By Emeka Nze
Abuja
Former Commissioner of Information, Edo state, Kassim Afegbua, has urged Nigerians to begin to interrogate the democratic processes in the country to ensure that the outcome meets the basic requirement of credible, free and fair election.
Afegbua, who questioned the processes that throw up aspirants as party candidates, decried the lack of internal democracy in political parties while chiding political parties for running non transparent account.
He stated this yesterday while giving a keynote address at the presentation of a monthly magazine, Presidential Diary, and accused politicians of buying their way into offi ces and appropriating the collective patrimony of the citizens to recoup their election expenses and save enough for re-elective.
He called on political parties to wake up to their responsibilities by helping to build the institutional framework of a sustainable democratic process.
“Given our journey thus far in the super highway of democratic emanations, we need to begin to interrogate the processes that midwife any democratic engagement to ensure that the fi nal outcome meets the basic requirement of credible, free and fair election.
How many elections in Nigeria truly pass the test of being the outcome of credible processes? “How do the candidates for every election emerge from the respective political parties? How credible is the process.
How participatory are they? How do delegates emerge in the fi rst place? Who decides what obtains in the processes; the party executives or the leaders or the godfathers? Do we get satisfaction from the process as participants or we just go home helplessly awed by the outcomes because we cannot fight the system? “Politicians buy their way into office, appropriate our collective patrimony to recoup their election expenses and save enough for reelection purposes.
Rather than perform to impress their electorates, they tell you oh, the election was very expensive and we haven’t been able to stabilize our purses.
