I read the president’s reply to the National Assembly (NA) on his refusal to sign the Electoral Amendment Bill as proposed, especially the part where the National Assembly felt that political parties should conduct direct primaries.
By direct primaries is meant that in choosing flagbearers of political parties, all party members should be involved, as against the current scenario – especially in the two large parties – where the selection process is often mired in secrecy and hijacked by a small coterie of powerful principalities and powers who sit on the necks of these political parties at every level of society.
It could be inferred, that the result of the internal governance of those parties, including the cultures which have overtaken them – especially the secrecy in adopting candidates – is what has translated into the bigger wreckage that Nigeria is today, 22 years after our hopeful return to democracy. Indeed, it is a fact that a political party can only translate its culture into the leadership of a country if it gets the chance to lead. Therefore, the PDP, being a party that led mostly in years of boom, became used to ‘sharing’ the booty, so corruption thrived. The APC, being a special purpose vehicle of strange bedfellows, has also unleashed the dysfunctionality in the party structure on the whole of Nigeria.
The president’s reply was saddening, for its skullduggery. The presidency would want us to believe, that the expenditure on parties would be too much if they were required to conduct direct primaries. Also, that the INEC would spend too much supervising primaries. The president also believes that it will be against democracy to dictate to political parties how to select their flagbearers. Further, he mentioned the security situation of the country (a shameful excuse indeed given that the security buck stops at his desk). This security excuse is at the same level as those folks (especially governors), who tried to whip up COVID-19 as an excuse to continue with the status quo as if we shall live with the fear of COVID for the rest of our lives.
The part that tips me over is that part where he wrote that small parties cannot afford direct primaries. Small parties? Since when did Buhari care about small parties? Since when did anyone in PDP or APC care about small parties? Did they not gang together to smother small parties in their cots just last year 2020? Did they care that by the action they pressurized INEC to take ultra vires the constitution of the Federal Republic and in obvious impunity by which INEC says to those parties “go to court if you don’t like it” – in mockery of our judicial system – they unleashed the innocent energies of young people who were trying to make their own ways politically, culminating in #EndSARS, and IPOB, and Igboho? Now, they wish to use the ghosts of small parties as a crutch to escape what is essentially a call for transparency? And indeed, let me inform them, that some of us who formed small parties saw this far and beyond, way back five years ago or more and so we instituted direct primaries as part of our constitution – even the election of party officials using Option A4 (open ballot where people queue behind their candidate). We could afford it. It was not a big deal and we had no complaints. It was all about organising ourselves, and the core principle which we strove to institute, was transparency. For transparency, we believed that any cost was well worth it. Why? When you start to do things in secret you open the door wide open for speculations, accusations, bribery and corruption, fractionalization, backbiting, cultism, and what have you. The non-embrace of transparency by these older folks is the reason why we are here today. In our ‘small’ parties, we hoped that our transparent culture will permeate the entire system. The old folks saw that we may change the status quo over time, and so caused INEC to wield the sledgehammer. The old folks in APC and PDP want Nigeria to be exactly how it is, never better. And this is a message to Nigerians at large.
They say that the best disinfectant in the world, is the Sun. Yes; this same Sun that we take for granted on a daily basis. It took the coming of COVID-19 for some of our big men to realise that they’ve been killing themselves by sitting inside aircondition all day all night and depriving themselves of vital vitamin D. But the Sun is there for good reason – in excess, and free for us here in Nigeria as others in the world rue their fates in winter. The Sun is also there, to illuminate, to simplify, to demystify, to make plain.
There is indeed another saying that is apt for this purpose. It goes ‘an age was called Dark, not because the sun refused to shine, but because people REFUSED to see it’. It is, therefore, most unfortunate that our Mai Gaskiya (the truth-teller) has consistently lined up behind darkness since he became president in 2015, and the results are there to see. Analysts say Buhari has always, will always step down any bill that pushes for electoral reforms. But with the darkness that we have embraced in this country, comes crime, and decay, and terrorism, and the looting dry of a society. And indeed, these evils drag along other evils, leaving the people in so much pain, misery, and confusion. One would have hoped, that anything that promotes transparency, even at great cost, will be supported by the man who says he is holy and clean.
Merry Christmas to all readers as I conclude this next week.
