The former Chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC), Prof. Humphrey Nwosu has said that the current multiple party system was threatening the unity of the country.
Addressing a news briefing in Abuja, Nwosu advocated for a two-party system, saying that it would foster national integration.
He said that if the system was successful in other countries with multiple ethnic groups and cultural differences, it should succeed in Nigeria.
“Wherever you have a multiple party system, you tend to have instability.
“I think with the benefit of hindsight, most Nigerians, I believe, will want two-party structure. It will do away with ethnic, regional, state or primordial parties.
“Until recently, we had 57 political parties. Some of them never exceeded the local government level.
“Some collected government grant; some were sponsored by the bigger parties; the political parties were not national and couldn’t, therefore, contest presidential election.
“During elections, they collect their forms and disappear.
“It makes sense to me from what I have observed in the past 20 years that Nigeria needs a two-party structure for national integration.
“Tell me any state now in the federation where the party in power does not control all the local governments: very few.
“But if you have a two-party system with equal strength in resource and membership, then there is the likelihood that democracy will thrive, rather than having a dominant party system.’’
Nwosu, a retired professor of Political Science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, was appointed NEC Chairman in 1989.
He held that position until 1993, when the June 12 Presidential Elections, adjudged the freest in the country, was annulled by former military president, Ibrahim Babangida.
NAN also recalls that a two-party system existed while Nwosu was the NEC chairman.
They were the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC), with the late Chief Moshood Abiola and Alhaji Bashir Tofa as their presidential candidates respectively.