Compliment of the season your Excellency,
First, I would like to commend you for the efforts you are putting towards the emancipation of the downtrodden in the society. For that, I pray to the Almighty to give you long life, good health and the fortitude to bear with the intrigues of the Nigerian politics.
I also would like to commend you for the steps you have taken in reaching out to the masses by opening a facebook page for those us who cannot reach out to you physically to send our concerns on how to strength our party the CPC and brighten its chances towards the 2011 general elections and beyond.
The CPC is a unique political party, it is unique in terms of its composition and ideology and for that reason it should conduct its activities based on the dictates of its constitution and that of the Federal Republic of Nigeria not at the whims and caprices of any individual. It is based on the above premise I would like to offer some suggestions which I believe if taken seriously will bolster the chances of the party in the general elections and beyond.
1. VOTERS REGISTERATION
Awareness and Enlightenment should be the watchwords here. Party members should be made to understand that for anybody to participate and vote for any candidate of his choice a voter’s card is necessary. The cards can only be obtained when INEC starts to register Nigerians in the designated centers. It is therefore mandatory for anybody wishing to exercise his franchise to obtain it without which he cannot vote for the candidate of his choice. No matter your numerical strength if you don’t have the voter’s cards you are inconsequential.
Party members should be made to go into all corners of our wards, local government areas and the states at large and ensure that all members of 18 years and above got registered whenever the registration exercise begins. This is very important if we want to make any appreciable impact in the elections.
2. INTERNAL DEMOCRACY
To ensure that we are different from other political parties we have to allow our party to develop through strengthening our internal democracy by subjecting all contestants to the congress. In fact, this has already been echoed by INEC, that no congress no elections. In other words it is the congress that determines who represents them in any elections.
A situation whereby some senior party elders endorse candidates of their choice for certain position or decide who stands for election will not be accepted or tolerated and is not going to help our course rather candidates should be encouraged to establish their campaign machinery and solicits for votes from congress. It is sad to point out that some elders have started to plant seeds of discord within the party by either endorsing members even before it is time for the election or dissolving party officials without recourse to the party National Headquarters this is a very bad development and is surely a prelude to chaos if it is not checked.
Another area of concern is in the choice of the Deputy Governor, crisis usually erupts between the Governor and his deputy for one reason or the other. This type of problem to my mind is encountered because the Governor has always not been given the opportunity to choose who is to be his running mate without interference by the party. To prevent such crisis Governors should be allowed to choose their deputies, the party can zone the office of the deputy to an area different from where the Governor comes from. If this is done am sure it will minimize the frequency at which these crisis erupts.
Thank you
Isa.
