Senate Panel opts for reduction of political parties to five

The Senate Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission on Tuesday opted for trimming down political parties in the country from 92 to five.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Kabiru Gaya, made this known during an interactive session with Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu.
Gaya said: “It is the honest opinion of the members of this committee that we improve our electoral processes by searching for and adopting specific foreign best practices that will conforms with the peculiar situation in Nigeria if we are to get it right.
“One of such challenges is this issue of having too many registered political parties.
“It is my view that we trim them to a maximum of five political parties based on stringent conditions for registration we will discuss as a committee.”
Also corroborating the position of Senator Gaya, former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, stated that the lawmakers passed a law in the Eighth Assembly that any political party that fails to win a seat in the 2019 general elections should be deregistered.
But the INEC boss explained that unending litigations make it difficult for the electoral body to deregister any political party, citing the case of Zamfara State where an unknown political party got the state House of Assembly seat after Supreme Court ruling on the state.
Speaking on the Kogi and Bayelsa States governorship elections, the INEC chairman told the lawmakers that the commission is fully prepared for the both, adding that non-sensitive materials have already be moved there.
Yakubu said 87 political parties made a valid nomination in Kogi and Bayelsa States governorship elections and 14 political parties made invalid nominations.
He added 49 political parties fixed candidates for the election and 18 political parties have withdrawn from the governorship in Kogi State.
He explained that some candidates withdrew from the election due to issues such as lack of finance, slim chances of winning the election, ill health and perceive violence.