The former Minister of Information, Tony Momoh, has called for a return to part time legislature in Nigeria as practised during the First Republic.
He made the call in Abuja while speaking at the 14th Public Lecture organised by The Electoral Institute in memory of the late Prof. Abubakar Momoh, the pioneer Director General of the institute.
At the lecture themed “Towards 2019 General Elections: Political Parties and Internal Democracy”, the APC chieftain also voiced concern over the increasing budget of National Assembly.
According to him, “what they do in the National Assembly in two Houses of Representatives and the Senate is what they do when they were working part time in the First Republic. They don’t work full time. But they get full time pay and so they spend more of their time to empower themselves in business that are not to the benefit of any other persons.”
The guest lecturer, Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim, said that since the issue of left and right divide had “largely vanished from Nigerian political parties”, the conflicts were focused on the issue of personalities, ethnic groups, geopolitical zones and the control of power.
Ibrahim, who said the culture of imposition of candidates was no longer acceptable, the attributed the failure of the defunct CPC in the 2011 governorship elections to the menace.
He, therefore, urged political parties to learn to how to practice internal democracy by accepting that it is their interest to follow their internal rules and regulations and respect the principles of elective inclusivity.
“Political parties today need to start transforming themselves into competent democratic organs. The first step is for the parties to improve their organizational skills,” he also said.
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