The eye-popping amounts being paid by public office seekers to obtain interest forms, unfortunately, elevates an evolving prepaid public service culture to the political terrain. I shall abbreviate this to PPS Culture.
This growing PPS Culture is not the old-fashioned bribery as we know it. Bribery has to do with giving inducement to individuals for access to services that are otherwise free of charge. Contrarily, PPS in public service plays out among groups that lay ambush in corridors of power nationwide. The groups may not be in office but they do apply what late Prince Tony Momoh described as “abuse of office” in targeted institutions and organisations.
In our current democracy, the prepaid public service culture manifests in humongous nomination fees demanded of individuals by political interest groups. The executive of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) has already cashed out. At the close of its nomination window, it netted N646 million in the bag from presidential aspirants alone. Added to payment by governorship, national and state assembly aspirants, total haul could go up to N3 billion. Not to be outdone, the ruling party, APC, is set to harvest almost N2 billion from presidential aspirants alone. Heaven knows how much more will be garnered when other aspirants buy interest forms. At this rate, individuals will pay in almost N7 billion to the two parties alone at the conclusion of this exercise.
Why are these funds being funnelled to political parties and with what implications?
Thus far, the parties have given no explanation about why they demanded these colossal sums from aspirants. Keep in mind that the funds being poured into the parties are merely to express interest in running for office. Only one lucky aspirant will become the party candidate at the end of the day. And even at that the candidate will still go to the people to canvass for votes, with competitors from other parties. There is a guarantee, for instance, that all but one APC presidential aspirant will make it past the party’s primary convention. And if the past is anything to go by, this lone candidate is expected to foot his campaign bill.
The implication is that several presidential and other public office aspirants will lose a substantial part of what they hitherto earned or stole. But they will not lose without a fight. They will fight to win the election, and then come for settlement of whatever they contributed. The new occupant will worry not only about foreign and domestic debts but also debts to partymen and recovery of his campaign funds. The welfare of the people will come a distant last in the race for his attention.
Why are we going this way? The parties’ motives remain a matter of conjecture.
A common guess, however, is that this maneuver scares away less rich but more credible hopefuls. This fear is understandable. Less than 1 per cent of Nigerian workers and political appointees earn N100 million per annum. Which makes it practically impossible for public officers and intellectuals to come into the game. It also leaves experienced and professional managers at the mercy of moneybags and godfathers, if they must enter the political contest. The PPS Culture.
A second credible explanation is what can be explained as an evolving PPS Culture in Nigeria’s democracy. This evolving culture is, as usual, opposite of what happens outside in most other countries of the democratic world. PPS Culture describes the practice of paying money under the table to groups in order to facilitate access to public office or to public services. As already explained, it is not the old-fashioned bribery, which involves paying money under the table to individuals for access to public appointments or services. PPS is using legally constituted groups to carry out actions that ultimately shortchange group members and the public at large.
The PPS Culture did not start today, nor with political parties. The PPS Culture manifests in many forms in our political, business, spiritual and social spheres. For instance, it is widely believed that the labour movement in Nigeria became ineffective as a result of this tendency. Union officials are alleged to habitually accept inducements from employers to devalue the collective bargaining process.
A third credible explanation is that this is an old-fashioned way of giving political parties the funds they need to prosecute the election. The rate at which governors and their protégées jump into the aspirant campaign train strengthens this conjecture. Almost every state managed by the PDP, for instance, has an aspirant. Most of them are pretenders. In the APC, ministers holding juicy positions are also aspirants, in addition to governors from states that are controlled by the party.
The entry of prepaid democracy is an ill wind once it is accepted as a norm. It will be challenging to end this growing phenomenon, for two reasons. Most of the candidates are now purchasing the forms through proxies. And whichever party comes to power automatically controls public service agencies that probe campaign misdemeanors.
One way to end it is for three agencies – ICPC, EFCC and FIRS (the tax authority) – to investigate the sources of the funds that aspirants poured into party coffers. For the proxy groups that claim to have bought the forms, the electoral law should be strengthened to monitor both those who contribute to candidates’ campaigns and the sources of their contributions. Can they do this? But you would require these agencies to be more than nominally independent. It is impossible under the current situation where leadership of these agencies are selected by the President and confirmed by the Senate – the very persons that are the target of the investigations.
When Nigerians come to the end of their tether in seeking solutions to their problems, we raise out hands in the air in divine supplication. God help us.
Happy birthday, Ike
Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who represents my district (Enugu West) in the Senate, is 60 today. It is a defining year for him. He becomes a senior citizen. Two years ago, in preparation for this milestone, he decided he would retire from the Senate next year, after spending a record-setting 20 years in the upper chamber of the National Assembly.
This decision meant that he would retire as one of the longest serving senators in Nigeria, if not the longest serving. In my home state, there is some resentment about this. But in his constituency, the majority are of the opinion that he has more than justified his longevity. Ike has remained a household name in Enugu because of his superlative performance in the Senate. The Igbo have produced many Senate presidents, but it is doubtful that those distinguished members used their office to attract a fraction of the infrastructure and social services that the three-time deputy Senate president gave to his constituents. The road networks are mind-blowing, in an area that is serially denied government presence since precolonial times when old Awgu was created as a division of Eastern Nigeria.
Sixty is the age of retirement, and he made the decision to retire to his home state. But he has also said he is not tired and would like to showcase his talents, his ability, his contacts and his famous love for people at the home front. Many of us expected him to make a bid for the top job in Nigeria because he has national goodwill. But he sensibly believed that charity should begin at home.
I have said it before that, win or lose the party primaries, Senator Ike Ekweremadu has performed a feat. He has thrown a pebble into the still waters of Enugu politics, exposing the effluent that lay like sediments underneath. We now know that all is not well with our home state. And we now know that, for Enugu to survive, we cannot be doing anointing and zoning that throw up managers who do same of the same.
We wish you luck in your ambition sir. The odds before you on this quest are formidable. But you have goodwill, and you have absolute faith in the power of the Almighty to alter the odds in one’s favour. We hope you will win your party’s primary because Enugu will witness a change from your humane and visionary disposition.
Good luck and happy birthday, Ike.