The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has concluded plans to establish a national institute of progressive studies to help groom it’s members on the rudiments of democracy and governance.
National Chairman of the APC, Alhaji Abdullahi Ganduje who disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday while exchanging ideas with a delegation from the INEC that visited the APC National Secretariat, said it has become necessary to polish the democratic practice and upgrade the knowledge of members to make them better politicians and leaders in the future.
“We are developing what we call a National Institute for Progressive Studies in order to teach our members the basics of democracy so that the issue of hate speech will be eliminated.
“I know one of the biggest problems of INEC, in conducting elections is insecurity. Everyone will say INEC, but it’s the politicians that create the problems.
“So, in order to understand the rules and regulations of election, in order to understand what is required to be a civilized politician, our institutions will be educating our people from time to time so that they can abide by the rules and it will be going digital,’ he said.
Ganduje commended I,NEC for carrying out its constitutional duties with diligence and dedication especially as it affects the oversight and scrutiny of political parties pointing out that all the offices of the APC in the 36 states have been directed to remain open 24 hours each day and engage in worthy activities like canvassing and registration of new members.
While expressing delight over the visit, Ganduje said, “There is no doubt that today is a historic day, the day of reckoning, a day of accomplishment, in terms of the relationship between INEC, and political parties, particularly the ruling party APC.
“There is no doubt that it is important for INEC to undertake satisfactory supervision and audit so that they can obtain the viability of political parties for the sake of planning and records and also part of their duty as provided by law.
“I want to assure you that our party is a strong party. We are ready to provide all the information required.
“We want to make our party a very strong institution as required to assist in the development of democracy.
“Therefore, we have decided to make our party active throughout the year not only during elections.
“We have also directed that all our party offices ranging from ward local government, zone, and states, basically the officers must be available and operationally, the offices must be functioning so that we are existing in terms of physical and functional presence.
“Also, we have decided to make our party an ICT party. We have directed the introduction of e-registration of our members and we believe that this will help us to partner with INEC to enable democracy grow.
“This we help us in planning, identify numbers, sex and age bracket in our party, qualification, profession of our party members, identity of our members right from ward level to national level.
“We do know that to improve the democratic principles in the party,
we are developing what we call National Institute for Progressive study to teach our members the basics of democracy.
A director of Elections and Party Monitoring in INEC, Hajia Hauwa Habibu, who led the delegation said the team was visiting the offices of registered political parties to check on their compliance with the requirements of the electoral laws.
The delegation met for several hours with the national chairman and member of the National Working Committee.
