A renowned Gombe State politician and economist, Mohammed Jubrin Barde has said that the country’s democratic and economic growth is being threatened by lack of ideologies in political parties and politicians’ quest to capture power.
Barde who appeared on Politics on Sunday on TVC, anchored by Femi Akande, stressed the need for the elites and educated to be involved actively in the political process in order to shape political parties in ways that can benefit the country.
Reacting to the recently held National Conference on Strengthening Democracy in Nigeria, Organized by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development, he said the gathering was timely, stressing the need for Nigerians to actively participate in politics.
“Democracy cannot thrive on its own, it requires active participation from all Nigerians and particularly, the elites. We must step into the arena and contest for positions of influence in order to influence policy decisions and also hold leaders accountable, that was exactly what happened in 2013 when the merger of political parties took place in order to challenge the status quo.
“If you recall that the APC strongly believes and generally there was this consensus in the country that the PDP as a political party was notorious for rigging elections, corruption and political intolerance, and therefore the APC came together, a combination of so many people from different political parties in order to challenge the government, that was a very decisive moment for the country.
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“Unfortunately, today, you can see that so many actors in APC have also left the party and the party itself is becoming weak under its own strength”, he said.
The ex-Guber aspirant in Gombe state noted that Nigeria needs to focus on elites actually participating genuinely for the good of the people of the country.
He maintained that the problem that Nigeria has is that most of its political parties are not based on a sound ideology, instead, people join political parties for the sake of gaining access to power.
“So the goal of individuals who join political parties particularly has nothing to do with building party politics or ensuring the political party is independent itself but rather wants to use it as a means to gain access to political power.
“Unless the political class change this attitude to ensure that we are going to build political parties that are very sound and strong with clear constitutional requirements we are permitted to submit ourselves to the constitutional requirements of the political parties and clear manifesto for each political party, we will continue to meander around these issues and the challenges that we are facing today in our democratic evolution in the country.
“The way and manner in which candidates emerge in political parties is really at the centre of the problem that we are having. Unless we come back to the basis and ensure that all of us participate in a political party process and formation and ensure that competent people are managing our political parties, then you can be rest assured that candidates that will emerge will be substandard.
“And once you don’t have quality leaders that are emerging from the political parties, truly you can say you don’t expect to have quality leadership at the national level that has been the problem and that was why I said that we must encourage the elites and the educated to engage actively in politics and the political parties must raise the threshold for those who will participate in selecting who will be the leaders political parties and who will emerge as the candidate of the political parties”, he added.
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