THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has given automatic tickets to its members in the federal legislature.

The National Chairman, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, who spoke at the opening of a two-day capacity building training for female aspirants of the PDP in Abuja, however, added a caveat that the tickets would go to “members that have performed.”

He noted that the action became necessary because Nigeria needed to graduate from its learning process.

“We have said it at the party secretariat and at the National Assembly when we went to meet members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party said that we as a party want to grow this democracy and in trying to grow democracy, what we need to do is to have some form of continuity and therefore, we will like as many members of parliament who are performing and who are also acceptable in some extent in their constituencies to come back. Unless we do that, we will continue our learning process.

“Everyday we are learning; we have to stop learning. We have to build and consolidate the democratic institution. So, in doing that I think, the next thing I am going to push for is that in returning as many parliamentarians as possible at least those who are women, we should guarantee their seats.

“When we sit down with the leadership of our party, and we begin to look at those parliamentarians we have to return due to their performance because we want continuity in parliament and the growth of the democratic institution, we should be looking at those women we can return and how we can actualise our 35 per cent that I promise we will do,” he said.

He added that female members of the PDP would also enjoy good treatment from the party.

“In PDP, we have no impediment to the success of women. Because of socio-cultural impediment, we have to go a step forward and that is what we have been doing by giving free nomination forms and then gave you (women) 15 per cent and now 35 per cent. The 35 per cent I can assure you has gone through NWC as at last week. What we need now at our next convention is to put the 35 per cent in the constitution of our party.

“Something I think you should have fought for is that for the first time in the history of our country, PDP being majority in the National Assembly, being majority in the 36 states of Nigeria, we have been able to bring constitutional changes that were not possible before. The soldiers gave us the constitution but now the PDP has made constitutional changes.

“But If I were the National Chairman at the time they were preparing the (PDP) constitution, I would have put the 35 per cent in the constitution. In the country where women representation has been actualised, it was a constitutional matter. If you look over the world - whether in India, Pakistan or The Netherlands - they have created it in the constitution. Because if you have it in the constitution, it means that out of every three senators per state one must be a woman. That is the way this thing can be realised easily. For now, we will do what we can.

“The final position which we are canvassing for you is that those women who finally make it as candidates, because of the economic handicap they have, we are going to ask the National Executive Committee next week that we should be able to give you some money for your election”, he said.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31843:pdp-gives-automatic-tickets-to-federal-lawmakers-&catid=1:nat

ore reason why these rogues should be routed out of Office come 2011. Broad day Robbery Courtesy of GEJ

Automatic ticket without primaries, this can only be done in 9ja! election sorry i mean selection

If the National Assembly is taken as an entity and performance measured, its most likely that they may not score more than 10%, but if we measure their individual performance in respect of remunerations, the performance level would be well over 1,000%. It is however appalling that a party that has the majority in that Assembly would decide to give automatic return-ticket to these bunch of people under the guise of having mature and experienced legislature while the real reason is that Mr. President wants to repeat his class at all cost.

It is left for us as voters to use our votes well and to our own advantage - one thing is for the party to present goats in human skin and another is for the voters to reject them.

He noted that the action became necessary because Nigeria needed to graduate from its learning process.

“We have said it at the party secretariat and at the National Assembly when we went to meet members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party said that we as a party want to grow this democracy and in trying to grow democracy, what we need to do is to have some form of continuity and therefore, we will like as many members of parliament who are performing and who are also acceptable in some extent in their constituencies to come back. Unless we do that, we will continue our learning process.

“Everyday we are learning; we have to stop learning. We have to build and consolidate the democratic institution. So, in doing that I think, the next thing I am going to push for is that in returning as many parliamentarians as possible at least those who are women, we should guarantee their seats.

“When we sit down with the leadership of our party, and we begin to look at those parliamentarians we have to return due to their performance because we want continuity in parliament and the growth of the democratic institution, we should be looking at those women we can return and how we can actualise our 35 per cent that I promise we will do,” he said.

We should not condemn Nwodo like that, we should watch the yard stick used to measure performance. I agree with him that we should not be on learning process forever.