Under the extant 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended), political parties form the pivot around which the machinery of governance revolves. Members of the legislature who make the laws and the head of the executive which implements the laws are elected on the platform of political parties, as independent candidacy is not recognized by law. Even appointments in the judiciary, which constitutes the third arm of government, are made by the executive, sanctioned by the national or state judicial service commissions and confirmed by the legislature. Despite the central role of the political party in the governance process, the party system under the constitution is largely amorphous, loose and unstructured.
As things are currently, the vibrancy, vigour, vitality and efficacy of political parties will have to depend on the quality of party leadership, the strength of the relationship between parties and their grassroots bases, the degree of internal party discipline, respect for the regulatory laws of the parties and the effective functioning of various party organs. The reality is that none of the political parties today, at least the three major ones, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), which performed beyond its own expectation in the last presidential election, live up to the ideal of capably led, efficiently organized, party machines with intimate organic linkages with their grassroots membership.
While the PDP and LP are bogged down by protracted and debilitating internal crises, the daily haemorrhaging of elected and other prominent members of the two parties to the APC has engendered a sense of triumphalism and self-satisfaction in the latter and alarm bells of panic among the former. The beleaguered opposition parties raise hysterical cries that President Bola Tinubu is deliberately destabilizing their ranks through alleged inducement or intimidation, and blackmail by anti-corruption agencies. The aim, they say, is to foist a one-party dictatorship on the country, shrink the democratic space and make the President’s reelection for a second term a fait accompli.
But then, the large-scale defections of opposition party members to the party in control of the state and thus the power of patronage at the centre or in the states has become an entrenched feature of our political culture that predates the assumption of office of President Tinubu in May 2023. For instance, in 2021, Alhaji Bello Matawalle, who was elected as governor of Zamfara State in 2019 on the platform of the PDP, dumped the party and joined the APC. Earlier, Engineer David Umahi, governor of Ebonyi State and Professor Ben Ayade, governor of Cross River State, had equally defected to the ruling APC. And as noted last week, as at May 30, 2007, the PDP controlled 31 of the country’s 36 States although this was later reduced to 30 states when the courts sacked Andy Uba as governor of Anambra State and Mr Peter Obi of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) was sworn in as chief Executive of the state.
Although the major political parties in focus here have been dismissed by many as essentially opportunistic vehicles which exist for the sole purpose of winning elections and accessing power for largely extractive, exploitative purposes as well as lacking in ideological distinctiveness that undermine their capacity to promote development, they are the most viable party structures we have for now. As our electoral structures and processes continue to improve and elections more and more reflect the will of the people, they will incrementally be compelled to improve their organizational structures, respect internal rules, uphold intra-party democracy and put governments elected on their platforms on their toes to seriously implement party manifestoes and thus be concrete developmental agents.
And this may be the only option until youths who actively advocate change through social media militancy as well as radical intellectuals who wax rhetorically revolutionary only in theory learn to engage personally on the political terrain and get down to the hard, back-breaking work of forming and nurturing viable political organizations capable of winning elections and charting alternative trajectories for the country. But any tendency towards a one-party system will not be in the interest ultimately of the ruling party, the opposition, democracy or the country. But it is up to the opposition parties to put their houses in order. Neither President Tinubu nor the APC can do this for them.
The greatest challenge confronting the PDP right now is to resolve the current crisis that pitches the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr. Nyesom Wike, against the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Waziri Atiku Abubakar. A member of the party’s Board of Trustees, Chief Olabode George, has canvassed the expulsion of both chieftains from the party for anti-party activities. It is impracticable and unworkable. Despite his frequent abandonment of the party in his desperate quest for the presidency of Nigeria, expelling Atiku from the PDP will have serious negative implications for the party. As for Wike, it is well known that he almost single-handedly sustained the party and ensured its survival during an earlier crisis that nearly spelt its irretrievable implosion.
An amicable solution must be found with Wike and Atiku remaining in the PDP but ready to struggle for control of its structures through the party’s internal democratic processes at its next elective national convention. The party’s stakeholders – governors, states’ party executives, national Assembly caucuses, BOT members and those who belong neither to the Wike nor Atiku factions should summon the will and resourcefulness to get the party out of its current bog and enable it to regain its squandered glory. As for the LP, the way forward lies neither with the Julius Abure nor the Nenadi Usman-led factions.
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It would be wise for the sponsor of the LP, the NLC, to extricate the party from the grip of both sides and begin to nudge the LP to reclaim its original mission and identity as an organization of the toiling Nigerian masses committed to charting an alternative developmental path for the country rather than an opportunistic Special Purpose Vehicle hired by all manner of unprincipled politicians to contest elections for a price. It is instructive that neither the voluble Peter Obi nor the incurably academic Pat Utomi has been able to proffer practical solutions to the LP conundrum.
The defectors to the ruling APC have cited President Tinubu’s policies, the near tripling of the fiscal receipts by the sub-national units under his administration, as well as the protracted crisis in their parties, as reasons for their joining the party in control of the centre. These defections cannot be attributed to the organizational efficiency of the party in galvanising grassroots support and winning over new members, and here lies the great challenge confronting the APC. It must urgently ensure that its various organs begin to function seamlessly. It must reinvigorate its grassroots machinery by ensuring that the party executives are active, especially at the ward and local government levels.
Significant as the current defections to the party by opposition politicians are, no less critical to the party’s performance at forthcoming polls will be the impact of its policies in achieving evident objectives and improving lives. The party should thus have a ready pool of experts and progressive intellectuals to pay attention to the policy of governments elected on its platform with a view to contributing to making qualitative inputs to the policy process, which is one of the key functions of a serious and purposeful political party. It should prioritize winning and mobilizing new grassroots membership over receiving decampees from other parties, even if it will understandably readily welcome the latter.