NIGERIA: New Political Parties Emerge In Nigeria

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Jul 27 1998 (IPS) - Just one week after a major broadcast by Nigeria’s new military leader General Abdulsalam Abubakar, more than a dozen new political parties have emerged in the West Africa country.

Under the new political dispensation announced on Jul 20, every Nigerian citizen is free to form or join any political party of his or her choice, in accordance with the guidelines to be issued by Nigeria’s proposed Independent Electoral Commission on the registration of political parties.

“This administration recognises that the formation of political parties is an expression of the right of association,” said Abubakar. He said the government would not fund any political party.

Barely 12 hours after the announcement, the defunct Nigeria Advance Party (NAP) presidential hopeful, Tunji Braithwaite announced the formation of a new political party, the Democratic Advance Movement (DAM).

Braithwaite said he formed the party “to avert disintegration (of Nigeria) which could have tragic consequences for the entire sub-region”.

The new parties include the New Era Alliance (NEA) of Bode Olajumoke which was formed in the Nigerian capital of Abuja last week. Then there is the ‘Friends of Like Minds’ which was announced in Ibadan, capital of the Western State of Oyo, by Yekini Adeoja, who once made an unsuccessful bid for governorship.

In a statement, made available to IPS on Friday, Adeoja urged the “like minds” (who share the same ideas) to come together and chart a new future for Nigeria.

Two other parties, the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) and The New Rivers Forum, have also been formed.

Much as politicians have accepted Abubakar’s transition programme, and have begun meeting and forming new parties, Nigeria’s vocal pro-democracy and human rights groups are skeptical about the sincerity of the new military leader to handover to civilian as promised on May 29, 1999.

Femi Falana of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) said his group had detected a trail of inconsistencies in Abubakar’s statements. “In his first broadcast to the nation, he promised to complete (the late Gen. Sanni) Abacha’s transition which ends on October 1, 1998.”

“Now he has dismantled the five parties which backed Abacha (who died of a heart attack on Jun 7) and has asked for the formation of new parties”, he said.

“And, under Abubakar’s transition programme, the proposed Electoral Commission will have the responsibility for registration of political parties, registration of voters and conduct of elections. How does he do all this within the short period when the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s government of which he was a party could not do it in eight years?” asked Falana.

Babangida ruled Nigeria from 1985 to 1993.

Falana said the CDHR knew all along it was not possible for the military to handover on October 1, 1998. “That was why we called for a Government of National Unity and a genuine National Conference that would have been organised by the civil society, not the military,” he said.

He said Nigerians and the international community which support Gen. Abubakar’s transition programme will realise they made a mistake.

His view is shared by the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and the Joint Action Committee on Nigeria (JACON), an umbrella of 55 pro-democracy and human rights groupings, which insist the military should quit on October 1, 1998 and that a Government of National Unity should be set to organise a national sovereign conference.

NADECO’s deputy chair Abraham Adesanya described Abubakar’s refusal to organise the national sovereign conference as a mistake.

“In NADECO’s reckoning, the rejection of the sovereign conference means further consolidation of the unjust and unbalanced federal structure that had given undue and undeserved advantage to particular sections of the country while reducing the others to servitude and second class citizens,” said Adesanya.

He was referring to the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group, from the north, which has dominated Nigeria’s politics and the army since independence from Britain in 1960.

Adding his voice to the debate, JACON’s Gani Fawehinmi urged Nigeria’s politicians to be “sensible for once and avoid being fooled into another round of endless transition” by the military.