The adoption of a two-party in the country will stabilize the polity to a reasonable extent because a majority of registered 62 political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, only exists in the register. Yes they exist only in name.
From investigation, though not official, out of the existing 62 political parties in the country today, about 30 of them are owned by members of the ruling PDP. It is very clear that most of them do not have functional offices in the nation’s capital. About nine of them actually have functional offices in Abuja whereas the rest of them have offices in their briefcases. Where do the remaining have their offices located at?
I have no doubt in my mind that the best party system for this corruption-ridden country is a two-party system because such arrangement will definitely make it difficult for rigging because it is just two parties and the cases of ballot box snatching will drastically reduce.
Election touts as we have in the present multi-party system, will also have jobs and the electoral tribunal will be almost useless because a clear winner will emerge from a keenly contested election unlike what we have today where many political parties that take part in an election are just pretenders and not real contenders. They ask for compensation after election in the form of portfolios or in monetary form. Avery good case study should be the 1993 general election between the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC).
If two-party system is effectively practiced, the issue of merger or alliance won’t arise because it is just two political parties and they have different ideologies, they will field their most credible candidates.
Across check of the nation’s judiciary has shown that the most thriving section of it is the electoral tribunal as billions of tax payers’ money is wasted on electoral cases. I believe that two-party system will further strengthen our democracy for good.
The immediate past Osun State Governorship debate was an eye opener. What good programmes does a political party whose candidate could not express himself in simple English have for the people of the state? A governorship candidate that could not express himself in English, the official language in the Nigeria was not ready for the real contest but will end up asking for compensation at the end of the election.
In the last general elections, only about three of the political parties really contested for the presidency while the rest of them just added to the number. Those that had no presidential candidate at all merged with the ruling party.
If only the corrupt politicians in this country will buy into this option of two-party system, corruption, the second of our politics will not only be reduced but the whole democratic system will be further cleansed.
This two party system will also enhance the unity among Nigerians but my fear is that those who benefit from this unhealthy system will ensure that it is never achievable.
Every opposition party will be strong enough to wrestle power from the ruling party and for anybody to emerge a party’s flag bearer; he or she must have to be the very best among the aspirants. It will no doubt reduce election costs. It will also stem out the issue of religious, ethnic and regional sentiment and unite us better.
Source: News24
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