Twenty-three years after the restoration of democracy in Nigeria, the omens are not looking quite good. Beneath the facade of progress of the political process, a rot with dangerous corrosive capacity is steadily eating into the foundation of the hard-won democracy. Contrary to the misleading testimonies that all is well, driven understandably by the leeches in the political system and by pundits that seek to be counted for saying what is politically correct, there is present and serious danger to democracy in Nigeria.
On the face of it, the political process is moving on well. Another general election is due in early 2023, eight months away. That will be the seventh general election since the restoration of representative democracy in the land in 1999. Ordinarily, that can be taken as a gauge of progress. Of course, there are the numerous ‘Excellencies and Honourables’ swarming all over the place, with their retinue of aides and the accompanying blaring of siren. Democracy must be alive and well, if these noisy monuments are the yardsticks to be reckoned with. But should they be?
What is democracy in a system where the will of the people to choose their representatives at the various levels of government is being steadily undermined, often officially? What is the worth of a democracy without a solid underpinning value that ensures at all times that the freedom of people in deciding who they want to represent them is respected and upheld? How far can a democratic order be sustained in which the people are always corralled during elections along a pre-determined outcome clearly different from their preferred destination, using money as a potent weapon of coercion? And to imagine that the money in question belonged to the same maligned people ab initio.
Democracy is sustained more by its values and spirit than by physical structures and offices. This much has been proven in various resilient democracies. Perhaps, the most outstanding example here is the Donald Trump challenge to democracy and its values in the United States of America in 2020. Deploying the enormous forces of his office as President as well as the best or worst of the bull in his character, Trump came face to face with the values of democracy in his society. The system, personified by various individuals and public officers, held out against all that the President could muster. And he was defeated. Trump had money and power but he still lost out.
It is against such backdrop that recent experiences and travails of democracy in Nigeria present a serious cause for concern. The role of the leaders of the political parties and even security agencies in various instances, in obvious assault on democracy portends danger.
The national convention of the two biggest headaches of Nigeria’s political system, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), must have been nudged on by fate for Nigerians, hapless to have beget these two entities, to understand the extent of the problem at hand.
While the scandal of the deployment of money, foreign currencies, to induce or coerce delegates at the presidential primaries has left a blemish on the process, which the winners at the bazaar will live with, another scandal with no less threat to the political process also arose from the party primaries. The audacious move by the leaders in APC and PDP to subvert the outcome of various primaries through autocratically replacing duly elected persons with entirely different individuals presents a new face of assault to democracy in Nigeria.
Reports are rife since the end of the primaries of party leaders constituting themselves into higher supervisory authorities with clearly unconstitutional powers to reject duly chosen candidates and in their place impose their preferences. As impudent, audacious and unbelievable as these incidents are, they are not even being denied. In fact, there are attempts to justify them from some party quarters. What will Nigeria not get from APC and PDP?
How, in God’s name does a party leadership not have any qualms in replacing a person elected in a party primary with someone else who was either defeated or in some cases, not even on the ballot at the primary? Clearly, the route to the undoing of democracy in Nigeria is impunity. Clearly too, APC and PDP are the prime promoters of this deadly malady.
The report that the national leadership of the APC went ahead to submit the names of Senator Ahmed Lawan and Godswill Akpabio to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in place of partymen who duly won the primaries in the two senatorial districts is a scandal. It may be true that there is no shame in politics, but Senator Lawan, a senator for all of 16 years and presently the Senate President, alongside Akpabio, former governor, former minority leader in the Senate and former minister, should be embarrassed that they are being accused with evidence of wrongly taking what belongs to other people. The endorsement by national party leaders of these wrong acts makes the situation more worrisome.
The Lawan and Akpabio cases are not the only ones in APC and PDP. All over the country, leaders of the two political parties have metamorphosed into small gods and are sticking it to democracy. In Akwa Ibom, Lagos, Enugu, Yobe, Lagos, Ebonyi – party leaders are running rampage, upturning results obtained through democratic processes. They seem to be declaring that whatever the preference of the partymen may be, the ultimate power to determine whose name is submitted as candidate is in their hands. Can you just imagine that?
In the Ebonyi State governorship primary of the PDP, a candidate was reportedly elected in a primary organized by the national officials of the party, duly monitored by INEC.
Some gods in the party headquarters were said to have a different idea. It took a court order for the party to grudgingly accept its own process and recognize the duly chosen candidate.
In the Enugu State APC primary for the Agwu/Oji/Ani Nri federal constituency, the man who won the ticket was on national television shouting himself hoarse, waving evidence that he won the primary. What was his problem? He said the gods in the party pointedly told him that his name would not be submitted to INEC, even though he won. How far then can a democracy go when it undermined from within by those who ought to promote its values?
