IN recent times, there have been calls for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to scrap the grants it gives to registered political parties. The National Assembly appears to be moving in the direction of amending the constitution to remove the clauses that enjoin the Commission to give out these grants.

We want to add our voice to this call but with certain provisos. First of all, let us examine the cases made by those who want the grants to stay and those who want them to go. The former group, which is composed mainly of the smaller registered parties, justify the grants by saying that they help smaller political groupings to mobilise membership and conduct voter awareness campaigns.

In a presentation at a forum put together by the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and the News Agency of Nigeria in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State in September 2006, some of the political parties actually blamed the INEC for their inability to achieve much in membership drive due to the paltry sum the Commission grants them.

They also posited that the grants help the parties in running the office of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), which issues regular media statements on the state of the nation and offers advice on alternative ways of implementing public policy.

Those who are against it are of the view that nothing tangible has been achieved as a result of giving away these grants, as most of the political parties exist only in name, and perhaps for the sole purpose of collecting the grants.

They point out to the fact that neither the big nor small political parties conduct any voter awareness campaign nor even membership drives. Apart from a handful of them which are serious about fielding candidates and winning elections at various levels, many of these registered parties are used for political hustling.

Even when it is clear they do not stand any chance of winning any election the leaders of these mushroom parties drag the winners to the electoral tribunals with a view to forcing them to cut deals. During the justconcluded democracy day celebrations, these mushrooms, masquerading as CNPP in many states unashamedly mounted the podia and announced their resolve for the incumbent governors to return for second terms of office! By so doing they sold out to the incumbents even before the elections were held.

Is it these political traders that the INEC will continue to waste precious public funds on?
And yet, there is some logic in the idea of giving grants to political parties. The tradition is not a new one. But the idea of political parties freeloading from public coffers became an officially sanctioned observance during the General Ibrahim Babangida regime when government formed and funded political parties wholesale.

We can come to a sensible compromise by ensuring that only political parties that field candidates in a minimum number of electoral positions or win a minimum number of seats in an election should be eligible for the INEC grants to enable them offset their bills and, intensify membership drives and carry out voter education. Political parties are very instrumental in spreading voter awareness messages.

Members would listen to their political parties rather than government media organs when it comes to voter education. The proposal in the constitution amendment that is being done is that only political parties that win elections to control state governments should be given grants.

This may be a little too draconian. There are some instances where political parties are able to win an appreciable number of parliamentarians and counsellors in states without being able to capture any state government.

We therefore suggest that only political parties that win a minimal number of seats in the parliament should get the grants. The more seats in parliament or local council and states a political party wins, the more grants it should be given. This will encourage political parties to be more businesslike in their membership drives which, in turn, will boost our multi-party system in the end.