…Set For Oversight Visit to Kogi, Bayelsa States
Williams Anuku Abuja
Chairman Senate Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission, Senator Kabiru Gaya has revealed that plans were on by the National Assembly to deregister at least 85 political parties before 2023 elections.
He claimed most of the political parties are just figure heads, with most having no relevance or elected personalities.
Gaya who had a private meeting with Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday, said part of reforms being initiated in the electoral system was to make the conditions stringent for registration, as a lot of deregistered parties still go beyond the scene to get registered.
His words, “Regarding reforms in the electoral Act, first of all, we are looking at the issue of the number of political parties; actually, they are too many; we have 91 political parties; and currently, the court has added another party which makes them 92.
“Many are still applying; but there is a criteria constitutionally, that parties should have a kind of qualification or at least requirement before they are registered.
“Actually, we are going to deregister almost 85 political parties because they are unqualified.
“They don’t even have a counselor or a House of Assembly member; so all those parties should be deregistered but there is a problem; if you deregister them, they will go through the back door and register again, but we need to now have tough conditions for registration of political parties whereby we could maintain the number of four or five by God’s grace”.
On frequent criticism of the Vice President by Junaid Mohammed, the Senator said Osinbajo deserved some level of respect as a public office holder
While urging the VP not to be distracted, he said the mere fact that he offered himself to serve the country should not expose him to abuse from the citizens.
He said, “First of all, this is interesting. You see in a country like Nigeria, we need to respect our elders; people like President Muhammadu Buhari, you cannot say anything wrong with him or abuse him because he is the President.
“Like, the Vice President, there is no point in raising all these issues; I think there is need for, before Junaid speaks, he should be able to check the records of who are the staff of the Office of the Vice President.
“I think I remember vividly, we have a member of the House of Representatives from Tarauni constituency who is from the Office of the Vice President.
“I think the Vice President should disregard this issue and continue working for Nigeria, not a section of the country; I believe he should not be distracted; we should work as a team”.
Commenting on the forthcoming polls in Kogi and Bayelsa, he said an oversight visit will be soon be conducted to guage the state of readiness by the electoral umpire to carry out the elections.
“As Chairman, Committee of INEC, we are going to summon INEC Chairman and his Commissioners to brief us on their readiness, especially whether they are ready for the elections.
“We will go through that, but still as members of the committee, we are going to do oversight of the state and see how ready they are for the elections and we expect that it will continue to be free, fair election in our country and we will definitely support them,”he told State House Correspondents in a brief chat.
