ONE PARTY POLITICS CRUMBLES BAYELSA ECONOMY: PROF. JEGA URGED TO SAVE DEMOCRACY By Evans Tubonah

Nigeria's politics had been so unpredictable that whatever done is like part of the game. It is quite unbelievable that most democratic structures put in place existed just in names as operators of the system continue to behave outside the norms egal entities that aught to operate within the framework of the law sometimes
suffer as if the law was dead.
Political historians cannot dispute the facts in Nigeria's democracy that the nation had not been known to have practiced a unitary government or a single party system since she became a nation in 1960. It is interesting to note that Nigeria had practiced multi party politics which gave politicians and the citizens the ample opportunity to make choice of both parties and candidates based on the manifestoes of such parties and the eligibility of candidates.
One cannot but go into the political era in the l990s and 1980s under the NPN Government there were five sound political parties which operated in the nooks and crannies of the country to the ward level.
It was indeed a very sound and reasonable political order whereby all the political parties were allowed to constitute their executives committees, nationwide. the parties that exited include: the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), The Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), The Great Nigerian Peoples Party (GNPP), The Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP). No matter how poor these partirs were of membership or resources did not matter, they all existed and not hypocritically or pretensively.
Even at our first experiment into  Military democracy, under General Ibrahim as President the country in her democracy ended up with a two party system at all levels. The Military took a bold step and two party secretariats for the two parties, the National Republican Convention (NRC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP). and these parties all operated as equals for a vibrant and all inclusive politics at all levels.
It is sad to note that what is going on in Nigeria today, especially in Bayelsa State is the direct opposit of what obtains in a normal political order or under a multiple political party arrangement.
In a multi-party system the beauty of democracy is found in the election of party officials at all levels which gave automatic employment to the citizens and which gave them the opportunities to organize or attend party conventions at all levels, from the grassroot to the national. Beut today, multi-party in our constitution is just like a mere play. And this had adversely affected our 4th Republic Democracy in the ares of employment and economic prosperity in the country especially in Bayelsa which is driftingg to a one party system to the detriment of the citizenry. They say it must be PDP so as to elect President Jonathan in 20 15, but in multi-party too people can still come together and vote any candidate of their choice and where Jonathan is needed he can be re-elected. The INEC boss, Jega should try and make the multi-party democracy enshrined in our constitution to work.