Dear Esteemed readers,
I have been humbly honored and mandated by Alhaji Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, the National Chairman of the PEOPLES' REDEMPTION PARTY, to publish this rejoinder to the Editor of DailyTrust after waiting for several days without his rejoinder being published by the dailyTrust.
KINDLY CIRCULATE WIDELY TO FRUSTRATE THE SUBTARREIAN MOVES BY THE PDP THRU INEC TO EMASCULATE THE OPPOSITION!
Bashir I'shaq Bashir.
ENJOY YOUR READING!
The Editor,
DailyTrust,
Abuja.
Your editorial on de-registration of Political parties on page 55 of the DailyTrust dated Wednesday, August 2012, lacks democratic essence, realism, balanced considerations, and is reactionary journalism.
On democratic essence, you seem to prefer political convenience to free formation and growth of political parties. You seem to ignore relevant sections of the 1999 constitution of the Federal government of Nigeria regarding the power of Nigerians (the electorate) to decide the fate of political parties and their election candidates.
Remember that limitation of the number of political parties and their election candidates were first introduced in Nigeria by the military as part of their impositions before the handover of power to civilians which led to the second Republic. The military was concerned about who they were handing over power to because they might decide to come back.
During the colonial time and the first Republic, there were no attempts to restrict the number of political parties and candidates by fiat. The power was exercised by the electorate and hence fewer political parties and candidates survived. This was democracy and free formation of political parties and their growth.
On realism, how can any sound arbiter (which the DailyTrust editorial pretends to be), judge between the present so called big and “real bonafide parties” and others, when stolen public money and incumbency powers are the deciding factors in politics and elections and not self reliance, patriotism, and financial contributions of party members.
Financing of political parties by the governments contributed to over-regulation of politics and political parties, unwieldiness, illogicalities, bottlenecks to conduct of elections, cumbersomeness, nuisance, and other nightmares of INEC which the editorial mentioned, as well as the incompetence and lack of independence of the electoral management body.
In any case, financing of political parties by government stopped many years ago and it was just N6m yearly for each political party; hardly enough for a village head area in our money politics. Can you say that your “bonafide” political parties individually and, or collectively are changing the negative state of the Nation? Why then bother to judge in their favour against the others?
You said in many mature democracies predominance of few number of parties is the norm. Is Nigeria a mature democracy? What is democratic about the fundamental state of the Nigerian nation? Do these democracies deregister political parties? You should know better!
On balance, section 40 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal republic of Nigeria makes it quite clear that a political party that has been accorded recognition by the commission cannot be deregistered. It says:
“every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests: provided that the provision of this section shall not derogate from the power conferred by this constitution on INEC with respect to political parties to which that commission does not accord recognition”.
Is the editorial calling for underground political movements by other means to take care of the Natural rights of the aggrieved Nigerians where and when the rights are denied?
Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa
National Chairman of the
PEOPLES’ REDEMPTION PARTY
And Conference of Nigerian political parties (CNPP)
I have been humbly honored and mandated by Alhaji Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, the National Chairman of the PEOPLES' REDEMPTION PARTY, to publish this rejoinder to the Editor of DailyTrust after waiting for several days without his rejoinder being published by the dailyTrust.
KINDLY CIRCULATE WIDELY TO FRUSTRATE THE SUBTARREIAN MOVES BY THE PDP THRU INEC TO EMASCULATE THE OPPOSITION!
Bashir I'shaq Bashir.
ENJOY YOUR READING!
The Editor,
DailyTrust,
Abuja.
Your editorial on de-registration of Political parties on page 55 of the DailyTrust dated Wednesday, August 2012, lacks democratic essence, realism, balanced considerations, and is reactionary journalism.
On democratic essence, you seem to prefer political convenience to free formation and growth of political parties. You seem to ignore relevant sections of the 1999 constitution of the Federal government of Nigeria regarding the power of Nigerians (the electorate) to decide the fate of political parties and their election candidates.
Remember that limitation of the number of political parties and their election candidates were first introduced in Nigeria by the military as part of their impositions before the handover of power to civilians which led to the second Republic. The military was concerned about who they were handing over power to because they might decide to come back.
During the colonial time and the first Republic, there were no attempts to restrict the number of political parties and candidates by fiat. The power was exercised by the electorate and hence fewer political parties and candidates survived. This was democracy and free formation of political parties and their growth.
On realism, how can any sound arbiter (which the DailyTrust editorial pretends to be), judge between the present so called big and “real bonafide parties” and others, when stolen public money and incumbency powers are the deciding factors in politics and elections and not self reliance, patriotism, and financial contributions of party members.
Financing of political parties by the governments contributed to over-regulation of politics and political parties, unwieldiness, illogicalities, bottlenecks to conduct of elections, cumbersomeness, nuisance, and other nightmares of INEC which the editorial mentioned, as well as the incompetence and lack of independence of the electoral management body.
In any case, financing of political parties by government stopped many years ago and it was just N6m yearly for each political party; hardly enough for a village head area in our money politics. Can you say that your “bonafide” political parties individually and, or collectively are changing the negative state of the Nation? Why then bother to judge in their favour against the others?
You said in many mature democracies predominance of few number of parties is the norm. Is Nigeria a mature democracy? What is democratic about the fundamental state of the Nigerian nation? Do these democracies deregister political parties? You should know better!
On balance, section 40 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal republic of Nigeria makes it quite clear that a political party that has been accorded recognition by the commission cannot be deregistered. It says:
“every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests: provided that the provision of this section shall not derogate from the power conferred by this constitution on INEC with respect to political parties to which that commission does not accord recognition”.
Is the editorial calling for underground political movements by other means to take care of the Natural rights of the aggrieved Nigerians where and when the rights are denied?
Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa
National Chairman of the
PEOPLES’ REDEMPTION PARTY
And Conference of Nigerian political parties (CNPP)
