Party Primaries Show Flaws in Nigeria's Democracy

The lessons from the party primaries season show that democracy and good political behavior have vanished from Nigerian politics. INEC set a tight deadline, insisting that all primaries must be finished by May 30. This decision was challenged, and a court ruling from the Federal High Court of Justice Mohammad G. Umar, in Abuja, canceled INEC's deadline.

Out of fear of judicial trouble, the major parties chose to stick to INEC's deadline because they appealed, and Nigerians understand how the courts work. Following the new Electoral Act, primaries were done either by consensus or direct elections. In Nigerian political terms, consensus means imposition. The leader picks who the consensus candidate is. Direct primaries mean all party members should vote for the candidate. But the truth is that no party in Nigeria can manage these elections in all 8,809 wards. Direct voting in primaries often means that party leaders just write results for candidates as they wish. In Nigeria, this is known as results by declaration. It is quick because no one can vote to mess up the leader's choice. The whole process feels fake.

There was no surprise when the APC Presidential primaries happened in 8,809 wards across 36 states and the FCT, and President Tinubu won with 10,999,967 votes, as announced by Senator Anyim Pius Anyim at the Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja on Sunday, May 23. They did not use the Eagle Square. The announcement had to be in a building named after Tinubu himself. The only problem was that no one saw anyone voting. To make the process look more credible, Tinubu faced an unknown challenger named Stanley Osifo from Edo State. People saw his name for the first time; he got 16,504 votes. There were rumors that he was well rewarded for his role in this act. It was a good show.

The main result of the APC primaries was that only those approved by the President got winning votes or consensus declarations. There was no chance for surprise wins. Many hopeful candidates were persuaded to leave their parties and join the APC with promises of getting tickets. Most were shocked to find out they had been tricked and used. After that, they realized they could not switch to another party for nominations as they had done before. Joining the ruling party is no longer a way to win.

Many APC members in the National Assembly suffered a political blow. The APC had 242 members in the House of Representatives and 88 senators. Many did not get their return tickets. They were either screened out, outsmarted, or defeated through the declaration process. Dr. Ajibola Bashiru, the Secretary General of the APC, said all results would be announced centrally from the party’s secretariat. Nobody listened to him. The results were collected and announced on site under the governors' direction. Governors, as we know, like to remove powerful legislators and replace them with their loyalists. Many of the losers are now appealing the results but find themselves stuck where the judiciary is controlled by the powerful. A notable case was in Rivers State, where the governor faced a different situation. Gov. Simi Fubara was screened out of the nomination process because he fell out of favor with a godfather who is not even an APC member, but a friend of the APC President. He could not secure a single nomination for his candidates in the National and State Assemblies.

It was not just the APC that behaved badly. In the African Democratic Congress (ADC), there have been two congresses. Dumebi Kachikwu has been named the Presidential candidate of one faction. In the David Mark faction, the contest was among three: Atiku Abubakar, Rotimi Amaechi, and Mohammed Hayatudeen. Atiku won by a large margin. Both Amaechi and Hayatudeen claimed the numbers were faked in a clear act of electoral fraud. Former Secretary of the Federal Government, Babachir Lawal, a party leader, stated that the level of rigging in the ADC was so high that he is leaving and will now support his former political rival Bola Tinubu.

The political party primaries raise serious concerns about the upcoming elections. The political parties showed total disregard for their members. Only the President, state governors, and party godfathers matter. A large part of the political class feels cheated, bitter, and betrayed. The process has shown that getting into the political class is not about the popularity of candidates because voting is no longer part of the selection. We have a mafia-style recruitment process where the boss chooses, and everyone must follow or be pushed out. This is mainly a symbolic process telling Nigerians they have no role in the system. When we are told that President Tinubu got 11 million votes in the APC primaries, much more than his total votes in the 2023 Presidential election of 8,805,475, it suggests he will get even more votes in the general election in 2027 because that is how the system works now.

Over 120 members of the National Assembly, from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, left the political parties that brought them to power. Most of these defectors wanted party tickets to run for re-election but were denied, causing outrage. Senator Ned Nwoko (Delta North) accused the APC leaders of deceit, claiming they promised him an automatic return ticket to the Senate before he left PDP for the ruling party.

The message from those in power is clear: the rule of law does not apply in this process. Section 87 of the Electoral Act states: “(1) A political party that adopts a consensus candidate shall secure the written consent of all cleared aspirants for the position, indicating their voluntary withdrawal from the race and their endorsement of the consensus candidate.

(2) Where a political party is unable to secure the written consent of all cleared aspirants for a consensus candidate, it shall revert to the choice of direct primaries for the nomination of candidates for elective positions. These rules were simply ignored, and even former ministers are now saying they rejected the consensus method, but their objections were ignored. Now we all understand that only approval from the godfather is a valid way to gain power. Who can still claim we live in a democracy?