2023: Wrangling In Nigeria’s Parties

BARELY 18 months into 2023 general elections in Nigeria, most political parties and active members have set the ball rolling, thereby creating fierce frictions among them.
For example, the ruling party, All Progressive Congress, APC, are still in a fix on how to resolve its leadership challenges over the Supreme Court judgement on the governorship election of Ondo state. The judgement suggested that the party would have lost the state to Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, had the opposition party’s governorship candidate, Mr Eyitayo Jegede, joined APC’s National Caretaker Committee Chairman and Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, in the suit.
THE position held by some members of the party following the Supreme Court judgement was that as governor of Yobe State, an executive position, Buni could not at the same time act as the APC chairman, another executive office arguing that such contravened both Sections 183 of the 1999 Constitution and Article 17 (iv) of the APC constitution.
BUT Buni and a few other like-minded party faithful disagreed and despite plea by majority of party members to suspend the recently held congresses at both the ward and local governments for fear of the unknown.
A chieftain of APC, Okosisi Ngwu, has dragged the Buni-led caretaker committee before a High Court in Abuja seeking a nullification of the congresses. The plaintiff is also asking the court to declare the congresses held under Buni as illegal, flowing from the Supreme Court judgement that questioned the validity of the Buni-led Caretaker Committee.
ALSO, the People Democratic Party, PDP, is in the last few months have been palpably discomforting. It has lost three governors and several state and federal lawmakers to different reasons, including not being able to tag along.
CRISES in the party have invariably consumed the leadership of the party most especially, its Chairman, Uche Secondus, who has been stopped from parading himself as the party chairman by a River State High Court. The party has also shifted its annual convention forward over the crises. How these would bring peace to the party would be determined by events after the convention. The All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, is also not immuned from this malady.
WE are therefore worried that this is not the time for such crises in our political scene. Experts are of the opinion that the craze for office is the major cause of political crises in the country. This is because many politicians see it as the only means of survival and thus everything must be done to get power.
IN the more advanced democracies, electioneering activities are noticed few months to elections. The American presidential system, for example is a little more elaborate, with its system of state-by-state primaries. Yet it does not become active till about six months to the election day in November. Political leaders know the importance of spending maximum time in addressing the crucial issues of governance and building the system to guarantee a better future for the people.
ELECTIONS and active politicking are supposed to be the means to an end. Leaders are more interested in the next generation, not election. But in Nigeria, the situation is different. Politics is a full time “business” for many politicians because it is the easiest means of making money due to its highly corrupted nature.
ANOTHER major factor in every political party in Nigeria is that they are not ideological driven and that is why it is easy to jump from one party to the other. If there is ideology, there will be discipline.
WE thus enjoin all politicians to embrace peace instead of creating crisis within their parties. Party crisis has spiral effects on governance as it usually distracts most of those at the helms of affairs. Therefore, anything that would assist them at bringing good governance to the people should be encouraged.
NIGERIA is facing many problems ranging from Boko haram issues to banditry and kidnapping among others. Therefore adding parties crisis to them it may not be in the interest of the nation. We advise that as 2023 draws nearer, politicians should be play the game according to the rules. Anything that would circumvent or jeopardize the process of election should be avoided.
PARTY crisis is no doubt part of politics but it gets out of hands when internal structures to minimize it are not in place. Thus all parties should develop internal mechanisms that would solve political problems within them before it becomes a national discuss.