A political pressure group, the Movement for the Advancement of Internal Democracy (MAID), which was inaugurated on Sunday, February 23, has called for the entrenchment of internal democracy in political parties in Rivers State in particular and Nigeria in general.
While inaugurating the Port Harcourt branch of the movement, the Co-ordinator of MAID, Livingstone Wechie, in a statement during on Monday, decried the lack of internal democracy in political parties in Nigeria. He lamented that the lack of this priceless virtue has led to the hijack of Nigeria’s political system by the wrong people who sit back to impose decisions on the rest of the members without recourse to stakeholders and identifiable members of the parties.
According to him, “the legitimacy of party supremacy is rooted in the observance of democratic culture and consultation.” He added that “party supremacy will lose its steam if ordinary members are not given the opportunity for popular participation from the units, wards, local government areas (LGAs) to the national levels in the pursuit of political interest.”
Wechie, who is a political activist, warned that if the excesses of certain overlords in the polity who have privatized political parties are not curtailed, the politics will be anything but people oriented because people are fast losing interest and resorting to self-help.
He further queried that Rivers state has been a major victim of this ugly trend, particularly the All Progressives Congress (APC) and other parties in various states where stakeholders and aggrieved members have been involved in a running endless battle in their parties in with multiple litigations. He pointed out that these have resulted in the denial of the parties from participating in elections at various levels even as the political destinies of many people were destroyed just because of the failure to allow the will of the people to prevail.
The inauguration which he promised will be done in all the Local Government Areas of the state and country will serve as an opportunity to sensitize the public on the importance of internal party democracy as a pivot for good governance, the statement said.
Wechie, called for a roundtable dialogue mechanism as the right tool to resolve party conflict. He charged the political class to give peace a chance in their parties and stop the culture of imposition because it will only lead to implosion and mass resistance. According to him, “if the politics is not right the governance will not be right.”
During the program, the Executives of the 20 Wards in Port Harcourt Local Government was inaugurated along with the Local Government Executive led Mr. Evan’s Wori who charged the Executives to be steadfast.
Innocent Odoh
