Speaker House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara has called for adoption of direct voting method for Party Primaries.

Dogara said this method of voting will make primaries of political parties to be transparent and truly democratic.

The Speaker said this while responding to a request from a delegation from the Conference of Female Parliamentarians of State Houses of Assembly, led by its chairperson, Hon Elizabeth Ativie, at the National Assembly.

He argued that direct primaries is more effective in choosing the true candidate of the people because it takes away the option of manipulation of a few delegates by interested parties who have more financial or political influence.

Speaking on the merits of Option A4, he said, “it is there in most of the Constitution of our political parties where primaries are supposed to be by direct or indirect means.

“ But in most cases, most political parties, if not all, have always opted for the indirect primaries.

“ To be more candid, direct primaries can help even in general elections because once a candidate emerges under those conditions, you will know that he is generally accepted by the people, he noted.

The Speaker maintained that in most cases, the people who have the capacity, “either the political will, the financial muscle to do this, dictate who are the actual representatives from the people.”

“Unfortunately too, our laws do not help matters since we do not have independent candidacy.

“The only requirement is that you must have a political party platform before you are elected into any office. It therefore means that something has to be done in order to free the process.

“In order to ensure that this process is truly transparent and democratic and the only way is to let all card carrying members of a political party participate in the election of their candidate. So to this suggestion, you already have a convert in me.”