Electoral Act Amendments: Direct primary and the real enemies of Nigeria

By Noble Uche Agbaeze

The World Bank Report of 1989 on sustainable economic development in Africa established that the absence of sustainable economic development could be attributed to the non-practice of democracy and good governance on the continent. Thus the World Bank, which could be considered mainly an economic institution, had to go out of its way to prescribe an improvement of the quality of governance of the African States as the precondition for sustainable economic development in Africa in the 1990s.The recommendations of the bank in its “good governance” prescriptions and prognosis for African States included: the need for the rule of law, the accountability of the government to the governed, a reliable judicial system and the empowerment of civil society organizations. In a general sense “democracy” is used to describe a system of government in which the ultimate power or what is professionally referred to as sovereignty springs and rests on the people as opposed to other forms of government in which the final decision-making power rests on an individual, the monarch, or within a small number of persons as in aristocracy or oligarchy.

How can we talk about democracy, good governance, legitimacy of government, loyalty and patriotism of Nigerians, accountability, eschewing arrogance of those in power, self-aggrandizements, abuse of office, fighting corruption, brazen abuse of civil and political Rights of Nigerians, and reckless violations of the economic social and cultural Rights of Nigerians without supporting direct primaries for political parties that form the governments in our democratic system? knowing fully well that corrupt practices and criminal ideologies at the political parties level shall be transferred into the entire nation once such political parties win elections to form government.My perception about President Muhammadu Buhari, judging from precedents and antecedents so far,  is that he has done well in the area of allowing the wish and will of the people to override the selfish will of the selfish few, therefore I am optimistic that he shall assent this bill, but should he for any reason withhold assent then it is instructive that I respectfully call on the national assembly to invoke their powers as provided under Section 58 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As Amended) to override him because majority of Nigerians want direct primaries.So some bigwigs in PDP and APC can now unite for the wrong reason, against the people, they will not disagree on this one abi? because they want to remain in office or install their successors or manipulate themselves into the next political office,