National Conscience Party (NCP) has said that it is unfair for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw funding from political parties.
Chairman of the party Dr. Tanko Yinusa said parties that are in power use state funds to win elections whereas those in opposition lack nothing and yet would have to run against parties in power and expected to win election adding that lack of support from government cripples opposition parties.
He explained that three documents guide the existence of the political parties in Nigeria, the party constitution, the Electoral Act and the Nigerian constitution.
”It is only in Nigeria’s democracy that makes it mandatory that all the political parties must draw their programme from chapter two of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria thereby giving them room to operate just like any other person who has found itself into power and by that extension gives them the constitutional rights to be funded not to be denied”, he argued.
The NCP stalwart explained that while political parties in power use state apparatus to contest and win election the opposition parties have nothing to fall back on.
“Political parties in power use state treasury, use state apparatus, use security agencies to continue to win election whereas we deny other political parties of the rights of being funded and then you expect them to go to the same market to shop for voters”, he explained, adding that the opposition is suggesting that political parties should be funded to take care of some of the logistics, in terms of movement, in terms of posters and other programs of the political parties.
“Members of the party can now contribute to add to it”, he said. Yinusa noted that even in the United State, Senator John McCain got 45 million Dollars to prosecute his election, whereas in Nigeria no political parties has any fund from anywhere and yet he is expected us to win election.
“Even a single advert in the newspapers cost money as much as N250,000, N500,000 to N1million in a newspaper. How do you expect a party such as NCP to generate such amount of money. It is not fair; we should look at other areas and see how they have been able to take care of their political parties“.
