By Wole Adedoyin
Only 10 out of 45 registered political parties in Nigeria have registered and official websites.
The national president of the Computer Guild of Nigeria (CGN), Wole Adedoyin made this known at a press conference on Sunday in Lagos State.
In a very short time, websites have become vital campaign and communication tools for political parties around the world.
Political parties and candidates in the United States began to adopt the internet during the election campaigns in 1996. Political parties in Nigeria started using it in 2001. Even though most parties then did not have a real conception of how to use the medium and many of them set up websites primarily to be seen to be keeping up with technology. And the fact that Nigerian parties and candidates then simply feared being left behind.
According to Wole Adedoyin, the parties with visible websites are New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) @www.newnigeriapeoplesparty.org, Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) @ www.pppnigeria.org, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) @ www.apga.org, Labour Party (LP) www.labourpartyng.org, Advanced People Democratic Alliance (APDA), @www.apdanigeria.org, All Progressives Congress (APC) @ www.allprogressivecongress.org, Action Democratic Party (ADP), @ www.actiondemocraticparty.org, Young Democratic Party (YDP) @ www.ydp.ng, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), @www.peoplesdemocraticparty.com.ng, KOWA Party (KP) @ www.kowaparty.net.
Mr. Adedoyin who is also the national coordinator of Democratic Writers Association of Nigeria said that only 32 out of 45 registered political parties in Nigeria have facebook accounts.
“Website is one of the major tools for canvassing, mobilizing, sensitizing, educating and engaging grassroots voters. A typical party website would be strong, have detailed information on party organization and structure including profiles of some party officials at both the national and state levels”.
“My advice to INEC is to compel all registered political parties in the country to have functioning websites so as to allow the public to have access to their programmes and manifestoes”.
