Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), asserted on Wednesday that politicians pose the most significant challenge to elections in Nigeria, contradicting the popular belief that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is the primary obstacle.
During a meeting at the APC national secretariat in Abuja with a team of INEC officials on a verification visit, Ganduje highlighted his perspective, stating, “I know one of the biggest problems of INEC in conducting elections is insecurity. Everyone will say INEC, but it’s the politicians.”
Ganduje emphasized the need for political education to address this issue, saying, “So, in order to understand the rules and regulations of elections, in order to understand what is required to be a civilized politician, our institution will be educating our people from time to time so that they can abide by the rules, and it will be going digital.”
As part of the party’s initiatives, Ganduje decided to transform the APC into an ICT-driven party. He revealed, “The National Working Committee (NWC) had decided to make our party an ICT party. We have directed for e-registration of our members, which we believe will help us promote democracy better.”
Ganduje explained that this technological approach would aid in planning and identifying party demographics, stating, “This will help us in planning, identifying our numbers, sex, and age bracket in our party, qualification, profession of party members right from the ward level to the national level.”
To further enhance democratic principles within the party, Ganduje revealed plans to establish the National Institute for Progressive Studies. The institute aims to educate party members on the fundamentals of democracy, aiming to eliminate issues like hate speech.
Ganduje concluded, “We are doing that to improve the democratic principle in the party. We are establishing what we call National Institute for Progressive Studies in order to teach our members the basics of democracy so that the issue of hate speech will be eliminated.”
