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Political parties are the foundations of our nascent democracy. It is constitutionally mandatory for anyone aspiring to any elective position, whether within the political party or in the country at large, to be a member of a political party. Indeed, “No association, other than a political party, shall canvass for votes for any candidate at any election or contribute to the funds of any political party or to the election expenses of any candidate at an election”, so says Section 221 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. There’s no room for independent candidates.
Nigeria is beset with numerous challenges and has been overcoming most, but it’s pertinent to assert that Nigeria may not survive another military intervention in the polity. The citizens have become too sophisticated, enlightened and knowledgeable to voluntarily submit to a dictator or a government they did not bring into existence. Moreover, there’s increasingly the tendency of death to fear by the citizens as can be seen from the numerous groups that are willing to carry arms against the Federation. The only solution is free and fair elections to enable the citizens elect the leaders that will serve them not the ones that will lord over them.
The journey to free and fair elections start with free and fair election of party executives and free and fair primary elections within the political parties. From the inception of democracy in 1999, there has not been any attempt or seriousness on the parties to nominate candidates of parties through a fair internal process of election. It has always been a game of the undemocratic godfathers. It came to a point where a gubernatorial candidate, Rotimi Amechi, won a primary election in Rivers State, fair and square, under the banner of the Peoples Democratic Party, but was replaced with another candidate, Celestine Omehia. The then President Obasanjo, who was not a party official at all, but had entrenched himself as the leader of the party and consequentially its godfather simply declared that the primary election had k-leg and that was it. I took time to read all the laws governing elections in our country and couldn’t find the word k-leg. This simply showed the extent the godfathers are willing to go to undermine our internal democracy. Of course, the courts overturned the abnormality but the precedent of impunity was set in our internal democracy.
The current primary elections conducted by the political parties in Anambra State have exposed the sorry state of internal democracy in all the parties. There are two main political parties in Nigeria, the All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party. However, Anambra State is a peculiar case. It has three main political parties APC, PDP and APGA with a fourth political party, YPP, surviving by the strength and power of one powerful politician, Ifeanyi Uba, who is a current Senator under the party and who could have still run as an independent candidate, if there was such provision in our Constitution and obtained same result. In YPP, therefore, there was no need for any primary election because the sole politician emerged conspicuously as the sole candidate. The uniqueness of Anambra State also stretched to the situation where the ruling party in the State, APGA, is not one of the two major political parties in Nigeria. The political equation, therefore, is a hard nut to crack come November 6th, 2021. What would have marked out any party as honourable and distinguished would have been a free, fair and transparent primary election to select their candidates. I am unhappy to report to you that none of them met up with that standard.
One would have thought that APGA, being the ruling party in the State, and the “minoritest” party in Nigeria would have shown a good example by organising an unassailable party primary. But three factions of the party emerged and organised three different party primaries with three different candidates. The party National Chairman, Victor Oye, was purportedly suspended by the National Executive of the party and replaced with Jude Okeke, yet Victor Oye conducted a primary that led to the emergence of Soludo as APGA candidate, while Jude Okeke conducted his own primary that produced Chukwuma Umeoji as APGA’s factional guber candidate. Chief Edozie organised his own primary and emerged as the guber candidate. Isn’t this crazy? Even an APGA member of the State House of Assembly said only the court would have a final say on who is the authentic candidate of the APGA as a political party. Any party, especially a minority party, that puts its destiny in the courts in Nigeria is likely going to be doomed.
PDP is the next opposition party in the State. Two factions emerged with two different court orders of coordinate jurisdiction to justify organising two different primary elections which produced two different candidates, Valentine Ozigbo and Ugochukwu Ubah. Valentine won with about 62 votes, while Ubah won with about 275 votes. The Valentine faction allowed only the statutory delegates to vote. In the Valentine faction, the opinion and votes of the ordinary party members of the PDP were irrelevant, it was only the opinion of the godfathers that was considered. Little wonder, he is being paraded as winner by a certain godfather. Yet, democracy is defined as the government of the people. Isn’t this crazy? Barring any late time settlement of this political conundrum, the courts will be the last arbiter in this case.
The APC organised only one primary election. On the day of the election, the APC Leader in the State, Dr Chris Ngige, screamed that no election materials can be found in the two wards of his town and advised that the election be shifted. He publicly declared after that day that there was no APC primary election held throughout Anambra State. 11 aspirants agreed with the postulation of APC Leader in the State, yet Governor Abiodun Dapo announced Andy Ubah as the winner of the primary election. Isn’t this crazy? In the absence of any divine intervention or deft political manoeuvring, this battle will shift to the courts for determination.
This malady of lack of internal democracy in all the parties does not result from lack of sufficient laws to pilot the affairs of our political parties and the conduct of their primary elections, it is the affirmation of the fact that our leaders lack the integrity and character to do the right thing. The party constitutions contain provisions backing up the concept of free and fair primaries. Even the 1999 Constitution, as amended, made copious provisions protecting internal democracy. APC, in Article 7(viii) of its Constitution, has it as one of its objectives, “To promote and uphold the practice of internal democracy at all levels of the Party’s organisation”. The national ruling party, APC, prescribed in Article 21(xi) the stiffest penalty of expulsion and prosecution for any party member who engages in tampering with the processes of internal democracy of the party. The PDP vowed in its preamble, paragraph 2(g), to defend the sanctity of democracy through the firm enforcement of a strict code of conduct among the members of the Party and political office holders. It enumerated in Chapter 8 of its Constitution the process of electing its candidates for the different elective public offices in the country.
In the event that the parties consistently fail, refuse or neglect to conduct their primaries in accordance with the dictates of their own constitutions, the 1999 Constitution, as amended, made copious provisions protecting internal democracy in all the parties. By the combined effects of Sections 223(1)(a)(2)(a) and 228(a)(b), the constitution and rules of a political party shall provide for the periodical election on a democratic basis of the principal officers and members of the executive committee or other governing body of the political party; and the election of the officers or members of the executive committee of a political party shall be deemed to be periodical only if it is made at regular intervals not exceeding four years. The National Assembly may by law provide guidelines and rules to ensure internal democracy within political parties, including making laws for the conduct of party primaries; party congresses and party conventions and the conferment on the Independent National Electoral Commission of powers as may appear to the National Assembly to be necessary or desirable for the purpose of enabling the Commission more effectively ensure that political parties observe the practices of internal democracy, including the fair and transparent conduct of party primaries, party congresses and party conventions.
It is unfortunate that the Constitution gave elaborate powers to the National Assembly members, who are the greatest political victims of lack of internal democracy in their parties, going by the rate of turnover in the National Assembly, to determine how the primary elections in their parties should be run, yet they failed, refused or neglected to utilise such powers to consolidate our democracy, leaving their political destiny in the hands of the Chief Executives of their States. They should rise up today and make general laws that all parties must adhere to in the conduct of their primary elections and empower INEC to hold the parties accountable to their Constitutions.
The Civil Society Organisations must be proactive in interrogating the process of internal democracy within the parties as they are serious in fighting any perceived abuses of the electoral process in general elections. Their consistency in fighting electoral bandits have helped in improving our electoral processes, while their oversight in looking inwards into the activities of the parties have led to a further deterioration of the practice of internal democracy in Nigeria. For instance, if the godfathers of Northern Nigeria politics do not like the concept of rotation of the President to the South as proposed by the Southern Governors, such quest for rotation of the Presidency to the South come 2023 by the Southern Governors can easily be frustrated by the godfathers or cabal using the instrumentality of the skewed internal democracy apparatus to produce Northern candidates in the major political parties and the deal is sealed even before the general election.
It is sad that the politicians, by their lack of character, craze for political power and total neglect of their own rules, have shifted the enthronement of elected officials in Nigeria from the people to the lawyers and the courts with tremendous consequences in terms of cost, politicisation of our judiciary, subverting the will of the Nigerian people and ultimate bastardisation of the democratic process. Isn’t this indeed a demonstration of craze?
