FAVOUR EGBUOGU 
Chief Willy Ezugwu is the Secretary General of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP). In this interview, he accuses the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of gradually killing Nigeria’s democracy by failing to live up to their democratic responsibility to the nation. FAVOUR EGBUOGU reports
What is your take on Senate’s recent detour on its position on electronic transmission of election results?
Nigerians who unanimously stood their ground on the demand for electronic electoral process and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are the heroes of the struggle for a transparent election in 2023. However, I urge them not to relent in their efforts to get the lawmakers and the Federal Government to ensure a free, fair and credible general election in 2023.
The battle is not over yet. There are still some defects on the Electoral Act amendment document but we have to start from somewhere. We believe that the body language of the President may have led to the change of mind by the senators, who thought they were doing their party a favour, but we commend the lawmakers for retracing their steps after the deafening voices of Nigerians and lovers of democracy insisted on full powers of INEC to determine the mode of elections in the country in line with the constitution. We, therefore, urge Nigerians to remain vigilant as the political actors, who hate transparent elections are not yet done.
So far, how would you assess Nigeria’s democratic journey since 1999, looking at the dominant political parties?
There is no doubt that ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are gradually killing Nigeria’s democracy by failing to live up to their democratic responsibility to the nation. The two political parties have continued on the part of impunity as a result of lack of internal party democracy and other cornerstones of democracy.
This has resulted in emergence of factions and cliques in the parties after every election or party primary elections. Due to their continued indulgence in anti-democratic tendencies, internal de-mocracy in Nigeria’s political parties has continued to nose-dive in the last 22 years of our democratic experiment. The two self-acclaimed biggest political parties in Nigeria, the APC and PDP, have continued to clench on practices that negate the core tenets of democracy globally, leading to stagnated growth of Nigeria’s democracy and the sustenance of bad governance at all levels of government.
As a result of lack of interest in such cornerstones of democracy like freedom of speech and rights to hold divergent opinion, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed in decision making, and trampling on their rights to choose their leaders, among others, Nigerians have continued to wallow in wants and penury in the midst of plenty.
This is why the two parties have continued to manipulate the country’s political space, exchanging members and elected officials who decamp at will and maintaining a high level of disregard to their own party’s constitution such that the courts have become the last resort for most aggrieved members who can afford the cost of litigation.
The internal conflict resolution mechanisms in both political parties are either hijacked by competing godfathers or such mechanisms are comatose, merely existing in their party constitutions. As impunity has continued to thrive in the two political parties, the consequence is the unending emergence of factions and cliques of aggrieved members at the end of every internal election, including congresses and primary elections.
How can Nigerians compel the two parties to adhere to these basic tenets democracy that you just listed?
Nigeria’s democracy cannot advance beyond where we are as the country will continue to recycle corrupt politicians and their cronies that end up impoverishing the populace. This will remain our experience if the bar of internal democracy and adherence to the cornerstones of democracy are not raised and given priority by the two dominant parties. I therefore challenge the APC and the PDP, as leading political parties, to live by example of standards of democratic parties as we approach the 2023 general election. This will not only deepen democracy in the country but also ensure that the people’s rights to choose their leaders within the parties and at general elections are upheld without manipulations, rigging or impositions.
The Federal Government, at a time mulled emergency rule in Anambra State over the security situation in the state ahead of the November 6 governorship. What are your thoughts on the issue?
I want to warn the Federal Government and the five governors in the South-East not to take steps that could worsen the security situation in the region as the cost of reckless utterances and unguarded actions may consume the zone. If the federal and state governments continue to act or speak irrationally, the entire country will be worse for it.
There is nowhere in the world that a people who have been nursing a feeling of injustice over the years is confronted with the coercive powers of the state without regrettable consequences. In case we have forgotten, the extrajudicial killing of Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of the Boko Haram Islamic sect by the state forces was what directly or indirectly led to the escalation of the terrorist activities destroying the economy of Northern Nigeria. Since the Federal Government failed to employ the carrot and stick approach early enough, we have seen insurgency in the North worsening as bandits and Boko Haram fighters compete for prominence in the whole country. Also, killer herders that President Muhammadu Buhari openly admitted that they are not Nigerians have slowly spread into the Southern parts of the country. I therefore warn that a declaration of a state of emergency in any part of the South-East will be counterproductive with dire consequences.
The deprived and excluded people of the South-East are already angry that the Federal Government carelessly failed to protect them from killer herdsmen, when they needed security protection. The Federal Government’s threat of declaration of a state of emergency in the region is already being seen as a rigging strategy ahead of the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State. If a state of emergency has not been declared in Zamfara, Sokoto, Kaduna, Niger, and Katsina states, where bandits have virtually taken over most of the local governments, and telephone services cut, what is the justification for a threat to declare a state of emergency in Eastern Nigeria?
What is your advice to the South-East political leaders?
South East governors who are opening the doors of confrontation should know that the inferno of the crisis which is looming in the zone may consume all. If Northern governors and clerics can visit bandits, negotiate with terrorists, and even grant amnesty to killers of our sons and daughters in the armed forces, what is the big deal in dialoguing with youths of the South-East, who have been crying for justice in the region? How would anyone think that complicating the already bad situation through unguarded statements and actions be deemed a reasonable option in the circumstance?
