Some parties’ chieftains have stressed the need for the Federal Government to resume funding of the registered political parties in the country.
The chieftains, who made the call in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Tuesday in Abuja, said that the existing political parties were not sufficiently solvent to be denied grants from the government.
One of the respondents, the National Auditor of PDP, Chief Bode Mustapha, said that political parties were facing challenges in keeping afloat without regular financial support from government.
He said that membership registration by the political parties did not attract special revenue for the running of their secretariats and other activities.
“Party funding is a very challenging issue in the sense that there are parties and there are parties; there is PDP that has 23 states, over 60 to 65 per cent of the National Assembly.
“There are parties that have no members in National Assembly, no single state legislator.
“There are some that have only two legislators and when you look at funding, we are not yet at a level where members of political parties pay subscriptions to join them, let’s face the reality,’’ he said.
“For now, government should fund the parties in line with the level of their representations and also proscribe all the parties that had not won any elections.
“If government can resume funding of political parties and a political party fails to win during elections, such a political party should be proscribed so that it will not be a drain on public purse.’’
In his contributions, retired Maj-Gen. Bashir Magashi, the National Chairman of Democratic Peoples’ Party (DPP), said that the National Assembly barred INEC from funding political parties.
He said that it was a bad idea and unacceptable to many political parties because some were not functioning.
Magashi said that if Nigerians were to run a two-party system, then the funding of the parties would not be necessary.
“If government wants to develop democracy with the intention of developing minor political parties and nurturing them to respond to emerging challenges, then government’s funding is essential.
“This will make them functional and create a conducive atmosphere, it will also make them grow and be competitive, ’’ he said.
Magashi said that in view of the current situation of some of the parties, the only source of income was from their membership.
“Political party funding should not be the duty of individuals because there is a limit to which the party can thrive once it’s been funded by individuals.
“Government has a responsibility to fund the parties and must do this to guarantee their existence and ability to discharge their responsibilities.
He said that failure by government to do this would lead to the money bags hijacking many political parties.
Magashi said that surprisingly haven denied the parties of funding, INEC was still insisting on political parties subjecting them to annual auditing.
“INEC long stopped giving grants to political parties, yet it continues to audit the parties’ accounts every year. This is a contradiction; INEC must not subject any political party to auditing of self account.
Also speaking, Alhaji Tijani Tumsha, the National Secretary of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) said that most of the political parties were not thriving because they were financially handicapped.
He said that government could still provide grants to the party as “this is crucial to democracy’’.
According to him, government’s funding of political parties will go a long way to strengthen internal democracy.
“It will fast-track the journey to 2015 and will make it more competitive,’’ he said.
Mr Frank Ohwofa, the National Chairman of the Freedom Party of Nigeria, advised that INEC should present a bill to the National Assembly for the reduction of number of political parties.
He said that this would enlarge the membership and give the opportunity for card-carrying members to pay more subscription fees.
Ohwofa said that the time had come for government, through the constitution review to peg the number of political parties for proper development.
“Funding in politics has always been a thing of contention, but it is time to move outside the traditional partners of internal or individual funding with the aim preventing money bags from hijacking the party.
“To be realistic, how many card-carrying members are in the parties, how much are they contributing?’’. (NAN)