A LEADING chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) recently justified the acrimonious battles for nominations and positions in the ruling party on the grounds that such a behaviour was expected of a ruling party. The same intense battles have been witnessed in the struggle to secure the party’s tickets for various elective positions. In this election cycle, the struggles have not been as intense in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as they were when the party grandiosely but inefficiently ran Nigeria between 1999 and 2015. On the surface, and given the antecedents of both parties in office, not to say the predictable behaviour of politicians jostling for offices, for power and for plum jobs, it admittedly sounds logical that fiercer battles will naturally be waged in the ruling party than in the opposition party. Convinced that nothing really tectonic was shifting in the APC in terms of political behaviour, in fact absolutely nothing unusual, the leading lights of the party have asked distraught members fearing the worst for their party to simply endure the battles and acquit themselves like strongmen.
The logic in question is superficial, but it retains enough potency to persuade Nigerians and the combatants in both leading parties to endure the impossible, especially in this season of primaries. The battles may be fierce in the APC, but the PDP is also not inoculated against the rabid and deathly fights for tickets, influence, dominance and succession. Serving lawmakers seek a return to their various legislative seats, aspiring lawmakers seek a first-time entry, and outgoing governors, dreading the humiliating solitude that often accompanies life after office, seek permanent relevance, perhaps even solace, in the senate. (No governor ever contemplates confining himself to the dreary and lowly chamber of the House of Representatives). It is thus not surprising that the jostling for tickets on the APC platform has preoccupied the media and dominated the front pages of leading newspapers for weeks.
It makes sense, therefore, to limit observations about the ticket battles to the APC, the archetypal political party demonstrating the ferocity of the wars and the inanity of the aforesaid logic. Zamfara State APC, unable to reconcile its warring groups, is in danger of disqualifying itself from the 2019 races. Except it can find judges to rule against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and compel the acceptance of the list of standard-bearers presented by the state APC in violation of electoral timelines, the opposition PDP will likely take the state lock, stock, and barrel in 2019. Despite satisfying the electoral timelines instituted by INEC, most other APC states have had to wade through hell to find a unifying list to submit. Some APC governors, having tyrannised their states and whimsically drawn up a self-serving list of standard-bearers, have found themselves at daggers drawn with their party’s National Working Committee (NWC).
Last Thursday was the deadline for the submission of the lists. In one clumsy form or the other, the APC met the deadline. But it had had to shuffle its list so invasively that it is doubtful whether party leaders can tell accurately who is on the list or not. In drawing up the list, they have had to contend with various positions and arguments ranging from the fiat of the NWC to the amelioration of the party’s appeal committee, to the intense lobby and threats of some governors and party chieftains, and then on to the inscrutable, if not entirely discreditable, last minute shuffle by shadowy figures and chieftains. By yesterday, few knew who among the controversial aspirants had made it to the final list submitted to INEC. Party leaders in Ogun were left flabbergasted by the endless shuffles, with the governor, as powerful as he is in the party and influential with the president, appearing to lose out. He barely held on to his own ticket and managed to drag in a few factional acolytes. The Ondo State governor, all spruced up with dainty legal accoutrements, has engaged in all-out war with a few aspirants. No one is sure whether his enemies, particularly Senator Ajayi Boroffice, made it to the final list, considering that Like Sen Sani, he also got the party’s initial nod.
Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai exemplifies the worst of the nomination battles raging within the APC. In fact, he vividly illustrates the unseen war between the official intransigence of the party and the radicalism of some of the aspirants. In Kaduna, Senator Shehu Sani, who has reportedly finally defected from the party, was a thorn in the flesh to Mr el-Rufai, as Sen Boroffice is a pain in the neck to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State. Neither governor was opposed to the senatorial iconoclasts pricking their bloated balloons because of ideological or policy differences. The war is almost entirely about egos, with the controversial governors dead set against the nomination of the senators in question. The party’s NWC recognises the triviality of the struggles, the inanities of the opposition, and the pettiness and tyranny being elevated into an art in many of the APC states.
Consequently, using its screening committees, the party bravely at first paved the way for their gifted senators, some of whom were prevailed upon not to defect to the opposition, to take the nominations. But the equally more cantankerous and suicidal governors were determined to take brinkmanship to its highest level and were bent on pushing out those not amenable to their dictation. But regardless of the efforts of the NWC and their bold and initial resoluteness, no one could tell last Thursday whether the party had had its way or the governors had browbeaten the party, or whether the radicalism of some of the aspirants had trumped the intransigence of the governors.
When the details of the lists submitted to INEC surface eventually, the public will know who has triumphed, and in particular what the future holds for the APC. Would governors, some of them clearly disfavoured by the public but exercising full tyrannical powers, continue to pull the strings in the party and decide which direction it goes, even if that direction leads to complete ruin? Or would party leaders, particularly the NWC, find the courage and leeway to run the affairs of the party sensibly, fairly and pragmatically? The party still has a little room to substitute names on the list at the appropriate time. Will it, knowing what is right and just, seize the chance to make final amends? It is too early to tell. What is clear, however, is that the party’s chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, is treading gingerly on thin ice. He is pulled in different directions all at once. There is a suspicion that he knows what is right, but there is a greater suspicion that he does not quite possess the kind of courage needed to curb the obnoxiousness of some of the APC governors.
Overall, the bitter and poisonous struggles for nominations in the two leading parties indicate that Nigerian democracy, not to say the cost of running it, is in tatters. Until the right structural framework for running Nigeria can be found, these intense and bitter struggles for power and influence will continue unabated, to the point of threatening the stability and unity of the country. The country’s political structure needs to change, and with it must come the reduction in the cost of operating democracy. There is simply no way, no matter how frugal or saintly the president is, that Nigeria can be run efficiently based on its present structure. It is a wobbly and dysfunctional organ. From about three regions on the 1950s, and later four in the 1960s, all with only three or four administrative organs, Nigeria is now operating 36 states, all with their costly and replicative administrative organs. The 19 northern states, for instance, had just one Northern Nigeria cabinet before the 1966 coup d’état. In its place now are costly, inefficient and unnecessarily replicative cabinets, which unavoidably impact negatively on the infrastructure of the states and welfare of the workers.
Indeed, compare the parliament of the First Republic with the current National Assembly. Even though the First Republic parliament was in desperate need of fine-tuning in those days, the current legislature is not only hopelessly big and burdensome, it is needlessly expensive and inefficient. In just three years, between 2016 and 2018, the country allocated nearly N400bn to the National Assembly. It is senseless and reckless. The states will continue to be unable to pay salaries of workers, not to talk of paying a living wage, and roads, bridges, schools and hospitals will remain derelict. Patriots must shout from the rooftops that the current structure is untenable, even if no kobo is embezzled by elected leaders. The population is exploding, resources are shrinking, and global technological innovations, which Nigeria appears inured to, are bound to complicate the country’s problem, especially in the face of retrogressive and unimaginative leaders too fearful of the risk of balkanisation to see into and grapple with the future.
There is no reason to have a 36-state structure, no reason to have a huge and expensive legislature, no reason to run bloated bureaucracies, and absolutely no reason to run a virtually unitary federal government, if not even a pseudo-military government. Changes are taking place all around Nigeria, but the country does not have leaders who can recognise and respond to the changes. Even within Nigeria, drastic changes are also taking place, and many violent indicators of the country’s dysfunctional status are daily popping up; but the country’s leaders see the problems as simply one of law and order. Will the next elections correct these anomalies? It is doubtful. But Nigerians must hope that even if the elections will not introduce corrections, they should at least not worsen or make inevitable the looming disaster.
