cabal is the most powerful, inevitable but invisible third house before the House of Representatives, without whose authority or approval, nothing can be done by members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
To hit the nail on the head, the House of Representatives, whilst appearing to represent the people and to do what the electorate want, dare not do anything for the electorate without the approval of the cabal, hence, the double allegiance to the political party, the platform they used to campaign and the unseen cabal that controls both house remotely.
All these have contributed to the dwindling impact of democracy dividends and the nation’s economy.
It must be mentioned here that the cabal lives like the kings in the palace, always making it impossible for the National Assembly to reach a common ground on issues that affect the citizens of the country. Example of this is the rehabilitation of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Recently, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Samusi, condemned the amount being spent by Nigeria to finance the federal legislators putting it at about 25 percent of federal government overhead.
He drew their ire. In truth, it works out simply thus: if the overhead of the federal government of Nigeria stands at N536.2 billion and the National Assembly gets N136, 259, 768, 102 (N136.2 billion), what does it constitute? Is it 25.41% or 3.5%?
All these will be eliminated including the cabal and make our representatives responsible directly to the electorate if we hearken to Sanusi’s words.
Nigeria’s current democracy is a system of government adopted from our colonial masters, Britain. Going by the definition of democracy, the 16th President of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln, who served his country from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865, democracy is the ‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people’.
If you examine this definition, there is no where Abraham Lincoln turned the definition around as ‘Government of the people by the party or the cabal for the people’ which Nigerian politicians now practice.
It must be stated here that political party system was devised in Britain over a century ago. Britain, like the other western nations, is a capitalist country.
Capitalism is a system of government whereby a single party rules and controls the affairs of government.
As Nigeria’s colonial masters, Britain introduced the political party system to Nigeria at independence when Nigerians were largely illiterate and the system was extremely strange to them.
Nigerians, being very intelligent people, saw the loopholes in the system, and these loopholes enabled them to adopt corrupt practices. These corrupt practices, observed prior to independence in 1960, developed in many ways. Now corruption is Nigeria’s albatross with our treasury being the major victim and the people the end sufferers.
To be honest, I am very sure that members of House of Representative are under allegiance to ensure that their party cabals are well and truly financially maintained and sustained. But how? It is by all sorts of corrupt practices, secret inflation of contracts and creation of unnecessary offices. Imagine the colossal sum of money spent on electioneering campaigns. Where does the money come from? It is no wonder that Lamido Sanusi again cried out loudly a few months ago that more than half of the nation’s income is gulped by the House of Representatives and Senate, not mentioning the “Third House”. What allocation is left for infrastructure and other essential developmental projects?
To be honest with ourselves, it is difficult not to conclude that the cabal is the citadel of corruption in Nigeria. And when the head practises corruption, all the big and small names there will do likewise.
Under normal circumstances, a member of the House of Representatives ought not to earn more than a university don. But most of them earn a don’s annual salary in one month. For doing what, you may ask?
Below are other reasons political parties ought to be abolished:
*It is sheer waste of public funds.
And how is the money obtained? Through corrupt practices in high places.
*Electioneering campaigns, generally, are too riotous, violent and full of intrigues. Political parties will do anything, including arson and assassination, if that would enable them capture people’s votes to form the government. It is a highly criminal procedure.
*Political office holders, because of the assistance obtained from top party hierarchy, compensate the cabal that helped them win election.
It is my belief that, the two Houses often formed by political parties are foreign to Africa and can be abolished or amended. This was done in a north African country a couple of weeks ago. Similarly, a West African country suspended their senate a couple of weeks ago.
Imagine all the rioting, arson, assassinations, unlawful killings and armed conflict taking place all over Africa, they all arose as a result of the intrigues of political parties justling for power.
Let us tell ourselves the truth: adoption of the ordinary rules of meetings practised by organizations like the Nigerian Bar Association, the Nigerian Medical Association, the Nigerian Labour Congress, the various unions in universities and other tertiary institutions is much simpler to understand, much cheaper — it will cut the unnecessarily exorbitant expenditure of the legislature by at least 75 percent and with a better result.
Once again, the political party system is a mere grand design to provide cheap jobs for the elite to get fat salaries or income at the detriment of the workers and ordinary citizens in the community.
Strictly speaking, with a well and properly constituted INEC and the already laid out constituencies as well as a properly supervised computerised system of voting, elections should take place joyously and results announced within 48 hours in peace and without the presence of the army or police at the polling booths.
Let us take the bull by the horn, let us abolish the political party system, for peace and faster progress in Nigeria.
•Sholanke, lawyer wrote from Yaba, Lagos
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.
Source: PM News
DisNaija.Com publishes regular posts on Nigeria News, Nigerian Newspapers, Online Nigeria Gist.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Your Opinion Counts. Be sure To Leave A Comment, If You Have Any.
Please Like, Share or Tweet. Your Support Is Appreciated.
The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack
UFC: Usman gets N584m after beating Masvidal
Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings
Buhari Will Win In 2019: US Institute
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has predicted that President Muhammadu Buhari will win the 2019 election. The organisation...
Why Buhari Deserves Second Term – Lai Mohammed
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has said that President Muhammadu Buhari deserved second term election because,...
Atiku Presidential Campaign Council: PDP Releases List of Members
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday released the list of party members to handle the campaign team of the...
Obasanjo Forgives Atiku, Endorses Him For President
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday said he has reviewed his stance on not backing his former deputy for the...
Buhari, Atiku In Battle Of Integrity Over 2019 Poll
THE brickbats continued yesterday between President Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. The All Progressives Congress (APC) and...