The process of lawlessness started with the election of delegates in which strong godfathers simply imposed their clients, their houseboys and servants as delegates. The so-called delegates are then instructed to choose a designated aspirant as the candidate for the party. The list of “genuine” delegates, meaning imposed delegates, is kept hidden from other aspirants seeking to contest in the nomination process. The idea here is to stop them from campaigning, read bribing the delegates. Sometimes, the delegates are taken out of town and locked up in a hotel until the time of the primaries. Sadly, this is actually the best-case scenario. Sometimes, no primaries are held at all and the godfather just writes a report stating that the primaries took place and a candidate has won it. In other cases, to avoid the risk of others successfully joining the contest for nomination, a “consensus” candidate is imposed which means no one is allowed to contest against the aspirant designated by the godfather.
This is the season when it becomes clear to all that Nigerian democracy has a great weakness because of the lack of respect for internal party democracy and the consequent recurrent disrespect for party rules, particularly in the nomination of candidates for elections. This happens across all the political parties and it is a type of behaviour that needs to change for the better. It is on this basis that Article 2.5 of the Political Parties’ Code of Conduct 2013 states that: “All political parties shall ensure, and practice internal party democracy by adhering strictly to the provisions of their Party’s Constitution.” INEC has powers for the regulation of political party activity based on the principles of the rule of law. The regulation is spelt out in Article 2.1 of the Political Parties’ Code of Conduct: “All political parties, their leaders, members, supporters, and candidates shall adhere to all existing laws, and regulations pertaining to elections, and the conduct of political parties, especially the election guidelines established by INEC through the authority of the Electoral Act 2010, (as amended), the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, (as amended, and shall do nothing whatsoever, individually or collectively to undermine, flout, disrespect or circumvent them.”
Nigeria has one of the most detailed legislation in the world for controlling party primaries. There is a three-stage process for the nomination of party candidates in primaries: the parties inform INEC of their desire to hold congresses or conventions on a specific date, time and location, INEC responds and sends monitors to verify that the process corresponds to the laid down rules from the aforementioned sources and finally INEC officially receives the names of successful candidates from the parties. The problem is that the elaborate system simply does not work. In general, parties have failed to inform INEC properly of the date, time and venue of meetings. When they do inform them, they sometimes change the dates and time without notice. All the parties develop detailed guidelines to govern procedures for the primaries but they simply do not follow them most of the time. For example, some parties provide that voting shall be by secret ballot, but they end up doing open ballot or imposing “consensus candidates”. No one, INEC included, has been able to monitor and enforce the laws and rules for party primaries.
The irony is that political parties have a lot to gain from conducting fair and honest primaries. If the primaries are conducted according to the rules, party members and candidates are likely to regard the primaries as credible, free and fair and the likelihood of legal challenge to the announced results will be severely minimised, if not eliminated entirely. Party members are likely to become more committed to the party and support their candidates during the elections and political nomadism would reduce considerably as aspirants who feel cheated in the primaries walk out en masse seeking alternative platforms.
The law is clear that party primaries must uphold the democratic principle. Specifically, the Act stipulates that: “The aspirant with the highest number of votes at the end of voting shall be declared the winner of the primaries of the party and the aspirant’s name shall be forwarded to the Independent National Electoral Commission as the candidate of the party.” The Nigerian Constitution assigns the responsibility of monitoring political parties and ensuring that they adhere to their rules and procedures to INEC. The Electoral Act, Section 86, empowers INEC to monitor political parties and keep records of their activities; furthermore it empowers them to seek clarifications in conformity with the law. The Electoral Act, Section 87 provides a choice between two procedures for the nomination of candidates by parties – direct or indirect elections. In direct elections, all members of the party can vote for their candidate. Indirect elections involve the election of delegates to primaries where the delegates will elect candidates from a set of registered aspirants.
Section (7) of the Act states that ‘A political party that adopts the system of indirect primaries for the choice of its candidate shall clearly outline in its constitution and rules the procedure for the democratic election of delegates to vote at the convention, congress or meeting. It is in observance of this section of the law that parties develop their guidelines and simply refuse to implement. This is in spite of the fact that all Nigerian Political Parties, through the Inter-Party Advisory Council and the approval of INEC have agreed to abide by the Political Parties’ Code of Conduct 2013.
Part of the problem is that there is little scrutiny of political party primaries. INEC which has monitoring powers is overburdened but also simply intimidated by the numerous court cases it gets embroiled in when it tries to do its work. The tradition of civil society observation of the primaries has not yet been developed in Nigeria. The result is that no one is preparing authentic observer reports that will inform party members, regulatory authorities and the general public about the truth in the conduct of party primaries. This accounts for the limited dialogue between political parties, civil society and the wider citizenry on compliance with the principles of internal party democracy. As no one is beaming the spotlight on internal political party processes malpractices continue to be the order of the day. In many states, politicians spend more money on primaries than on the elections themselves because securing the ticket of certain parties is almost a guarantee for winning. State governors in particular play the role of leading godfathers and their behaviour is capricious. In the last three elections, godfather governors dropped 80% of the membership of the national and state assemblies. They do so to prevent the evolution of powerful independent legislators that can do their work without fear. This practice has slowed down the development of our legislatures and weakened our democracy. Unfortunately, the tradition conti-nues.
