Buba Galadima: Without electoral reform, there will be no true democracy

Buba Galadima, a former ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, says there can be no true democracy in Nigeria without a reform of the electoral process.

He stated this on Wednesday at a virtual debate organised by the Premium Times for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) on intra-party democracy.

Galadima, who called for transparency in the electoral process, alleged that nominations within parties are sometimes not done with fairness as candidates are imposed by those in authority.

“As we find ourselves now, the two dominant political parties have no internal democracy within their system. You are either related to one chieftain of the party or you have a deep pocket before you can even get a nomination,” he said.

“So, where can we get a solution to this? The solution is that we must address the issue of electoral reform in the country.

“If those parties know that even if they force a candidate on the people, they will likely lose the election because they will have no opportunity to write figures for their own preferred candidates, they will be very careful in terms of trying to stampede on the rights of people to really subvert their own constitution.

“There is no place in any of the party constitution that says the leader of a party can have a preferred candidate. It is only the people that have the right to choose who will represent them eight from party, then we go to general election.

“But now, INEC is incapacitated; the judiciary is incapacitated. They are being emasculated that even those in authority impose a candidate.

“You can see that what the judiciary will be looking for is not the truth, but they’ll be looking for technicalities. And in a follow-up to that concept, there can be no democracy in Nigeria. Unless we the people of Nigeria rise up to have proper electoral reform, we have not started, and we cannot see democracy.”

Speaking about the influence of ‘moneybags’ in elections, Galadima said he believes that those who accept money are to blame.

“If you take money to do the bidding of the money bag, it means you have given your rights to the moneybag. Therefore, it is not the fault of the moneybag, but it is the fault of those who take money from them and do their bidding,” he said.