With the current blame game going on between Nigeria’s ruling party APC and the opposition party PDP over the current economic recession that the country is facing. Economic scholar Prof Pat Utomi says that we don’t have political parties in Nigeria.
The renowned economics scholar Prof Pat Utomi, in a chat with Splash FM‘s presenter Seun Akinola, says that we don’t have political parties in Nigeria, but we only have certain set of people who are struggling for power, who come together to form a political party.
According to political scientists, a political party is a certain set of people who come together with same ideology, same philosophy and like-minded policies to work together to win election and control government in view to promote the collective good or to further their supporters’ interests in the society.
In the Nigerian scenario, we find political power brokers without the same ideology or philosophy, ruling us for their own selfish interests and that affects the growth of the nation. We have seen this kind of political party structure in Nigeria, and a good example of that is the coming together of the defunct SDP for the then AD and the recent one is that of ACN, CPC, ANPP and new PDP come together to form ruling party APC.
A good example of political party with same ideology in Nigeria, is that of Unity Party of Nigeria (1978–1983) and Action Group (1950–1966) by late Obafemi Awolowo. Prof Pat Utomi has a good point on this one, political party with same ideology and philosophy is good for development of any nation.