Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Anyim Pius Anyim, has said the performance of any government is dependent on the integrity, social justice and policy direction provided by the party.
Speaking at the Inter party Advisory Council of Nigeria political Parties Summit held at Barcelona Hotel, Abuja, November, 30, Anyim decried a situation where political parties become subservient to the government in power once they ride on the back of that same party to power.
Emphasising the inevitable roles of the political parties in democratic governance, Anyim noted that the tensions now pervading the two major political parties are not as a result of flawed primaries of the parties but the obvious lack of social justice and equity in the management of the affairs of the parties, saying, “the rumblings in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) are surely due to perceived social injustice in the management of the affairs of the parties.”
Citing the challenges in PDP, Anyim said that the G5 governors in the party are simply protesting the perceived injustice which they felt have been done by sidelining a section of the country in the sharing of party structures.
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In the same vein, Anyim noted that in APC, it is the same perceived social injustice in the same faith ticket that is influencing agitation in the party.
Anyim however, commended APC for making sincere efforts to mitigate the injustice by ensuring that its presidential candidate emerges from the South after eight years of President Buhari from the North despite pressures from different quarters.
Anyim observed that though zoning and rotation are not enshrined in APC constitution but in the name of equity and social justice, the governors from the North disobeyed even their own party chairman to insist that presidency is zoned to the South.
He lamented that the case of PDP is very pathetic because according to him, zoning and rotation are visibly stated in the party constitution, yet due to political exigencies, the party abandoned its own constitution.
Anyim regretted that this perceived social injustice has remained the bane of the agitation of the five governors in the PDP till date.
He however, called on IPAC to step forward in playing a role to stabilise the democratic environment by ensuring that parties take their rightful position as the bedrock of democracy in Nigeria.