Rigging does not happen only on election day — Umar Gurama
Malam Umar Gurama is a retired civil servant and veteran politician from Gombe State. A septuagenarian, he began participating in partisan politics in the late 1970s and was active in the Second Republic, initially joining the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), where he served as an Assistant Organising Secretary in old Bauchi State. He later […]
Malam Umar Gurama, a septuagenarian former civil servant and veteran politician from Gombe State, has spoken about the rigging that takes place before election day. He argues that opposition parties face multiple obstacles in the lead-up to elections, such as being denied access to public venues or having their campaign materials restricted.
Gurama recalls the more tolerant environment of the Second Republic, where opposition parties operated more freely without interference from the government. However, he notes that today, political parties are largely dormant and unable to fulfill their expected roles in the democratic process. Gurama attributes this to internal disagreements being engineered within parties by the dominant party, which can then weaken opposition parties through litigation or legal action.
He emphasizes that functional political parties are crucial to democracy, yet none of the parties in Nigeria currently function as they should.
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