fyneguy:


Calm down and read the next paragraph, with a thinking cap.

The party system ensures a broader and wider (Nationwide) acceptability before a candidate emerges as the PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. While I agree the parties are not doing enough in their choices, with respect to the quality of candidates, this new system will be abused and moneybags will easily get into offices using the parties.

In the case of Independent Candidacy, Party XYZ that has acceptability issues in certain regions or states will only sponsor some of their members with perceived good reputations in those states/regions, so as to split votes. I give you an example:

My Party, NDN, enjoys a large following in the North but is hated in the SS and SE. All my Party needs to do is to look for Party members from those regions/states with relative good reputations to vie for Presidency as IC's . Hence, I can get Pat Utomi (Delta), Donald Duke (Cross River), Akpabio ((Akwa Ibom), Oshiomole (Edo), Timi Alaibe (Bayelsa), then one Rivers guy for SS; Orji Uzor Kalu, Onu, and other notable Igbos to contest. These states will vote for their sons and daughters, as the case may be, While I secure my bloc votes in the North.

And whose fault is it that people in the SS and the SE don't retaliate? Can't they gang up with your party's rivals in the north, just like Awolowo did with Aminu Kanu in the 1960s? It's not like the north only has one or two credible figures with presidential ambitions either, so why doesn't your argument apply in their direction?

While we're at it, I have to ask why you take it for granted that automatically casting votes for "sons and daughters" is any sane way to conduct politics, especially on a national level. How many ordinary northerners have been helped by the votes they cast for Buhari?

omohayek:


One more thing worth adding: by your own reasoning, if a party sponsors multiple candidates in another region (without INEC learning about it), then what's stopping a party with a strong support base in that region from retaliating in the first party's own home base? Your argument only makes sense here if you think ethnic parties with support in only one region have any business running for the presidency of an entire country.

TLDR: More choice is better, and allowing candidates to run without needing the support of PDP or APC godfathers is better still.

INEC can not stop someone who ''abadons'' his Party to pick an IC form from INEC. Another thing you should know is that, Northerners are more united. A Southerner can hardly use a Northerner against a Northerner.

omohayek:

And whose fault is it that people in the SS and the SE don't retaliate? Can't they gang up with your party's rivals in the north, just like Awolowo did with Aminu Kanu in the 1960s? It's not like the north only has one or two credible figures with presidential ambitions either, so why doesn't your argument apply in their direction?

While we're at it, I have to ask why you take it for granted that automatically casting votes for "sons and daughters" is any sane way to conduct politics, especially on a national level. How many ordinary northerners have been helped by the votes they cast for Buhari?

Perhaps I should articulate my point more explicitly to you.

Ideally, IC should enhance the democratic space for competition to throw up the best for the jobs. However, ours is not ripe for it. The electorate is not sophisticated enough for it.

Atiku you now have the green light.

Were will the candidate purchase his form? is it from Inec or from bank?

fyneguy:


INEC can not stop someone who ''abadons'' his Party to pick an IC form from INEC. Another thing you should know is that, Northerners are more united. A Southerner can hardly use a Northerner against a Northerner.

Really? Then how do you explain Shehu Sani vs. El-Rufai, or Sherriff vs. Makarfi? I'm sure it will also come as news to middle-belters like Joshua Dogonyaro and Theophilus Danjuma that they are united in any kind of monolithic union with the Hausa-Fulani.

Northerners are just as much individuals as people from the south, and they don't all share a hive mind; this is not the 1960s. You're just recycling old stereotypes about the north here as an excuse not to even try - even GEJ managed to win a huge number of middle-belt votes in 2015 after his wife did so much to alienate them with her "born throway" insults, so why can't a more able candidate from the SE/SS do even better?

fyneguy:


Perhaps I should articulate my point more explicitly to you.

Ideally, IC should enhance the democratic space for competition to throw up the best for the jobs. However, ours is not ripe for it. The electorate is not sophisticated enough for it.

By that reasoning, we might as well simply do away with democracy altogether. I'm sorry, but no matter how unripe the Nigerian masses may be for democracy, we have already tried the alternative of dictatorship, and it was even worse than what it replaced: I'm old enough to remember when Buhari seized power in 1984, and under Babangida and Abacha corruption reached heights even the worst of Shagari's gang never managed. The Nigerian electorate needs to be given the maximum freedom of choice in who to support, no matter how "ripe" or "unripe" some people may think they are.

`

People watchout, Saraki is heading somewhere with this

At last... People like me can achieve our dreams without mixing with street urchins, vagabonds, thieves, and all forms of criminally minded individuals.

omohayek:

Really? Then how do you explain Shehu Sani vs. El-Rufai, or Sherriff vs. Makarfi? I'm sure it will also come as news to middle-belters like Joshua Dogonyaro and Theophilus Danjuma that they are united in any kind of monolithic union with the Hausa-Fulani.

Northerners are just as much individuals as people from the south, and they don't all share a hive mind; this is not the 1960s. You're just recycling old stereotypes about the north here as an excuse not to even try - even GEJ managed to win a huge number of middle-belt votes in 2015 after his wife did so much to alienate them with her "born throway" insults, so why can't a more able candidate from the SE/SS do even better?

Northerners flexing muscles at intra-party levels mean nothing. While there could be some negligible dissenting voices in the major elections, most Northerners often go to the polls in unison. The Middle-belt can't significantly sway the outcome.

Anyway, you sit and watch as events unfold towards 2019.

Let me be more specific: Should independent candidacy happen and Buhari is healthy enough to contest in 2019, any opponent contesting against him is wasting his time and resources. (Bookmark this page)

Wow! I am impressed.

Addme:
If 48 voted against and 46 voted in support,how did that result into law. Ayam not understanding.........

Dude you are expecting too much. This is Nigerian journalism we are talking about not the New York Times hahaha.

SmoothNigerian:
. Vote for me as president. Come 2019

"Let's make education free in naija"

That's the kind of posters we're gonna be seeing soon everywhere

---

Chk my signature to earn bitcoin daily

Oh the irony of this post

you will now see the way people will react to politics

Addme:
If 48 voted against and 46 voted in support,how did that result into law. Ayam not understanding.........

I thought i was the only one who didnt study maths in basic one.
please OP come and explain o

Okorocha and I can come in for Presidency.

This is commendable. The evil of imposition of candidates on the electorates by political parties has been dealt with finally.