TNA Supports Direct Primaries For All Parties
By Zakaa Lazarus
A non political organisation, “The Nigerian Alliance” (TNA) has thrown it’s weight in support for direct primaries for all political parties in the forthcoming general election.
The Project Lead, The Nigerian Alliance, Sharon Orisakwe has made the indication during an interactive session with journalist in Abuja.
In her words, “I have to put both options off front, the indirect primaries is something that been used over the years, but we believed it’s something that seems to have worked, but because of how corrupted the process has been and how it is place in the hands of few people. She added that the indirect primaries is a system of delegation, which has messed up the electoral process.
” You can liking it to legislators who are been selected by the masses and then they will go there and start to do other things order than what they have been elected to do.
She decried the level of corruption in the country electoral process saying “Indirect primaries is a good process but has been marred with corruption that it basically why The Nigerian Alliance is taking stand with direct primaries”. She added.
She further explained that, the direct system of bringing candidates to participate in election required a lot of commitments from stakeholders.
She noted that, ” the group understand that direct primaries is quite huge, “when you look at mobilizing a large number of people, but we understand that to be able to kill a bigger Cancer, you should be able to manage a big problem as well”.
“The thing about direct primaries, we believe that we are trying to put power back into the hands of the people who will decide who goes in the offices to represent them and basically that why we are up for direct primaries, and hope that the bill be sign soon.
Speaking on youth active participation in election, Sharon is positive that if the youths are given the opportunity to lead they will do much better.
” I will be bold to said that a lot of Nigerian youths are craving for leadership positions, most of them have succeeded in their projects, businesses and they are very productive. And in the mist of all that has been wrong with Nigeria, we have striving youth population, and they far done very well for themselves, they have shown that they able to generate income for the country.
“For us in TNA, we are also ensuring that, we are featuring for good quality of persons who are running with our platform, to ensure that we bring in the right people who are capable of delivery on what the masses want”. She added.
