One of the myriads of problems that bedevilled the 2019 general elections was the unwieldy number of political parties that contested the elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, registered 91 political parties and placed 79 presidential candidates on the ballot.
Apart from increasing the cost of our elections, it led to the printing of ballot papers that were so long they were difficult to handle. This obviously accounted for the large number of invalid and cancelled ballots which, in turn, resulted in an unprecedented number of inconclusive elections, especially during the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections.
Efforts were made by the military regimes during their transitions to civil rule to limit the number of parties and candidate for elections. In 1989, all political associations were forced into two platforms – the Social Democratic Party, SDP and the National Republican Convention, NRC. But in 1998, the General Abdulsalami…
