The National Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Ajibola Basiru, has dismissed the insinuation that Nigeria is slowly moving into a one-party state.
Speaking during an interview on ‘Prime Time’, a programme on Arise Television, on Monday, Basiru said as of today, Nigeria still has a multi-party democracy.
According to him, the APC has 27 governors, the PDP has 5, APGA has 1, NNPP has 1, and ACCORD has 1, adding that it illustrates that the country has a multiparty democracy.
“I don’t think so. I think it’s just a very odious comments and opinion by those I called Internally Displaced Politicians, IDPs.
“The truth is that today we have multi party democracy even well illustrated by the spread of the political parties that are in control of various states in Nigeria?
“Multi party democracy does not mean that the ruling party should allow itself to be weakened, become indolent and complacent, and not to continue to mobilize, organize and make itself a veritable electoral machinery.
“If the meaning of multi democracy is that the ruling party should allow itself to be rerouted by the opposition, then possibly they may be right.
“But if political democracy means canvassing your ideas, expressing freedom of association, information and, of course, freedom to organize is what multiple democracy is about, then definitely, Nigeria is a multiple democracy and waxes stronger.
“Nigeria has perhaps the largest number of independent radio and television stations. That is freedom of speech. And Nigeria also has about 19 political parties already registered, five already got new provisional decision to pass in the 2027 election. What else do we talk about?
“And I want to immediately address the erroneous impression, which is rather ridiculous for people to say, that the presidency is weaponizing EFCC.
“There’s no such thing like that. We are very confident that everybody has the right to organize and mobilize,” he said.
