Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president has proposed that elected officials who defect to another party should lose their seats.
Gatekeepers News reports that Atiku made the proposal during a national conference on strengthening democracy in Nigeria on Monday in Abuja.
The politician highlighted five concepts that must be addressed to enhance the country’s democracy, including institutional capacity of political parties, normative acceptance by party members, consequences for non-compliance, and judicial reform.
He said, “Democracy can’t be sustained without strong political parties, especially opposition parties.”
“Parties need to be strong and democratic enough to be able to fulfil their roles. Ownership of parties by or their subordination to individual big men is the antithesis of democracy. Party supremacy is critical.”
“In more effective democracies, parties and candidates raise funds from the mass of members and supporters. When people invest in something, they tend to be more engaged with it. So, our people, especially party members need to be enlightened.”
“Consequences for non-compliance: It must be made costly to ignore party supremacy/rules. Elected members decamping must vacate their seats.”
The 2023 People Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential candidate said Nigeria’s democracy is at a crossroads and at the risk of eroding completely.
He said, “It is not caused by one single person or one single administration. In fact, a number of us have been warning over the years that we may come to this pass if we lose our vigilance and fail to take corrective actions to protect and deepen our democracy.0
Atiku further alleged that no politician has spoken out and done more to promote democratic governance in Nigeria than he has. He also stressed the need for judicial reform to “curb judicial recklessness”.
He said, “In a period of less than 20 years the Nigerian judiciary has moved from being the beacon of democratic sustenance to becoming, arguably, the biggest threat to Nigeria’s democracy.”
“That must change. The same judiciary that affirmed the primacy of parties in choosing their candidates and leaders now sanctions and indeed promotes destruction of parties by a few, and in some cases, a single individual with a personal agenda.”
“The judiciary also seems to have replaced the voters in choosing our leaders. The involvement of the judiciary in electoral disputes was intended to affirm the choice of voters.”
“But the judiciary, even at the highest levels, twists and contorts to find technicalities to deny voters their choice rather than affirming the voters’ choices.”
