Statement From CDD

Leaders of political parties, members of the Press, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), I hereby welcome you to the unveiling and press conference on the Nigerian Political Parties Discussion Series, a project of CDD with support from the International Republican Institute (IRI) through funding from the USAID.

Background

The Nigerian Political Parties Discussion Series (NPPDS) sets out to facilitate discussions amongst political parties in the country on entrenching democracy and good governance through strengthened internal party democracy in political parties. Almost fifteen years into the Nigeria' democratic dispensation, the political party system has suffered from lack of civility and insufficient inter-party dialogue.

There are also varied challenges of lack of internal democracy, disregard for party discipline and formal procedures, fractionalization within parties, weak political base and structure, ethnic based politics, and marginalization of women, youth and persons with disability in leadership positions and decision-making processes.

These multifarious challenges have rendered political parties incapacitated to mobilize public support around identifiable sets of policy programs, enhance legislative policy agreement, and form an evenhanded government. Consequently, they have been unable to drive a process of consensus-building on crucial national issues.

Yet, democracy depends on parties to survive, since the structure of elections right from citizen participation to candidates' selection and presentation of competing political programs is done by political parties. This is why political parties occupy a special place in the democratic equation.

How do we get political parties to move beyond the symbolism of elections to the core representation of the people thereby facilitating the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria evidenced in improved delivery of public goods and services? It is within this auspices that CDD with the support of the IRI is launching the Nigerian Political Parties Discussion Series (NPPDS) as a platform allowing for exchange of ideas, learning, and dialogue among party leaders, public analysts, CSOs, academia, and citizens.

The objectives of the series include:
a) To increase political parties' knowledge on political parties' administration with emphasis on internal party democracy;

b) To facilitate sharing and learning from experiences and best practices on how the participants' respective political parties address issues and problems relating to internal party democracy;

c) To facilitate the mainstreaming of women, youth and other vulnerable groups into political parties;

d) To identify specific policy recommendations on how the participants can promote or increase transparency and accountability in their respective political parties.

Modalities

Recognizing there is much to learn from each other's best practices on salient issues, which could be used as models in making the management of the respective political parties more efficient and professional, the series will bring together political parties in the country to share experiences on party management amongst themselves. They will be joined by an expert who shall share best practices from other climes with them.

Just to give u a brief teaser into some of the issues up for discussion during the series. One of the priority issues to be discussed in the series is Party Funding. Funding is needed to support the day to day activities of political parties as well as to influence the outcome of an election. However, raising and managing this money remains a challenge, should government fund political parties, if yes, will that not further aggravate the issues of political corruption, is lack of funding not aggravating corruption and in consonance the consolidation of democracy as it pushes aspirants/candidates to seek money from unholy sources. Why is it impossible for political parties to raise money from their own membership or general public? How do they break this cycle.

Secondly, Inclusion, according to Nigeria demographics profile 2013 , Youth from ages 0-24 constitute 63.2 Percent and women within the same age range constitute 52. 501832 million out of the total 170 million population of Nigeria,likewise the various intercine wars and insecurity pervading our polity has increased the numbers of persons with disability in our country.

However, this huge numbers are not accommodated in the hierarchy of our political parties let alone hold elective positions, taking women as an example, the gains of women representation in our legislature at the national assembly suffered a decline in 2011. Are we saying we have less women competing or more barriers placed in their way?

Where and how do we get affirmative action as part of political party constitution, anyway, we are also assuming that many political parties already have these issues of vulnerable groups mainstreamed into their constitutions and party manifestoes, the series will grant them the opportunity to showcase this to the public.

And lastly, the NPPDS is an internal democracy series which is aimed at developing, transparent, accountable and democratic political parties. During the series, we shall be identifying specific challenges hindering the party system in Nigeria particularly within the political recomposition ongoing in our polity. Why are intra party politics, party discipline, party fragmentation, candidate selections and membership challenging for our political parties.

Utilizing vox pops, open space technology, and world café, the Centre will facilitate animated and constructive discussion of party system in Nigeria. Each series will be aired on partner TV stations. Over the course of the project, it is expected that project participants will have the opportunity to learn, share experience on the internal dynamics of political parties and its impacts on their constituencies.

We expect the opportunity afforded by this series will give political parties the opportunity to showcase their best practices, reforms to Nigerians and change the frame of political parties being the problem rather than the cure in facilitating democratic consolidation. At the end of the series, we hope to have contributed to facilitating the deepening of democracy and development in the country.

Thank You.
Ms. Idayat Hassan
Director
CDD

About CDD

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) was established in the United Kingdom in 1997 as an independent, not-for-profit, research training, advocacy and capacity building organisation. The purpose was to mobilise global opinion and resources for democratic development and provide an independent space to reflect critically on the challenges posed to the democratisation and development processes in West Africa.