MAKURDI – (FIC Makurdi Report) – The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been urged to consider limiting the number of political parties to pave way for people to identify the symbols of parties and for easy voting of the party of their choice.
Hyicent Nyakuma, a political leader in Ushongo, who is a former Majority Leader in the State’s 8th Assembly, while making the call opined that though the law allows for freedom of association, INEC should reconsider the parameters for association to become parties for election.
Also talking, Tony Ijohor (Prof) told the Federal Information Officers that the political parties that did not make any impact would die a natural death, suggesting a systemic legislation that would trim down the number of parties as recorded on INEC list. Tony Ijohor, who is also the Secretary to the Benue State Government identified the legislative system capacity as an important tool to ease out most of the smaller parties that have made no significant impact.
Highlighting the issue of rigging, he pointed out that the use of card readers has made it easier to access voting and voters participation as it has become difficult for any one to rig elections in Nigeria.
In a related development, the Benue State Commissioner for Education, Dennis Tyavyar (Prof) praised the courage of INEC in carrying out the national assignment, describing the whole exercise as a pass mark and great service to the nation. He called for a trim down on the number of political parties, urging them to merge their political ideologies.
Bob Tyough, a National Assembly member-elect for Kwande/Ushongo Federal Constituency suggested that belonging to a political party should be a matter of choice. He implied that if the owners of such parties are able to sustain them, there should be no problem and if not, they need to fold up on their own.
He described the decision to proscribe them as untimely, saying there ought to be legislative intervention on the matter.
While expressing his opinion on the situation, Andrew Ayam (Dr) pointed out that it is not important to proscribe some of the political parties, stressing that USA is an example of a country with numerous political parties.
