The Senator representing Benue South Senatorial District, Comrade Patrick Abba Moro, has said that the amendment of the Electoral Act by the National Assembly to make direct primary mode mandatory for political parties in choosing candidates for elections was a step in the right direction.
Speaking in an interview, Moro, a one-time Interior Minister, wondered why anyone who means well for the advancement of democracy in the country would be opposed to the adoption of a direct primary system, which gives power to the people and a sense of belonging to the entire members of a political party.
The lawmaker, a staunch member of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said the indirect primary method, where a few persons decide who becomes the candidate of a political party without consideration for the views of the generality of the membership has resulted in the bastardization and debasement of democratic values in Nigeria.
“Quite frankly I support direct primaries because I think that is the best and right way to go now in this country. Our democracy has been bastardized by the delegate system (indirect primary mode) which has become a cesspool of corruption that democracy is on sale. People now ask for as much as N500, 000 per delegate. People now propose to give to delegates as much as one million naira per delegate to buy their votes. This is certainly a classical situation of democracy on sale which is unacceptable.
“In the beginning of our present democratic dispensation it was option A4. It was direct primaries in which rather than narrowing down the electors to a few number of delegates, a sizeable number of registered party members are allowed to choose their leaders. It was smooth. It was hitchfree,” Moro explained.
He added: “People express fears of the cost of direct primaries, and I said that it is self-serving for anybody to input high cost to direct primaries and scaring the government into believing that it would amount to huge cost on the part of government. Government doesn’t conduct primaries for political parties. Political parties conduct primaries but they don’t bear the cost of primaries. Of course yes, they pay officials to go conduct primaries. But candidates who aspire to political offices are responsible for persuading and inducing delegates to primaries whether direct or indirect to vote for them. The government doesn’t bear the cost.
“INEC has been supervising elections even from the level of delegates. They have been supervising. INEC has been observing. There are INEC officials in all the local governments. So, it’s not going to be new deployment of INEC to local governments. INEC employs adhoc staff to conduct elections. In any case, if that is the price that we have to pay for deepening democracy, if that is the price that we have to pay for ensuring transparency in the selection process of our leaders to make the people more relevant, so be it!
“For instance, my political party PDP has a slogan of power to the people. How do you justify that slogan other than asking your members to select their own leaders? If we have in the past been unable to properly manage our selection process, and it becomes necessary and imperative that we must resort to direct primary to allow people to have a say in who leads them, so be it!
“Like I said, the current amended electoral bill has very many fantastic provisions. If you look at the whole gamut of the reforms that have been introduced into the current Electoral Act Amendment Bill, it would be very, very unpatriotic of anybody to urge the president not to sign it into law. It would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
