The 11th Technical Session of The Electoral Forum has recommended that the powers of the electoral commission should be strengthened and exercised to allow it to decide on party candidacy and leadership as stipulated in the Electoral Act 2022.
In a joint recommendation signed by the chairman of the forum, Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, it recommended that parties should be strengthened to ensure their survival after elections.
According to the Forum, “Presently, we have nine parties with elected representatives at the National and State Assemblies, a diversity which might be lost if parties are not strengthened.
“The INEC department on Election and Party Monitoring should be reorganise and reinforced to focus strictly on political parties’matters – registration, regulations, monitoring etc. also, campaign finance monitoring should be given more visibility.
“The INEC political party deparment should be strengthened including professional training for staff.
“There should be much greater attention to ways of growing party membership, programme vision, and internal party democracy in Nigeria
“INEC should collaborate with CSO, and former INEC non-partisan staff in monitoring political party elections, congresses and conventions, particularly, their primaries.
“Capacity building programmes should be organized for political parties, including the full time staff who run the day to day operations of the parties.
“Also, elected officials of political parties should undertake induction sessions organised by them as well as by INEC.
“If the trend of party violation of electoral guidelines and ideals of electoral conduct persists, there would be a need to set up a political party monitoring agency,”.
