January 24, 2009
Conference of Nigeria Political Parties {CNPP}, regrettably states once more that the Standoff between members of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Joint Committee on Constitution Review {JCCR}, is Peoples Democratic Party {PDP}’s Hidden Agenda to consolidate One Party State dominance and actualize PDP obsession to rule for the next 60 years.
While we waited for the PDP to reconcile the two factions in their family tradition, what we notice is widening of the gulf, each side trading accusation on the other to the ridiculous extent that the Senate fingered unnamed Fifth Columnist.
To us the Fifth Columnist is the PDP, with over 700 State House of Assembly Members out of 880, over 280 House of Representatives Members out of 360, over 80 Senators out of 109 and 27 Governors out of 36; which is reluctant for the past nine years to amend even one of the relevant sections of the Constitution that will deepen and consolidate our democracy.
PDP as a beneficiary of the defects in the military fashioned 1999 Constitution, that mandates only the president to appoint all the Electoral Commissioners and manipulate all the institutions of democracy ;has the penchant to embark on cocktail constitutional amendment with simulated obstacles.
CNPP had queried the PDP obsession to rule for the next 60 years, when PDP’s legacy is littered with underdevelopment, wasted opportunities, squander of golden-oil-age, bad judgment, inefficiency and gross corruption.
To Stop One Party State and anti-democrats who labour to rule for 60 years from truncating our democracy, CNPP in league with other progressive patriots opine that the subsisting national consensus is that constitutional amendment should be single phased and the first amendment should be the one that will rekindle and restore the vanishing faith in our fledgling democracy.
On this score CNPP had prepared a Draft Copy of Electoral Constitution Amendment Bill for ratification in our meeting of 29th January at Abuja, for onward presentation to the National Assembly. The Bill when passed will make the Electoral Commission truly independent; restore the sanctity of the ballot box, the worth of the vote and election of true leaders.
We challenge the PDP to support this Electoral Amendment Bill, to identify with the people, to absolve the notion that it is suffering from Electoral-Phobia and to use it to determine the electoral strength of each political party. PDP cannot predicate its might on sham elections and claim to be the largest in Africa; it is our considered view that this antithetical to democratic renewal. Is not shameful that while Ghana is celebrating genuine electoral process and true democracy, democracy is vanishing in Nigeria?
The fruit of what we need is pertinent when we recall that the USA we are wont to emulate in our democratic route, in the 222 years of her Constitution, had never amended two constitutional issues at a time in over 20 amendments. The 1st Amendment in 1791 was Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press and Assembly, the 15th Amendment of 1870 is the Right to Vote or Suffrage of African Americans down to the last the 27th Amendment of 1992, Restraint on Congressional Salaries.
Consequently, the Electoral Constitution Amendment Bill in our considered view should be the 1st Amendment and can be passed without jumbo budget and Joint Committee on Constitution Review.
Osita Okechukwu
National Publicity Secretary
CNPP
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