Political Parties, Internal Democracy and the 2019 Elections

Many political analysts are of the view that it is too early to start permutations for the 2019 elections. People with this view reasoned that political leaders should be given at least two and half years to fulfill their campaign promises and prove themselves as worthy of the votes they received in the previous elections. However, most people are of the opinion that we need to start talking about 2019. First, how ready is INEC to conduct elections? What changed in the way we do politics from the country’s historic 2015 general elections? What lessons did political parties and politicians learned from the defeat of People’s Democratic Party (PDP)?

Already, with the way things are going in some states, there already exists public apathy and cynicisms in the way their Governors are running the affairs of the states. Their fears are confirmed with recent happenings within the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and the opposition PDP; the leadership crisis in both parties and the primary elections in Edo and Ondo States.

After the 2015 elections, political commentators believed that the defeat of the PDP was supposed to serve as a lessons for all political parties and the leadership of the parties that Internal Democracy is like a panacea to crisis and disenchantment from party members and political office candidates. But alas, that has not been the case. We are still battling with political god-fathers, who in most cases anoint their preferred candidates over and above popular candidates.

The APC which came with a promise of change has failed to internalize democracy in the selection and nomination of candidates into various elective offices. We have seen that in bye-elections and Local Government elections conducted in some states. In Ondo State for instance, the primary elections in the APC was marred by allegation of fraud, injustice and subversion of truth. The other candidates who lost the primary elections accused the leadership of the party of “voiding the ineligible/padded votes and rightfully re-enfranchising the disenfranchised votes”. They also claimed that the party leader Chief John Odigie-Oyegun has shown an “undemocratic behavior in over-ruling the report of the Appeal Committee which ordered for fresh primary”. If the APC, a party, that benefitted from democratic structure to win elections is doing this what about other parties?

Subversion of people’s will, anointing candidates and rigging them into power has been the practice in the last 16 years of our democracy. The PDP, which ruled the country this period at the centre was notorious for that. With time this practice became unbearable to most people in the party. In fact, even before the party explosion in 2013 and subsequent decamping of five PDP Governors to opposition APC, many party stalwarts as far back as 2010 predicted the explosion of the party due to what they saw as imposition, injustice and other factors that became synonymous with the party. For instance, Dr. Okwosilieze Nwodo, a former Chairman of the PDP, was once quoted saying the image of the PDP, “the largest political party in Africa, has been grossly eroded due to strife, imposition of candidates, god fatherism, money bag politics, injustice, and lack of understanding of our party manifesto”.

What do we learn from all these as we approach 2019? It seems nothing. Political leaders all over the country are threading the same path. While other parties have gone to sleep immediately after 2015 elections, the two political parties that are active – i.e. the APC and PDP are trying to hand over the affairs of the parties to god fathers, who, as we see in the past, do nothing but impose unpopular candidates on the electorates. The results will be what we saw in Gombe State with the APC, where Danjuma Goje forced his candidate on the party, Katsina state, where Shema did same, Niger State and in Jigawa State, where Sule Lamido imposed his preferred candidate on the good people of Jigawa. Before that singular act, it was unthinkable for PDP to lose Niger, Katsina and Jigawa States.

Jigawa State in particular stood out. I was in Jigawa three times prior to the 2015 elections. As fanatical Buharists, and with the feelers in many towns and villages I visited, I doubted Buhari’s chances in the state. However, during my last visit in Hadejia, there were cynicism and the air was filled with uncertainty. Some of my friends told me reliably that their fear was that who will built on the good legacies of Sule Lamido? The candidate the PDP was presenting was not popular and is not close to the thinking, vision and foresightedness of the state leader, Sule Lamido. Some of them clearly told me that PDP may lose the elections in 2015, if the party fails to heed to people’s complaints. The rest they said is history.

As we approached the 2019 elections, and with experiences in Edo, for PDP and the one APC may learn in Ondo, there is need for the leadership of all our political parties to learn one or two things. Parties must revert to fundamental principles of democracy by respecting the right of every member. Party members should be given equal opportunities to seek for elective office. Also, primary elections should be free, fair and transparent. This will reduce intra-party conflicts, public cynicism and apathy.