By Nathaniel Zacchaeus
A former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has said direct primary election remained the only viable option in the nomination of candidates to consolidate Nigeria’s democracy.

He also condemned the negative influence of narrow and partisan interests in the making of the 2022 Electoral Act, as the long-delayed creation of state police could no longer guarantee internal security.

Ekweremadu spoke at a commemorative lecture, “Nigeria’s Democratic Experience: Reflections on Leadership Recruitment and Democratic Institution Building”, organised by the National Legislative and Democratic Institute (NILDS) in Abuja yesterday.

He called on the nation’s leaders to seek urgent help from the international community to flush out terrorist cartels or risk Nigeria becoming another Somalia.

He said, “When we mounted the leadership of the 6th National Assembly in 2007, and in subsequent Assemblies, we took it upon ourselves to reform the electoral system, including strengthening the critical institutions in the electoral process, namely the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the political parties.

“Whereas the INEC has really stabilised and improved greatly, the political parties have not made the expected progress.

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“Some of our efforts include financial autonomy for the INEC; administrative autonomy for the INEC; removal of membership of a political party as a qualification for appointment into the INEC; early release of funds to INEC; as well as the early primaries to allow time for resolving any issues.”
He also listed the provisions that “allows the INEC 360 days to prepare for elections; barring of the INEC from rejecting/disqualifying candidates; removal of the INEC officials as respondents in election petitions; removal of restriction on electronic voting; legal backing for smart card readers and any other voter accreditation technology that the INEC may deploy; and electronic transfer of results; and ending of disqualification of candidates by administrative panels, as part of the legislative intervention.”
Ekweremadu, however, said that whereas several milestones were achieved in the Electoral Act 2022, the Act could have been better were the processes not hijacked by narrow and political interests.

He explained that the whole essence of the direct primary was to ensure that all bona fide members of each political party partake in the primary elections and make hijack of the process by a few persons difficult.

He added that the result of the veto of that provision by the President and insistence on the restoration of delegate mode and inclusion of consensus mode of nomination was “the recent political fraud perpetrated across the nation and various political parties in the name of party primaries”.