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The stage seems to
be set for a showdown between opposition parties and lawmakers in the
country. The bone of contention is section 87 of the constitution which
the lawmakers want to amend. Before the two legislative houses are
changes to this section which if passed into law will make legislators
automatic members of their parties National Executive Committees (NEC),
the governing organ of political parties.

The NEC is the
highest decision making body of any party and is influential in the
choice of delegates for primary elections. The body also has authority
in deciding who earns the party ticket for general election. .

The amendment as
crafted in the document before the senate seeks to make all principal
officers of the chamber and the Chairmen and Deputies of the Senate
standing committees, members of the national executive of their
individual parties. The House of Representatives amendment is even more
sweeping in its ambition; it seeks to make all 360 members of the house
automatic members of their parties National Executive Committees.

At the moment,
different parties have different modalities for appointing members of
their Executive committees. For some, all principal members of the
assembly, along with national party officials , state chairmen of
parties , state government as well as the President and Vice –
President, in the case of the ruling party, make up the NEC. This mix
with little variations is what exists at present. The important thing
though is that individual parties have rules that govern these matters
and it is not a case of someone sitting in Abuja telling them how to
run their affairs.

But this does not
seem to hold much water with our legislators who say their plan will
contribute to the growth of democracy. Quite how this will work is not
clear but House Spokesman Esemeh Eyiboh has argued that the “aim is to
expand the composition of NEC so that nobody will have monopoly over
any issue, not only in the election but other programmes of the party,
including manifestoes. By the time we have a broad-based NEC; nobody
will have absolute control over party issues.” If the point Mr. Eyiboh
was trying to make is that some parties , including the ruling PDP are
in sore need of reform internally, and their processes sometimes fall
short of democratic ideals, we at NEXT agree but fail to see how giving
a bunch of lawmakers an automatic ticket to executive posts in
political parties is going to usher in reform?

Their share
numbers will mean that they will automatically have an advantage in any
political party and since their antecedents show that they never work
for the common good, we have to assume they are more likely to hijack
parties for their own self interest.

Opposition parties
have described the proposed amendment as “illegal, unconstitutional and
an abuse of power. The parties have threatened to march on the
legislators if they go ahead and pass this amendment and also say they
may seek legal redress.

We at NEXT are in
support of the opposition parties on this matter. It has clearly
escaped the notice of most of our legislators but may we remind them
that they are in office to come up with laws that are supposed to
improve the lot of ordinary Nigerians; laws that should serve to
entrench the tenets of democracy and help towards building a better
society.

Political parties
should be left to determine how to run their affairs. If there is a
need for reform within these parties, we must allow the arbiters of all
elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission to set the
frame work for these reforms.

Our legislators
have taken so many decisions that are injurious to the commonwealth,
including bloating their pay and allowances to scandalous proportions.
Their courage in even considering this amendment must be borne from the
fact that up until now they have gotten away with taking some
outrageous decisions. It is time for Nigerians to say no. Everyone must
stand up and fight this self serving attempt for a power grab by the
legislators.

It is time for the
lawmakers to focus on bills that are likely to make a real difference
in this country. How about they turn their attention to the Freedom of
Information Bill which has been languishing neglected for almost 10
years?