By Gift Chapi Odekina
Following the just concluded general election in the country, civil societies have called on Nigerians to hold political parties accountable to implementing their party manifesto’s as promised during their campaigns.
The Programme Manager, Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), Olumide Olaniyan made the call at a one day programme on holding political parties and political leaders accountable to their promises for the development of the country held in Abuja.
According to him, the beauty of democracy was the idea that it promotes development in all sectors of the economy as the people engage their political leaders for the management of the commonwealth for the overall good of the society.
He said Nigerians should continue to talk about manifestos of the various political parties, especially those occupying elective offices at various levels and thereafter, citizens should also be able to hold them accountable to the promises made during the electioneering period.
He said: “When we talk about citizens holding the political class accountable is also to take it beyond people living in the city alone but to ensure that people living in some hard to reach communities are able to hold the political parties accountable.
“They are able to hold their elected representatives accountable to what they have promised the people at pre-elections and at post election, they should be able to deliver on.
He said the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, would elevate the discussion and galvanize the various civil society groups and the media to continue to put these development issues on the front burner.
According to him: “We do have scheme to deepen the conversation, prior to now we are working with National Institutes of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), we are working on a research to look at the inclusive practices of the 18 political parties.
“This will be launching sometimes in April, key recommendations from that studies will guide us in some of the up coming activities that we will be having with political parties, CSOs, even with key government institutions including INEC, IPAC and some other institutions and such institutions that play key role in terms of politics in our country.”
The programme Manager also said that there are measures to sustain the campaign through participatory programmes that could engender further discussions in national development.
His words: “This is not just a one-off of a programme, we still intend to have other programmes that will follow this kind of trends depending on the Rhythm we can pick from the government going forward, especially post inauguration.
“We will look at what extent is the government in place inclusive and to what extent are the other political parties inclusive.
“Politic and policy should not only be during election, while at post-election, everybody goes to sleep and nothing is happening thereafter, we want to continue to work with the people and we want to work wit all the citizens.
“We all saw what happen during the election, how the number oof women n parliament has continued to decline, as we have learnt Nigeria is standing at lowest rung of the ladder in Africa we just few women elect in the senate. That is extremely poor and the poorest in Africa and because parties are not operating with their own policies and their own manifestos.
“A lot of them have plans in their own constitution to include women but they are not doing this in practice. It only in the policy, we need to hold them accountable on this.
“Just organization like ours, the media has played big role as the citizen we engage with everyday, they listen to radio, TV and of course the new media as we noted earlier is very key now ( a lot of mis information go on in the new media) In spite f that both new and traditional media play key role to ensure that fake news is not circulated
“Fake news is extremely dangerous and injurious to democracy and the polity to ensure that when the government make a statement, that we do not just allow that to die there, we follow up as media and on that statement we bring them back to account on that statement.
“And if they are not able to implement it, is solely their responsibility and importantly so in compliance with transparency that they tell the citizens, why they are not able to take this further rather than letting everything die there and no body is saying anything.” Olaniyan stated.
