Direct Primaries Will Harm Political Parties – Ndoma-Egba

Former Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, has criticised his former colleagues over their passage of the amended electoral act, saying it’s clearly an over-legislation that will deny political parties opportunities to conduct their affairs.

Ndoma-Egba, a high-ranking member of the All Progressive Congress and former Board Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission, argued that direct primaries as inserted into the electoral act awaiting presidential assent did not possess magic wand.

Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja in an interview with THE WHISTLER, he said his point might be unpopular but decried the general hysteria in which everyone is shouting for President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the bill.

He said, “The current trend now is everybody’s shouting, sign the bill for direct primaries as if direct primaries were a magic or has the magic wand attached to it.

“A political party should be able to organise its own affairs. Now, there are different methods for candidates to emerge for elections. By consensus, all the stakeholders could agree that it is him or her or it is I. It is legitimate. It could be by indirect primaries; it could be by direct primaries.

“The effect of this amendment to the electoral act is that you eliminate the other options. By this, you are therefore constricting the political parties to just one way of choosing its candidates for elections. That is the direct primaries that is, the parties no longer have any leg room.”

The National Assembly through a concurrence passed the amendment to the electoral act few weeks ago and has since been awaiting presidential assent.

Opinion has been sharply divided with both the APC and the Peoples Democratic Parties kicking against it while the public view it favourably.

If signed into law, it will compel political parties to conduct their primaries using direct primaries to elect their candidates that will fly the parties’ flags during election.
The development has pitted the lawmakers against the governors who are vehemently opposed to it, accusing the lawmakers of being smart.

But Ndoma-Egba pointed out that he contested election in 2019 through direct primary mode for him to emerge as the candidate of the APC.

Pointing out that, “In the APC, the states were called to go and look at the circumstances of their states and decide which option each wanted to use.

“Some states went for the consensus option; other states went for indirect primaries. My own state, Cross River, for instance, went for direct primaries. But now you do not have that choice; you are in a straight jacket, you must go for direct primaries.

“So for me, I think that that provision is over- legislation. We’re over legislating on that. Because it’s inconsistent with the general notion, the general principle that parties should own their own affairs,” he said.

The former PDP stalwart added that, “This time, we’re tying their hands. So for me, I think that the parties should have some allowance to deal with such internal situations like how they conduct their affairs.”

He maintained that there’s nothing magical about direct primaries, for as long as it will be operated by Nigerians, “Because they’ll find a way around it. There’s nothing magical.

“Option A-4 was direct primries. But then the climate was different. That was the option that produced M.K. Abiola. The environment then was different. Abiola had virtually emerged as a national consensus because of his personality, you know, but today bring that option is for you to be manipulated.”