YIAGA: Political parties must stop monetisation of nomination process

YIAGA Africa, a civil society organisation, says political parties yet to nominate presidential candidates must ensure that their primaries are credible.

In a statement on Friday, Samson Itodo, executive director of YIAGA, said political parties must ensure that manipulation of the nomination process is prevented and that the primaries are up to democratic standards.

“As the country eagerly awaits the emergence of the Presidential flagbearers of most political parties, we wish to reiterate the strategic importance of fair and credible primaries in engendering positive democratic externalities within the context of the forthcoming civilian-to-civilian transition process in Nigeria,” he said. 

“With less than a week to the June 9th deadline for the conduct of party primaries, Yiaga Africa reaffirms her earlier demand that candidates must, among other things, emerge from credible, rules-based primaries in line with democratic standards. Manipulated and stage-managed primaries remain antithetical to democratic ideals and must be prevented to the barest minimum.

“We thus call on political parties yet to nominate Presidential candidates to ensure they deliver Presidential Conventions that are not free and fair in the theoretical or abstract sense but in terms of intrinsic transparency and accountability in its accreditation, voting, and collation process.

Yiaga Africa also called on political parties to collaborate with relevant law enforcement agencies to curtail the “monetization of the nomination process”.

“The so-called ‘dollar rain’ needs to be brought to a definitive end, and delegates sensitized on the necessity of voting their conscience over primordial and pecuniary considerations,” the statement reads.

“Yiaga Africa urges INEC to enforce its regulatory powers against political parties that contravene provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and INEC guidelines before, during and after the primaries.”