Political parties not deepening democracy in NIgeria - VP, don

Director-General of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Prof. Tijani Muhammed-Barde, has said political parties lack organisational capabilities to galvanise Nigerians into real political participation.

Mohammed-Barde spoke in Jos on Wednesday at the opening session of a conference on political parties and democracy and the inauguration a Political Parties Leadership and Policy Development Centre, funded by the United Nations Development Programme.

He said, “The ability of political parties to deepen democracy depends on their ability to organise themselves and do what they should do; but here political parties have not created much political consciousness.

“What parties do is very important. I have political parties to do a lot of things, to drive policy that would enhance and deepen democracy in the country depends on how they organise themselves.

He said it was in realisation of this that the institute, with the assistance of the UNDP, decided to provide a platform to train leaders of political parties to assist them to develop policies that would drive the development of Nigeria.

According to him, no other institution can provide such a partisan platform than NIPSS, to drive the exercise.

Director of Research, Prof. Olu Obafemi, whose efforts culminated in the establishment of the centre, said what Nigetia needed at this time of development were strong political parties to drive democracy in the country.

This, he said, was necessary because research had shown that political parties in Nigeria were weak, personalised and not inclusive.

Meanwhile, Vice President, Namadi Sambo, said political parties in Nigeria lacked capacity to develop into strong instruments for social engineering.

He said rather than developing strong political institutions to deepen the country’s democratic culture, more attention was being paid to the establishment of governmental bodies and civic organisations.

The vice president, who spoke at the inauguration of the Centre on Wednesday, said both institutions were important but added that without strong and dynamic political parties, democracy could not survive on the long run.

Sambo, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Political Matters, Senator Isaiah Ballat, said political parties, like any other institutions, should continuously seek to enhance their capacity in response to changing circumstances.

He said, “Leaders of political owe themselves the obligation to take advantage of the opportunities offered by this all important Centre for self-improvement. Let participation in this training become the turning point in your lives as you position yourselves to effectively take up the challenges of being th successor generation to today’s leaders.”