Any time a stranger to Nigerian politics hears one political party lampoon the other, the person may assume that there is a difference between the accuser and the accused. But a close look at our political parties would reveal that the difference between one and the other is the difference between six and half a dozen: a classical case of the kettle calling the pot black.
Another local government election just took place in Enugu State — a state controlled by the Peoples Democratic Party — and as usual, the PDP “won” all the 17 chairmanship and 260 councillorship seats. When Lagos State and Edo State (both controlled by the Action Congress of Nigeria, which is now a member of the All Progressives Congress) organised local government elections not too long ago, the ACN “won” all the seats also. When other parties complained that they were robbed of victory in some local government councils, they were arrogantly told to go to court. Who does not know how strenuous, costly and unpredictable court cases are? While the complainant is using his personal money to prosecute the case, the accused is using government funds to defend himself, with enough money to hire the best lawyers in town. And if the election is eventually annulled, he uses the power of incumbency to “win” the re-run and tell his opponent to go to court.
The Independent National Electoral Commission has been accused of conducting questionable elections, especially by the opposition parties. In spite of the improvement in the quality of elections experienced since 2011 with Prof. Attahiru Jega as the Chairman of the INEC, the Federal Government and the electoral body still come under attack regularly by the opposition parties.
From 2010, it was comforting seeing opposition political parties defeat the PDP in many states unlike what obtained from 2003 to 2007. The ACN, which used to control one state between 2003 and 2007, got three states (Osun, Ekiti and Edo) through court cases. At the 2011 elections, the party won Oyo and Ogun states and also retained Lagos State. In the 2012 election in Edo, it retained the state. In all these states, it defeated the PDP.
In the 2011 elections, the Congress for Progressive Change won Nasarawa State, while the All Progressive Grand Alliance added Imo State to Anambra State that it had had since 2006. The Labour Party, after securing Ondo State through the court in 2008, retained it in the 2012 election. In 2010, APGA won Anambra State again. In 2011, the All Nigeria Peoples Party won Borno, Yobe and Zamfara states. In all these cases, the PDP was the major opposing party.
If the ACN, CPC, ANPP (now the APC), LP, and APGA cannot organise a local government election in which the opposition parties can win
even one seat, what moral right do they have to condemn INEC or the PDP? What type of alternatives are the opposition parties if they cannot show themselves to be different from the ruling party in the conduct of elections? Until the 2003 election, it was unusual for a party to win all the chairmanship and councillorship seats in a state. How can everyone in a state think alike? Are we zombies? In the Second Republic, the political parties knew the local government areas within their states that would never vote for them. That is what plurality of views is all about. It exists all over the world where there is transparency in elections.
But then, in the real sense of the word, do we really have political parties in Nigeria? The painful truth is that we don’t. What we have are political groups which people use to achieve their political ambition. The so-called parties are not known to have any distinguishing ideologies that will make it impossible for certain people to survive in them. For example, given President Barack Obama’s views on many issues, he cannot survive in the Republican Party. Obama believes in same-sex marriage; the Republican Party is conservative on such an issue. Obama believes in pro-choice; the Republican Party stands mainly for pro-life. Obama stands for gun control, while the Republican Party is pro-gun. The reason Obama is facing stiff opposition on the Affordable Care Act, popularly called Obamacare, is because it runs against the Republican “less-government-is-better” policy. So, if Obama had lost the Democratic Party’s ticket in 2008, he couldn’t have moved over to the Republican Party to try his luck. Doing that would have given him the image of an unserious, unstable and untrustworthy character.
Compare that with what has been happening in Nigeria since 1999. Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State started off in the PDP, then crossed over to the Progressive Peoples Alliance, under which platform he won the 2007 election; then he romanced a bit with APGA, before returning to the PDP. Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State started off with the PDP in 1999. Then he went to ANPP and ran for president in 2003, before returning to the PDP. In 2005, he formed the Action Alliance. Then he returned to the PDP again. Then in 2011, he joined the governorship race under APGA and won. In 2013, he moved over to the APC.
Likewise Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State started in the PDP. By 2003, he won the Ogun Central senatorial seat on the platform of the PDP. Then, in 2007, he ran for governor under ANPP and lost. In 2011, he became the ACN governorship flagbearer and won. Today, he is in the APC. Similarly, Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State started in the PDP before moving over to LP for the 2007 election. It is the same story in Sokoto State where Governor Aliyu Wamakko was an ANPP deputy governor in 1999 before becoming a PDP governor in 2007. Today, he is one foot out of the PDP.
Curiously, once these people move to a new party, they feel at ease in there, until something warrants their next move. And that next thing is not about ideology. And if the person moving is the governor of a state, most times, the senators, members of the House of Representatives, members of the state House of Assembly, and the local government chairmen and councillors from his state all move to the same party. That tells one clearly that there are no political parties in Nigeria.
One big fault the 1999 Constitution has is the provision that makes it possible for an elected person to move over to another party and still retain their position. It is an absurd provision that needs to be expunged from the Constitution. It is unjust for a people to elect a person under a political platform, only for the person to dump that platform and still retain their office. If this is expunged, it will reduce this ridiculous type of cross-carpeting.
Furthermore, we have to ask ourselves if we truly need local government elections in the country. They have become useless and money-consuming. Maybe, we should just allow the state governors to appoint those to run the affairs at the grass roots and save the huge funds used to organise these sham elections. The LG chairmen are subservient to the governors. The governors sack them at will. The governors use their funds as they wish. And the chairmen dare not complain. Yet, these are governors who complain loudest that there are acts of impunity at the federal level.
The impunity of state governors in the conduct of LG polls works against the call for state police. Since governors have shown that they are neither democratic nor tolerant of opposing or minority views, many have argued that if they have the power to control the police, they will use such police to intimidate and harass opponents and the minorities.
Currently, our saving grace is the existence of a few good men and women trying to make a mark in the nation within the various parties. Maybe, if more of such good people emerge from the parties, we will experience significant improvement in the fortunes of the nation.
Nigeria needs parties that are different from one another, not just different in symbols, so we can have choices. We need parties that show maturity and vision. If we are complaining that we need to replace the PDP, we need a party that will offer us a better deal than the PDP. Where is that party?
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