…From Dele Ogunyemi, Ibadan…
Worried by the insurgencies in some parts of the country, a former Minister of Mines, Power and Steel Development, Alhaji Sarafa Tunji Isola, has advocated stringent laws against election rigging, thuggery and assassination as the processes for the 2015 polls in Nigeria gather momentum.
The ex-Minister made the call in the Oyo State capital on Wednesday while delivering the Annual Distinguished Personality Lecture of the Graduate Students of Political Science, University of Ibadan.
Speaking on the theme, ‘Party Politics and the Survival of Democratic Government in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic’, Alhaji Tunji Isola also warned on the dangers for Nigeria to play into the hands of some American researchers who had predicted that the nation will disintegrate by 2015.
“This prediction has been shifted to 2030. Whether it is today or tomorrow, the nation must not play into the hands of its enemies,” he stated.
According to the former Minister, “if some external interests or powers want Nigeria to disintegrate, we must do our best to ensure this does not happen.”
But he expressed concern that the failure of political parties to enthrone internal democracy would spell doom for the future of democracy in Nigeria.
Commenting specifically on the theme of the lecture, the former Minister criticized the formation of political parties in Nigeria, saying that their structure is strangulating democracy just as he expressed doubt over the genuine ideologies and status of the political parties in the country.
He condemned in strong terms the political system where people he described as political thugs, assassins, mercantile godfathers, party stalwarts and security agencies, determine winners of elections in the country, adding that Nigerians deserved the space needed to enthrone the type of government they desired.
He said: “Since 1999 when the Fourth Republic began with the end of military rule, Nigeria has been struggling to sustain and consolidate its democracy. President Goodluck Jonathan administration has been striving to ensure free, fair, peaceful, secure and credible elections because elections constitute the heart or engine room of democracy.
“But one serious problem that has bedevilled Nigeria’s democratic experience is the nature of the country’s party politics. Apart from its violent nature and lack of political ideology, our political parties have consistently manifested lack of internal party democracy. The absence of solid principles and ideology has enabled politicians to move from one party to another.