By; Abimbola Ayobami, MyOndoState.Com:

Neither Atiku Abubakar nor Goodluck Jonathan. Jonathan has not impressed me. As an incumbent, we fought for him to be recognised as acting president because that was the correct thing that time.

But since he became the president, I have not been impressed. I don't know his position on any national issue, even the restructuring we are talking about. What is his understanding of resource control? Where does he stand on it? I can't fix him. I don't know him. Atiku Abubakar was vice president with Obasanjo. He left to ACN and the party becomes PDP 2.

So PDP 1 or 2, I am not interested. These people can't save Nigeria. They cannot address the problems of Nigeria. Jonathan in any case is too close to Obasanjo for comfort.

His relationship with Babaginda
I am the leader of the Social Democratic Mega Party and I am not interested in his ambition. But if IBB joins the Mega Party and he wants to aspire in that party, of course, he will be allowed like every other person to aspire.

I am not going to do anything to favour him or hinder his ambition. Since he is not a member of my party, you should not ask me about his ambition.

Incessant criminality in the country
You must address both the economic and political crises, in terms of injustice to people and group. You can't have order and peace where there is injustice. Some of the kidnappers are fighting injustice, specifically in the Niger Delta. But they have been joined by people who see it as an opportunity to enrich themselves. It has become an industry. So, it has become a combination of fighting injustice and making money. Apart from this, it is poverty; many young people are unemployed, and they don't see any future for themselves. They have no stake in the present situation.

Therefore, we must address the issue of giving hope to the hopeless, giving joy to the unemployed so that they can have a stake in the present arrangement. Then, if they have a stake, they will not be driven to desperation of kidnapping and committing all manner of social vices.

Some opposition to the multi party system
There must be choice. Choice is the very heart of democracy. A one party state cannot be said to be a democracy. Multi party starts from 2, 3, 4, and 5. What I am opposed to is an imposed two party system; I don't like imposition. If INEC stops giving grants to parties and INEC allows parties to operate on their own, you don't have to go and register parties; it is the parties that should fill their symbols.

But now, they say you should come and open an office, they will say they want to come and inspect it. They turned forming a political party to a big thing. They turned parties to parastatals. In periods before independence, when the Action Group party was formed, it didn't need to go and register with anybody. The party just sent its symbol and wrote to the electoral body. But now, they are the ones who register you. If a party is stupid enough not to have a national spread in its executive and say Nigerians should vote for it at the election time, it is wasting its time.

The numbers of party is not what matters. In the United Kingdom, you hear of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, and Liberal Party. They are the prominent parties. Yet, at the last election, we had about 19 political parties that took part in the election in the UK.

In the United States of America, 143 parties exist. We only hear of the Republicans and the Democrats. So, those smaller parties serve some purpose. Instead of people staying in the Conservative Party to cause confusion, they go to form their own political party. Some people call themselves Raving Lunatic Party in the UK and the objective is to lose election and not win. Allow them to go and do so. If you say there are two parties, they will stay in the Labour Party and will be causing trouble there.

So, it is a safety measure to allow other parties to operate. They will get no vote and they will disappear over time. So, let it be a voluntary multiparty system.

INEC decision to stop funding political parties
Funding of political parties by INEC is what has led to the formation of non-parties. I have it on good authorities about an individual who owns several parties. In fact, when we were about to form DPA, one young man offered to sell one of his two parties to us. Nigeria is the only country where we have people buying parties and selling parties all because INEC was given grants. So, you buy it from me with N2 million. The next grant comes, you get N6 million and you make profit of N4 million. It makes sense, doesn't it?

Many of these parties are not parties; they exist to collect grants from INEC. We also hear that even officials of INEC own some of the parties. When we were trying to register SDMP, I know how many efforts we made. We saw four others that were registered that we never heard of them. They could not have done 1/10 of what we did to have SDMP registered.

We were running around for two years before SDMP was formed. Suddenly, we saw four others. We heard that some of the parties are owned by INEC officials for purposes of collecting grants.

Slow growth of the Mega Party
It was registered two months ago. A new party cannot be compared with a party that has been in government for seven to ten years. It is a different type of party. When people get to know it, they will pitch their tent with it. When the deluge comes, a lot of decampees from all over will move to the party because this is the kind of the party Nigerians are asking for.

Based on integrity, zero tolerance for corruption, honesty, and transparent leaders that can move Nigeria out of the mess, that is what we stand for. When Nigerians begin to know it and the crisis comes, they will believe that our party is the party for the future.
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