Posted by Olaolu Oladipo on
Sixteen of the 30 political parties in the country are billed to meet President Olusegun Obasanjo next week to discuss critical national issues.
Sixteen of the 30 political parties in the country are billed to meet President Olusegun Obasanjo next week to discuss critical national issues.
The meeting is slated to hold on August 11, 2005 at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Already, the coordinator of the meeting with the President, and a chieftain of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, Mr. Maxi Okwu, is to forward the names of the nominees from each of the parties to The Presidency on Friday (today) for clearance.
Okwu told our correspondent in an exclusive interview that the main focus of the meeting with Obasanjo was the issue of multi-party democracy in the country.
According to Okwu, the meeting will afford nominees of the parties to raise other issues such as funds that had been appropriated for the parties but were yet to be released by the independent National Electoral Commission.
The discussion, Okwu stated, became necessary because of what he called certain developments concerning parties other than the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the country.
He said, 'We have requested to see the President over some critical issues bordering on the parties. And the President has granted our request. We are to meet him on Thursday and we have high hopes that this will produce the desired result."
According to Okwu, the meeting might also discuss the non-release of the N300 million allegedly allocated to the parties for 2002 voters' registration.
He said, 'INEC has been giving us all kinds of excuses since then. So, we might use the opportunity to appeal to the President to cause the release of this money. There is also the issue of the N500 million appropriated for the parties in this year's budget which has not been released too. INEC has been giving us excuses on this one too."
The PUNCH, Friday, August 05, 2005