John Alechenu , Abuja
The pronouncement by former Imo State Governor , Senator Rochas Okorocha that a new political platform is in the offing to wrestle power from the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party, on Tuesday elicited a mixed reaction from several opposition politicians .While some most of those spoken to in separate interviews on Tuesday , agree that Nigerians enjoy the freedom of association and can form political parties to pursue their interests , opinion is divided as to whether there is a need for a new political platform.The Mega Political Movement being promoted by Prof . Pat Utomi , former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na ’Abba, and others are more concerned about electoral reforms.Spokesperson for the group , Olawale Okunniyi said , “ What we must do as a people is first and foremost pursue a popular reworking of our constitution for us to have a nation which will work for all of us.“ This will also involve political reforms because whatever political party you form using this currently faulty template will be consumed by the bad system currently in place .”Speaking in a similar vein , an Edo State Chieftain of the APC and former Commissioner for Information , Kazim Afegbua , said , “ Nigeria needs to learn the hard way to be able to develop her democracy to fit into best practices . The idea of contemplating a new political block or movement or party is to me an exercise in overkill .“ We have reduced political participation to bread and butter . We have enough political parties that can be retooled , reformed , rejigged and repositioned to assume their pride of place in the democratic equation.“ The problem of Nigeria’ s democracy is not about the proliferation of political parties but the characters that man them . There are bad losers everywhere as well as bad winners . The culture of winner takes all has its own telling impact in the leadership emanations across the political spectrum in the country .”
