THEN;
Former Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has warned against allowing the country to drift into a one party state.
Tinubu, who spoke in an interview with newsmen yesterday, said the actions of the National Assembly, peopled by mainly Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, members, was drifting Nigeria towards an authoritarian state.
According to him, it is not the duty of the National Assembly to set out dates and structure of elections for the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as an autonomous agency.
Tinubu said: You look at the National Assembly making laws in a customized and personalised form and not the constitutional way.
Taking away the independence of INEC, when you say this is an independent institution, you are taking their independent away by ordering election, organizing the order of elections, making laws, legislating for the order of election and so on. There are all sorts of charade by the majority party in power.
You see the problem of law making outside the constitution again is tailor-made. The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria says the political parties must have their own constitution and make the laws and operate on internal democracy and that those officials must be democratically elected and now, a legislative body is now making laws for the party that is not their own. You could see a National Assembly that is an imperial court
Tinubu said Action Congress would not hesitate to drag the National Assembly to court for its infractions on the rights of opposition parties in the country. He contended that the ruling party was concentrating on zoning rather than addressing national problems confronting the people.
In the past 50 years of our independence, we are still talking about our potential when we should be actualising our potentials.
Collation is not about the merger of which party or not but you have to look at the laws made by the National Assembly, he said. On calls for President Goodluck Jonathan to contest the 2011election, Tinubu said that the issue was PDP's problem.
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TODAY:
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Thursday welcomed the multiple endorsements he received in respect of the 2027 general elections.The president has been endorsed for a second term by governors, lawmakers, captains of industry and political heavyweights across political divides.
Speaking at the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Summit in Abuja, the president welcomed the endorsements. He expressed optimism about receiving more endorsements ahead of the forthcoming general elections.
The president also welcomed the new members of the APC who defected from other parties. “Welcome to the progressives, sweep them clean,” he said.
He said there’s nothing wrong with a one-party system in a constitutional democracy. “There’s nothing wrong with a one-party system,” the president while emphasising the strength and unity he envisions for the APC as Nigeria’s leading political force.
"Nothing Wrong With One-Party State." – Ganduje
National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Abdullahi Ganduje, says there is nothing wrong with having a one-party system in Nigeria.
Ganduje stated this on Friday after leading a delegation of three senators from Kebbi state to meet with President Bola Tinubu.
The three senators – Adamu Aliero, Yahaya Abdullahi and Garba Maidoki, on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, were said to have declared their intention to join the APC.
Ganduje, while reacting to whether the wave of defection of opposition politicians to the ruling APC would not slide Nigeria into a one-party state, cited China as an example of a working one-party state.
“We came here so that Mr President can bless this resolution, and Mr President has graciously blessed this resolution. On Tuesday, I urge you to go and see what will happen in the chambers.
“If a one-party state is a wish and blessing to Nigeria… a one-party state is not by force. One party’s state is by negotiation, and it is by other political parties seeing the effect of the positive governance of our party.
“If they decide to come to our party willingly, I think there is nothing wrong with that. You know they say too many cooks spoil the soup, too many political parties spoil governance.
“China is one of the strongest countries in the world, and it’s a one-party system,” he said.
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