Elected and appointed office holders in the country who defect from their political parties to another would automatically lose their offices or seats if the recommendation of the National Conference Committee on Political Parties and Electoral Matters sees the light of day.

The committee equally recommended independent candidacy and unbundling of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, so that a different body can be solely be responsible for registration and regulation of political parties in the country.

The committee co-chaired by two former Senate Presidents, Ken Nnamani and Iyiocha Ayu, also recommended that Federal Government be constitutionally stripped of its role in giving subventions to political parties.

A member of the committee and delegate representing Ondo State, at the conference, Barr. Remi Olatubora, unfolded details of the committee’s recommendations while briefing newsmen.

Barr. Olatubora, who is the Ondo State Commissioner for Technical and Vocational Education, said it would no longer be business for elected and appointed office holders in the country to abandon their political parties, by joining others. He said his committee discovered that some politicians were feigning what he called ‘phantom factions’ in their parties to seek greener pastures in others.

Said Barr. Olatubora: “We have recommended that if you cross carpet, you lose your seat. So when you are appointed or elected on the platform of a political party and then you cross over to another party, you lose your seat.

“According to our recommendation, it is no longer going to be excuse that there is a faction because we believe that some people and individuals will deliberately create some phantom factions in their political parties to ensure that they create some false pretends or excuse of decamping to another political party where they think that they scavenge around for greener pasture.

“And so, if you cross carpet now, you lose your seat. And then, we have also extended it to other political offices even to the position of governors, chairmen of local government councils and councilors, because the law as it is now, is restricted to only members of the National Assembly, members of the House of Assembly but you have seen that in recent past, there are governors that crossed from their parties to other parties and we see that this is a serious indiscipline in the system.

“If you go to the parliament or if you are elected as governor and if you jump ship along the way, you will lose your seat, you will lose your office.

“We are not banning cross carpeting but you cross with the benefit and the burden. The burden being that you lose your political office or seat if you are in the parliament or your office if you are governor and the benefit is whatever is the purpose, the reason which you are jumping to another party. So in essence, you stand to automatically lose your seat if you cross carpet.

“It is morally reprehensible for you to contest on the platform of party ‘A’ for a mandate that will last for four years and just somewhere along the line, you abandon that particular political party that sponsored you and you run to another political party.”

Barr. Olatubora said the country’s freedom of association provision as enshrined in the existing constitution should not be misconstrued, as no right is absolute.

His words: “There is no right that is absolute; even the right to life is not absolute sometimes in our constitution, because your right to life is limited by certain circumstance. For instance, if you commit, God forbids, murder and you are found guilty of having committed murder, the law of the land is that you should be hanged until you become dead. That is the limitation,” he insisted.

On independent candidacy, he had this to say: “We are all of the view that one other means through which we can strengthen internal democracies in political parties is to make provision available for independent candidates.

“Individuals who want to contest election and who are popular, and who are schemed out of the political processes in their political parties should be able to go out as independent candidates and contest elections.

“We are also looking at the situation where people who are not comfortable with the shenanigans of political parties can as responsible members of the society, as responsible members of their states and local governments, can come back and contest for elective positions.”

He said the committee also recommended that the Federal Government be made to stop giving subventions to political parties.

“We have now recommended that political parties should now be sponsored by their members. We have recommended that the Federal Government should no longer send subventions to political parties. Let us go back to the olden days, let us go back to the practice in Europe and America where members of political party will statutorily prescribed dues, whether annually, bi-annually or monthly with which the party will be run.

“And then, we have recommended the placement of ceiling on how much a particular individual can use to sponsor a political party so that some big men will not hijack the political process. This will depend on the regulation and constitution of the party, you could recommend that every member of the party is required to pay N500 every quarter or every year and you put a ceiling on the amount of the money that the big man around there can put in the party so that a billionaire will not just come around and then put two to even N20 billion in the coffers of a political party and then begin to suggest who will go to the House of Assembly in Taraba State and Ondo State and who will go for the House of Representatives seats available in Lagos and Enugu State.”

Barr. Olatubora disclosed that the committee recommended the retention of a multi-party system in the country.

He said: “We are also of the view that the party system should remain multi-party system. We jumbled with the idea of two one party system, two party system, three party system but we came to the conclusion that we should create access to democratic practice in Nigeria, greater access.

“Let there be no restriction, else, three or four individuals can park themselves together. Let us liberalise the process of running of political parties. We are even advocating that a political party can just be based on local issues. If it is going to be possible for me to just register a political party and base my political party on issues that affect my people in Akure, so be it.

“In the First Republic or so, the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, was limited to Kano and their approach was the poor masses of the people in Kano and then they were winning elections and delivering the democratic dividends. The UPN was largely a Yoruba party dominated mostly by the Yorubas and the people in the then Midwestern Nigeria while NPC was more or less a Northern conservative political party.

“Let us allow this freedom. In the process, all these parties can also form alliance for the purposes of winning national positions like the Presidency. Let us use this multi-party platform to gravitate towards a workable political party system that will satisfy the yearnings of our people.

“In England, there are more than two political parties, in the United States of America, there are more than two political parties but some people who are not aware that they have other political parties, think they have just two, that is not correct. They have multi-party system but in the US, only the Democrat and the Republican parties are the most popular just as the Labour and Conservative are popular and well known to people all over the world.

“They have other small parties that are based on local issues and circumstances and geographically limited to certain areas and they are winning parliamentary seats. That is exactly what we are proposing here, a multi-party system that will create access to people.”

The committee, according to the delegate, has also recommended a code of conduct for politicians, political office holders as well as political parties.

“We are also emphasising that there must be code of conduct for politicians, code of conduct for political office holders and code of conduct for the running of political parties; so that people must know that there are conditions that they must conform to as administrators of political parties, because we are seeing political parties as breeding grounds for political leaders of this country and if you don’t get it right from the level of the management and administration of the political parties, you can never get it right at the level of the leadership.

“So we are saying that we are going to fashion out a code of conduct for the administration of political parties and even for the conduct of members of political parties. And if you run against the code of conduct, you are not going to qualify for any political office.

“If this is done, we are of the view that a lot of the problems that we are having in our system now will, to a large extent, be dealt with,” he assured.

The confab committee spokesman had this to say on the fate of INEC: “We are thinking of unbundling INEC so that there could be a commissioner that will be responsible for the registration and regulation of political parties and then, we will have a body that will be concerned only with the elections, like we unbundled the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN.”

•Photo shows Co-chairman of the National Conference Committee on Political Parties and Electoral Matters, Senator Ken Nnamani.

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