Internal Party Democracy and Prospects for New Nigeria
Salihu Lukman
Internal Democracy in Political Parties and Prospects for New Nigeria
Salihu Moh. Lukman
Progressive Governors Forum
Abuja
On Tuesday, October 12, 2021, the Nigerian Senate passed the electoral amendment bill, which among others approved electronic transmission of election results and compel all political parties in the country to use direct method of conducting party primary for the selection of candidates for electoral contests. These are significant decisions, which could potentially enhance the credibility of Nigerian elections and expand the scope of citizens’ participation in politics. A critical success factor in terms of whether these decisions would achieve such potential outcomes has to do with capacity of both Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and political parties to develop the needed organisational capacity to administer the new legal framework provided under the amended electoral law.
Specifically, INEC will have the direct responsibility of transmitting all election results electronically. This would include developing all the technological infrastructure, procurement and installations of all the hardware and software as well as recruitment and training of all the personnel requirement for the electronic transmission of electoral results. No doubt, this is a groundbreaking decision given that physical process of transmitting election results from voting areas to collation centres give space for rigging. Noting that since 2011, the introduction of card reader technology for voter accreditation has significantly weaken the capacity of politicians to inflate election results, which during previous elections produced voter turnout close to hundred percent of registered voters. If the new electoral amendment is passed, it should be expected that introduction of technology to the process of transmission of electoral results would similarly weaken the capacity of politicians to interfere or manipulate the election during the process of transmission of results.
Prior to the October 12 decision of the Senate, there were proposals by many Senators and members of the House of Representatives that the National Communication Commission (NCC) should confirm that the national communication infrastructure can permit the electronic transmission of election results from every part of the country. Many Nigerians criticise such a proposal based on the understanding that it will erode the independence of INEC, partly because subordinating INEC to NCC, being an executive body directly under the control of the President, would imply conferring some levels of advantage for the party controlling government at federal level. The new amendment adopted on Tuesday October 12 therefore eliminated such potential advantages, which demonstrated a positive shift by the Nigerian Senate based on public criticism. This is very commendable, and it significantly indicate high measure of responsiveness by Senators of the Federal Republic. Nigerians hope that the Conference Committee involving members from the House of Representatives would eventually adopt the new amendment and President Muhammadu Buhari will eventually assent to the new bill.
Once that is done, the bulk of the work to operationalise the new law to effectively transmit election results from voting areas to collation centres electronically will be the responsibility of INEC. Given that INEC’s institutional capacity for deployment of technology during elections has been test successfully with the introduction of card reader since 2011 elections, Nigerians expect that deployment of technology to manage the process of collation of results through electronic transmission of election results commencing with the 2023 election would also be successful and to that extent make Nigerian electoral process more credible. And like the introduction of card reader technology drastically reduced electoral litigation due to manipulation of accreditation, litigation arising from alleged manipulation of collation process should also be reduced. With such development, the only aspect of Nigerian election that will not be technologically driven is the actual voting. This will mean that some of the challenges bordering on vote buying, which is very rampant would still be there.
It is therefore important to continue to engage the debate about making the Nigerian electoral process more credible based on corresponding provision of electronic voting opportunity as part of the Nigerian electoral laws. Nigerian Senators should be commended for this landmark decision of approving electronic transmission of election results to be in Nigeria’s electoral law. Investing INEC with such a responsibility independent of other agencies of government is a demonstration of high measure of responsiveness by Senators. In the same measure, Nigerians who actively engaged the debate of the amendment proposals in the National Assembly, especially leaders of civil society organisations should be equally commended. Without their engagement, the decision of the Senate of October 12 may have been different.
Certainly, a lot of progress has been made in the development of both Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence and electoral management. Partly, on account of this reality, there is increasing public confidence even among politicians that INEC should be given more responsibility to regulate political parties, especially with respect to internal party elections to select candidates for election. Unlike in the past, at least before 2011, when Nigerians consider INEC as the extension of the ruling party, relatively today, INEC’s independence is greater and more reflected in the results of elections. The party in power at federal level loses elections as much as the opposition, if not more. Votes now count and the margin of inaccuracy in terms of results of elections is getting smaller since the commencement of introduction of technology in Nigerian election in 2011.
The disconnect however is that although progress in being made to enhance the processes of election management in the country, management of political party remained very backward. The practice across all Nigerian parties is that political leaders aspiring to contest elections for political offices recruit members. The aspiring political leader influence choices of party leaders based on estimation of loyalty. The loyalists who emerge as political leaders in turn become delegates during party primary for the selection of candidates for election, who then confirmed the aspiring political leader as the party’s candidate for election.
Issues of membership participation and internal party democracy are compromised, professional management of political parties doesn’t exist, and disciplinary conduct of members and leaders are sacrificed. The consequence is the preponderances of unethical, and unfair practices by party leaders. Lack of professionalism and absence of viable democratic funding sources are major characteristics of Nigerian political parties. This explains why for instance external auditors’ report on the accounts of political parties by INEC raised issues bordering on absence of internal audit, accounting books not properly maintained, lack of budget and budgetary control, and poorly defined, fixed assets registers, among many others.
Notably, issues of membership participation especially during the process of selection of party candidates within political parties in Nigeria is a major source of national frustration, which is perhaps the rationale behind the October 12 Senate proposal to compel all parties to adopt the direct method of primary to weaken the capacity of some power blocs within parties from manipulating internal process of candidate selection. The current dominant reality of choosing candidates for elections in virtually all political parties in the country is through the indirect method of using delegates in all parties. The critical issue of citizens’ participation in politics and how it leads to the difficult task of candidates’ selection is an issue that appears to be the cause of most of the frustration of Nigerians with politics. The decision of the Senate to propose amendment to the Electoral Act to compel parties to use direct primaries to select candidates for election is informed by this reality.
The rationale for direct primary based on expanding the democratic space for membership participation is hardly contestable. Some of the questions requiring good responses, which further make the application of the direct mode of party primary appealing include, for instance: will increase in participation of party members lead to more citizens’ participation during general elections? Could it also bring party leaders closer to membership, or citizens closer to their elected representatives? The reality is that the space for participation of party members, or what some literature refers to as ‘logic for collective action’, which assumes that membership participation in activities of political parties is dependent on economic choices in diverse areas, including politics. This certainly would suggest that low participation means small groups of interests control the parties.
A strong corollary here is the issue of party funding? How are political parties being funded? Are there accountability mechanisms associated with the process of political party’s financial mobilisation? In other words, are members contributing to party’s finances? Are they aware of all the sources and size of contributions? Is the awareness of sources and size complemented by members’ consent of any expected transaction details associated with such financial contribution? The Nigerian reality bears some levels of dishonesties about issues of party funding. Party members, to say the least, are free riders. Across almost all Nigerian parties, issues of membership subscription hardly exist. Politicians aspiring to emerge as candidates for elections are the financiers of political parties, including funding electoral campaigns.
With that, political practice and culture in the party is about recruiting loyalists to be members. Once an aspirant has strong financial capability, he/she then controls the party. Such a person would then proceed to appoint loyalists to serve as party officials. Issues of membership and participation in political activities, including holding party positions and appointments into governments controlled by the party, are restricted to close associates and supporters, while professional management of the party and disciplinary conduct of members are conveniently ignored. The consequence is the preponderance of unethical, unfair and other substandard practices by the party officials and public officials. Party offices are reduced to territorial control with hardly any focus on the responsibilities associated with them. Cost considerations are tied to personal conveniences of politicians aspiring for elective offices and depending on which party organs are subordinated to campaign structures of contestants. As a result, lack of professionalism and absence of a viable democratic funding sources have become a major challenge for all Nigerian parties.
A number of these issues were highlighted in Chapter II of the publication Power of Possibility & Politics of Change in Nigeria released in 2019. Apart from APC, none of the other political parties is debating these issues. In fact, in many respects, it could be argued that part of the founding vision of APC is to change this reality. A lot of the internal contests in the party is about whether the party should abandon its founding vision and collapse into the conventional way of organising political contests in the country. In fact, the debate around direct or indirect primary has been a constant issue in APC since 2014. Part of the experience is that aspiring politicians and by extension god fathers who are aspiring to continue to impose their preferences as candidates would continue to undermine initiatives within the party to develop new organisational frameworks that can allow broader participation of members. It is another confirmation of Antonio Gramsci’s thesis about ‘the old is dying and the new cannot be born.’
Most of the public debates about internal democracy within Nigerian political parties hardly address the fundamental issues of membership management, party funding and administrations. So long as political parties in Nigeria are not challenged to alter the current framework, which reduced party members to free riders, with no financial responsibility, and party leaders at all levels surrogates of aspiring politicians, effectiveness of legal provisions will remain weak. With all its problems, in its short period, more than any party in the history Nigeria, at least in this Fourth Republic, APC has some empirical evidence to prove that we can have a law compelling political parties to use the direct method involving all members of the party to select candidates for elections but will not stop politicians from undermining the process. Recall that ahead of the 2019 elections, the decision in APC was that stakeholders in each state will decide on the mode of primary to select Governorship candidates.
In the case of Presidential primary, President Buhari opted for the direct primary. In many of the states, the votes returned for President Buhari was quite higher than the votes during the general election. For instance, Lagos State returned 1.9 million during the internal party primary but only got 580,825 votes during the general elections. In fact, the total voter turn out during the general election was just around one million. Similarly, Kano State returned 2,931,235 votes for the President during the party primary. But during the general election got only, 1,464,768. Like the case of Lagos, the total voter turnout for Kano State during the general election was less two million.
Without going into details, there were many instances in APC, in 2019, which recorded wide margin between results of internal party primary and the general election. Although, there could be some logical explanations accounting for most of the wide margins, but when it became uniform, almost suggesting a pattern that negates any possible correlation between alleged membership participation and voter turnout during elections, it should be a source of concern. Part of the reality in APC, which have been a source of debate especially leading to the membership registration and revalidation exercise organised by the Caretaker Extraordinary and Convention Planning Committee, led by His Excellency Mai Mala Buni was that some of the power blocs within the party preferred to maintain the old framework because it guarantees them control of structures of the party.
At another level, there is also the constant interest of virtually all politicians to gain advantage by way of commanding some levels of influence. Several of the complains that emerged against the membership registration and revalidation exercise carried out by the party reflect this reality. The same complaint by the same politicians resurfaces during the Ward, Local Governments and now, just concluded, State Congresses. When one review concerns raised following the Supreme Court Judgement on Ondo election, in addition to many who expressed legitimate concerns about the minority view by the panel of Supreme Court Judges who presided over the matter, almost all aggrieved persons in the party aggrieved from the membership registration and revalidation exercise attempted to use the minority decision to campaign for the removal of the Caretaker Extraordinary and Convention Planning Committee.
A major feature of the internal dynamics across all Nigerian political parties is that there are tense relations between members of the executive and legislative branches. Part of the factors accounting for the tense relations is that, predominantly, aspirations of members of the legislative branches to succeed governors are hardly supported by serving governors. This may be understandable when for instance a Senator or Member of the House of Representatives is plotting to block a serving governor from contesting for a second term. But it is worrisome when a clear pattern has evolved in the country across all political parties whereby it can almost be predicted that the probability will always be high that most serving governors would oppose members of the legislative branch from succeeding them.
Nigerians can continue to engage this debate based on the attraction to campaign against the control of party structures by serving Governors. To what extent, will any measure to free parties from the control of serving governors address the fundamental issues of membership management, party funding and administration? How can a legal provision compelling parties to use direct primary to select candidates for election address the problem of poor record of members, for instance? With poor records of members, it is almost certain that the phenomenon of internal process of candidate selection will be messier. Just imagine a situation whereby INEC is asked to introduce card readers to accredit voters without voters register.
At this point in the life of Nigerian democracy, there is the need to broaden the debate about membership participation to issues of relationship building among political leaders at all levels within parties. A situation whereby political leaders only develop relationship with people who only endorse their aspirations for elective offices is unhealthy. Sadly, relationships developed overtime, which endured many difficult challenging moments simply get sacrificed, often not because of opposition to political aspirations of party leaders but because disagreements have been expressed against personal positions of political leaders when the political rule as dictated by former President Olusegun Obasanjo is that there must be hundred percent loyalty. Even people who won their leadership qualification in Nigerian politics on account of being critical and providing leadership against perceived injustices became warriors and champions of politics of loyalty.
Unless the core issues of membership recruitment and management, party funding and administration are addressed in Nigeria, problems of internal democracy within political parties in the country will continue. Already, following the October 12 decision of the Senate, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has announced it opposition to direct primary, which means issues of membership participation in the process of candidates’ selection is not PDP’s priority. In the case of APC, since 2013 when the merger negotiation leading to the emergence of the party was concluded, the vision was that eventually the internal process for candidate selection will be through the direct primary. Unfortunately, problems of putting in place verifiable membership register has continued to undermine the capacity of the party to actualise that vision.
There is the need to strongly appeal to all APC leaders to return to the founding vision of the party of ensuring that every member of the party is authorised as part of the internal rule to participate in the process of candidate selection for election. To achieve that will require the existence of verifiable membership record, which should be electronically preserved. The current manual analogue record must be upgraded to digital and computerised record with very competent officials managing it. Part of the appeal to APC leaders is that the process of electing national officers present a big opportunity to ensure that competent officers to run the affairs of the party, and not surrogates, are elected. Competent officers may not be attracted when the funding reality for the party is loosely defined. Therefore, as part of the compelling initiatives to return the party to its original vision, leaders of the party should conclude on issues of membership subscription and specifically take every decision about sources of funding for the party.
Once party funding is defined such that minimum resources needed to run party affairs are generated, remuneration and conditions of services for party leaders at all levels should be similarly defined. Part of the recommendation should be to benchmark party condition of service with existing conditions of public service. For instance, the National Chairman of the party could have the same remuneration and condition as the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as provided in the 1999 Constitution as amended and other relevant provisions of other statutory bodies. Similarly, Deputy National Chairmen could have the same conditions as that of the Senate President, National Secretary, same conditions as that of the Secretary to Government of the Federation, other principal officers in the National Working Committee could have same conditions as Ministers while those of them that are Deputies or Assistants could have the same conditions as Ministers of State. Directors in the party Secretariat could have the same conditions as Permanent Secretaries. This logic can also be replicated at state and local governments levels.
The point is that so long as management of political parties failed to address these fundamental issues of membership recruitment and management, party funding and administration, Nigerians will continue to experience all the familiar challenges weakening internal democracy within political parties. To the extent that a number of these issues are being debated in APC, which is largely responsible for why an APC dominated Senate could propose compelling parties to include direct primary as the method for candidates’ selection by all parties as part of the electoral law, there is every hope that the potential is higher to be achieved in APC. APC leaders will have to make all the needed sacrifice to allow the party to develop the corresponding new orientation, to make the party emerge as truly the party of change. The caution must however be expressed that it will almost be impossible to achieve once disposition of party leaders is limited to aspiring to emerge as candidates for elections. Desperation to emerge as candidates for elections will always pitch party leaders against each other. Party structures will only be allowed to operate based on estimation of potentials to achieve political aspirations. Internal consultations, both formal and informal will be weak. Relationship between members of the executive and legislative branches, even when belonging to the same party, will be everything but cordial. Above all the powers of party management to regulate conduct of elected officials at all levels will remain a dream.
As much as enabling legal framework is required to guarantee internal democracy within parties, political leaders at all levels should be ready to make the right sacrifices. Making sacrifices in politics must be seen beyond personal advantages to access elective and appointive offices. Ability to develop strong institutional capacity to command the respect and confidence of party members is an important democratic enabler for both electoral victory and security for political leaders in the long run.
This position does not represent the view of any APC Governor or the Progressive Governors Forum
Salihu Lukman
Nigeria’s Insecurity and Communication Problems
Salihu Moh. Lukman
Progressive Governors Forum
Abuja
On Wednesday, October 20, 2021, reports emerged in the Nigerian media, alleging that Nigerian Armed Forces are yet to fully deplore the A-29 Super Tucano fighter jets procured from the United States against bandits in the North-West because of an agreement, which require Nigeria to only use the jets on terrorists and insurgents. Interestingly, the next day, Thursday, October 21, 2021, so-called bandits planted explosives on Abuja-Kaduna rail line and attack passenger train, which led to the suspension of the Abuja-Kaduna train services for almost 48 hours. On Saturday, October 23, 2021, The Economist magazine of London published a damning report captioned ‘Insurgency, secessionism and banditry threaten Nigeria.’
The report by The Economist, which is basically editorial opinion is that Nigerian army is over stretched and only ‘mighty on paper’, officers stole weapons and ‘sold to insurgents’, police are understaffed, demoralised and poorly trained’, and they ‘supplement their low pay by robbing the public.’ It concluded with the recommendation that Nigeria need ‘to beef up its police’ with the call to recruit more police by pointing out that Niger State ‘has just 4,000 officers to protect 24m people.’ The population of Niger State is about 4 million. This error, however, may not invalidate the fact that Nigeria is under policed. The woolgathering disposition of The Economists might have been responsible for such avoidable error.
It is not only the error in presenting the population of Niger State, but the fact that the magazine lost almost every sense of objectivity in analysing challenges of insecurity facing the country. It (The Economist) reduced the so-called report to arguing that the procurement of the A-29 Super Tucano jets is wasteful spending because ‘Local cops would be better at stopping kidnappings and solving crimes than the current federal force, which is often sent charging from one trouble spot to another. Money could come from cutting wasteful spending by the armed forces on jet fighters, which are not much use for guarding schools. Britain and America, which help train Nigeria’s army, could also train detectives. Better policing could let the army withdraw from areas where it is pouring fuel on secessionist fires.’ As far as The Economists is concerned, what is required to end banditry and protect schools in the North-West is recruitment of more police and not ‘wasteful’ spending in the procurement of jets.
In his weekly article, titled Mighty Armies on Paper, Mallam Mahmud Jega, on Monday, October 25, 2021, reminded The Economist magazine how the ‘mighty’ US army spent over $6 trillion in 20 years fighting the Talibans in Afghanistan only to lose the battle. Similarly, the ‘mighty’ British army were unable to defeat the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and end ‘The Troubles’ until ‘the signing of the Good Friday Accord in 1992.’ Mallam Jega highlighted the point that all ‘conventional armies in this world have difficulty fighting asymmetric warfare, essentially because they are not trained for it.’ This is perhaps one of the most important elements about the problem of insecurity in Nigeria, which is that to resolve it require unconventional strategies.
It is very shocking that the speculation about whether Nigerian Armed Forces should deploy the newly procured A-29 Tucano jets to fight insecurity in the country against bandits, insurgents or terrorist was given much attention. Isn’t it true that already the jets have been deployed in the North-West, in Zamfara, Kaduna and Katsina States and have produced some significant successes against the bandits? Is it even true that there is any agreement with the US Government prohibiting Nigeria from using the jets against bandits? Will US government really take steps to block initiative by Nigerian Armed Forces and Nigerian government to use the newly acquired A-29 Super Tucano jets against bandits in the North-West?
The whole speculation about the so-called agreement between Nigeria and US Government on the use of the A-29 Super Tucano jets is insulting to both Nigeria and US governments. There are so much interesting coincidences from the speculation about the so-called agreement between Nigeria and US governments on how the A-29 Super Tucano jets will be used, the attack on Abuja-Kaduna train and the report in The Economist. It is as if somebody, somewhere want to discourage Nigerian Armed Forces from fighting bandits in the North-West and therefore want to halt any progress that is being achieved. Recent public debate in the country would seem to be targeted at demoralising Nigerian Armed Forces from fighting the bandits in the North-West and the attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train is being used to emphasise the sophistication of the bandits. If there is anything that truly confirms that bandits are terrorists, the attack on Abuja-Kaduna train attack is it. Afterall, are terrorists not people who threaten the lives of innocent citizens? What is more threatening than the activities of these bandits in the North-West?
Interestingly, apologists and self-appointed counsels to the Bandits, such as Sheikh Ahmed Gumi are becoming more confident, and are irresponsibly mobilising opposition against declaring bandits’ terrorists. All the studies about insecurity and banditry in Nigeria only confirmed that the bandits operating in the North-West and North-Central have all the characteristics of terrorist groups. For instance, a study by Dr. Murtala Ahmed Rufa’i, presented at the 15th Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto Seminar Series, on Thursday, September 9, 2021, titled, I am a Bandit – A Decade of Research in Zamfara State Bandit’s Den, reported that bandits are armed groups with ‘contacts across the Sahel, particularly Libya and Mali’, having ‘huge capital’, ‘in possession of more that 500 AK 47 guns’, and ‘own sophisticated weapons like RPGS and Anti-Aircraft.’ The report indicated that ‘there are over 60,000 weapons in circulation’ in the North-West alone.
Any debate about the challenges of insecurity and banditry in Nigeria, which misses this reality is simply uninformed and therefore unhelpful. The arrogance of The Economist, which made them to imagine that they can condemn Nigerian Armed Forces and Government based on some uninformed sentiments reflects the old ideological mindset that was used in the 1980s to impose Structural Adjustment Programmes, leading to the destruction of education and health sectors in most African countries, including Nigeria. In fact, the current problems of insecurity and banditry in Nigeria is partly a direct consequence of the collapse of the country’s educational system, which is why there is estimated over 12 million Nigerian children out of school.
There are many recent studies, which have highlighted the objective reality about Nigeria’s security challenges, based on which good recommendations towards addressing the challenges were made. One of such study was also the presentation by an international consulting firm, Nextier SPD (Security, Peace, and Development) to the 27th Nigerian Economic Summit of October 2021, titled Stemming the Tears – A Pragmatic Approach to Solving Nigeria’s Security Challenge. The study highlighted that ‘in the twelve months to September 2021, Nigeria recorded 890 violent incidents resulting in 3,787 deaths, 340 injured persons, and 2,542 kidnapped persons…A further breakdown of the figures shows that banditry is currently the leading conflict type in Nigeria in terms of number of incidents (606 or 68.1 percent) and number of deaths (2,470 or 65.2 percent), number of injured (211 or 62.1 percent) and number of persons kidnapped (2,487 or 97.8 percent).’
The study by Nextier proved the point that the biggest security challenge facing Nigeria today is banditry. At least 6 innocent lives are killed everyday by bandits. Nextier acknowledges that the recent intensification of the fight against bandits, which made ‘authorities in Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara States imposed a communications blackout in several communities in the states to stop communication among bandits and between them and their informants. Also there has been a squeeze on fuel and food supplies to forests and other hide-outs of the armed gangs. In addition, the limitation has been imposed on cattle movement and the opening hours of local markets in the worst-hit areas by banditry. Those who smuggle fuel to bandits have been arrested. Hundreds of land and aerial troops have been executing the offensive since early September to stop the surge in mass abductions, community raids and sexual violence in the North-West. To further boost military efforts aimed at halting violence in both the North-West and North-Central, the governments of Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kaduna, Niger, Katsina and Nasarawa States have agreed to recruit 3,000 special vigilantes in the troubled regions.’
The point is, more than before, since July 2021 with the arrival of the recently acquired A-29 Super Tucano jets and their deployment, Nigerian Armed Forces have been achieving successes in fighting bandits in the North-West. As a result of the successes, Nextier noted that bandits are migrating and launching attacks in areas ‘initially peaceful’, which may partly explain the recent attack on the Abuja-Kaduna rail line and train services of Thursday, October 21. A major challenge is the need to build trust to strengthen collaboration between the Nigerian Armed Forces and citizens to end activities of bandits. In the submission of Nextier, ‘the military needs to win “hearts and minds” and build trust with the community to access the information. This strategy will demand significant effort and patience from the military, given the current state of the relationship.’
It is very easy to reduce these challenges to commentaries and opinion analysis. Those who aspire to use the security challenges facing Nigeria to gain cheap recognition or political advantages may want to create doubts about the ability of Nigerian Armed Forces to fight bandits or effectiveness of the current strategy with all its successes. Commentaries and opinions that have the objective of gaining cheap recognition or political advantage tend to dismiss or ignore all the body of knowledge being generated in the country about the national security challenges, which is mostly by patriotic non-partisan and non-state actors. A careful review of all the new body of knowledge will for instance recognise that resolving the problem of trust between citizens and the Nigerian Armed Forces is a critical success factor.
This was also confirmed in a study by Prof. Aly Verjee, senior Advisor to the Africa Centre at the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) and Prof. Chris Kwaja of the Centre for Peace and Security Studies, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Nigeria, in the publication, An Epidemic of Kidnapping: Interpreting School Abduction and Insecurity, which was published in the African Study Quarterly, Volume 20, Issue 3 of October 2021. Verjee and Kwaja specifically noted that ‘Nigerians have good reason to distrust the police and the army. A long-enduring “crisis of legitimacy” in the police…has persisted for decades, because of the entrenched corruption, poor service delivery, and predatory behaviour.’ All the studies, so far agree that resolving the problem of trust between citizens and security officials, especially the police will require some fundamental reforms, which is beyond the simple issue of recruiting more personnel. The whole debate about whether to have state police or not is about the scope of reform to be carried out.
The major disconnects in the public debate about security challenges facing the country is that all the important body of knowledge, which ordinarily should assist to guide positions of Nigerian citizens and government are ignored. In the circumstance, public debate become distant from knowledge, engagement with public policy reduced to sentiment, and every challenge facing the country, including security problem, such as banditry easily get politicised. Criticisms and campaigns against APC and President Buhari is hardly supported with alternative proposals. This is the main reason why any defense of APC and President Muhammadu Buhari’s policy initiative is being equated to supporting ‘imposition of Fulani hegemony on Nigerians’ even by some supporters of APC leaders. Public debate then become highly toxic. The fundamental question, which must be asked is, how is APC responding to these developments?
This is not about propaganda. It is about the future of the country and about commitment of APC leaders to facilitate initiatives that can support Nigerians to restore citizens’ humanity based on application of knowledge to shape public debates in the country. Unless and until, APC, both as a party and government, can roll out initiatives to direct public debates in the country based on application of contemporary knowledge about existing problems, highly negative interpretation of government initiatives or so-called lack of it will continue to drive public conversation in the country. Inability to take advantages of existing body of knowledge in the country is also responsible for why some leading public officials of government could make illogical statements claiming so-called differences between bandits and terrorists. With all the knowledge that bandits kill at least 6 Nigerians every day, what could be more terrifying?
The reality is that information management in the country is taken for granted and capacity to create the right messages that inspire citizens to believe in APC and its government is weak. What initiatives should APC take to strengthen the capacity of appointed and elected functionaries to be able to create the right messages and efficiently disseminate them? Is the party and government information protocols and their functionaries knowledgeable about the operative strategy being used to address the country’s security challenges? Is such a knowledge driven by strong coordination through which both the party, government structures and functionaries at all levels are driven by the insatiable quest to find solutions to every manifest problem?
Against the background of years of bad governance in Nigeria, characterised by accumulated anger of citizens, inability of both the party, government structures and functionaries at all levels to drive national processes of information management based on commitment to finding solution to manifest problems will continue to weaken capacity to create the right messages and effectively disseminate them. Such a failure could have relegated APC and its government to exist in the shadow of all previous governments who created the problems in the first place.
Should this be the case, how can APC and its government, redesign information management strategy based on which it can moblise Nigerians to commit themselves to the agenda of change as being implemented by the APC Federal Government led by President Buhari? What are the important steps needed to commence the process of redesigning information management in the country and engender commitment of all functionaries of the party and government to the institution of a new regime of problem-solving information management in the country? Under the new regime of problem-solving information management, can APC and its governments develop a new reporting template, which ensures that reports of events by all credible media platforms conform to some minimum verifiable standards? Can the new regime of problem-solving information management seek to strengthen national compliance to existing statutory provisions in the country?
Is APC and its government able to develop some coordination structure with the objective of creating both generic and implied messages aimed at communicating initiatives of APC governments to resolve challenges of insecurity? It is important that the capacity of designated structures and functionaries to promote messages that mobilises Nigerians, which ensures that the understanding and causes of events forms integral part of messages as well as recommendations of what is required to solve any possible associated problems triggering the event.
These are not hypothetical issues. They are also not about propaganda. It is about the capacity of political leaders and actors to be honest in mobilising responses to challenges. The current structure of information management is part of the problem and must change if APC and its government is to effectively mobilise Nigerians to support initiatives to resolve national security challenges. Failure to recognise this may continue to damage the electoral prospect of APC. Engineering the evolution of the new regime of problem-solving information management is central to the resolution of Nigeria’s security challenges.
Part of the objective of evolving a new problem-solving information management is to ensure synergy of activities of the party, government and as much as possible major national players in the business of mobilising Nigerians to contribute towards resolving national challenges. In the context of such a coordinated strategy, there should be some regular consultations to review national challenges and develop common strategies. Part of the task of reviewing national challenges would require that true accounts of events and their causes are established and based on that some agreements reached regarding what is required to address problems, which should cover actions required from non-governmental actors.
Without doubt there exist many initiatives driven by some of the existing established structures of government, which needs to be mainstreamed as part of the new problem-solving information management. The campaign by National Orientation Agency, for instance, of change begins with me is one of such initiatives. Perhaps, it needs to be further strengthened and improved such that it highlights the new secure Nigeria being envisioned. How can the change begin with me campaign, also for instance, fit into the strategy of mobilising Nigerians to support the fight to end insecurity in the country, in all its ramification? To achieve that will require some radical reforms of many of the structures of government facilitating the process of information management, including the National Orientation Agency.
One problem of information management in the country is funding. Often without funding no initiative is taken and most times the funding is inflated beyond rational reasoning. New approach and orientation are required, which should redesign the work of information managers in all spheres. The new regime of problem-solving information management should be oriented based a commitment to weed out all the superfluous costs that adds no value to the process of information dissemination. In addition, government broadcast stations such as Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Voice of Nigeria (VON) and News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), among other, should be encouraged to create customised programmes, which should seek to specifically facilitate interface between government officials and citizens involved in the field of enquiry about contemporary challenges?
In the context of facilitating engagement between government officials and citizens working in the field of enquiry about critical challenges facing the country, for instance, at least NTA and FRCN with all their national coverage should have a weekly or daily programes at prime times to undertake public reviews of challenges and progress being made to fight insecurity in the country. Based on such reviews, both designated officials of Nigerian security services and non-state actors who have undertaken studies on Nigeria’s security challenges can feature and assist in guiding national debates. This could also facilitate uptake of important recommendations from reports such as those made by Dr. Rufa’i, Nextier, Profs. Verjeer and Kwaja, and many similar studies by important policy cites in the country.
The point is, so long as public debates in the country are not guided by knowledge, citizens engagement with public policy will continue to be reduced to sentiment, and every challenge facing the country, including security problems, such as banditry would be politicised, and as such public conversation in the country will remain toxic. How APC can facilitate the reform of information management structures in the country to successfully mobilise Nigerians to support government initiatives will largely determine the electoral viability of the party. Once APC continue to allow speculative and false national debates such as the issue of unfounded agreement between Nigeria and US government on the use of the A-29 newly acquired Super Tucano jets, it is indicative of a weak communication management framework, which may only worsen the challenges facing the country. Inability to use knowledge to guide public debate is what confer legitimacy to so-called editorial opinion by arrogant news medium such as The Economist based on old ideological mindsets. Resolving the security challenge facing the country is about winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of Nigerians!
Salihu Lukman
Opposition Politics and Campaign for New Nigeria
Salihu Moh. Lukman
Progressive Governors Forum
Abuja
With the successful conclusion of the PDP National Convention on Saturday, October 30, 2021, credit must be given to leaders and members of the party for being able to manage the process and elect a new leadership for the party. Those who are not members of the party should urge the newly elected PDP leaders to build on the new atmosphere to start a new beginning for the party based on honesty, respect for one another and above all recognising that politics is all about negotiations and agreement. Every negotiation should produce agreement based on majority decisions. Of course, people are free to disagree with decisions of the majority. But such disagreements should respect the rights of the majority to direct how parties, society and nation should be governed. When disagreement turn to rebellion, it is either that those who disagree are not democrats, or they lack the capacity to negotiate and through negotiations win support of majority, or they are very desperate to have their says and ways in dictating how organisations and wider Nigerian society should be governed. It may also be a combination of all the above.
Ordinarily, the successful conclusion of the PDP National Convention should only be celebrated by PDP members. However, given the important role the party has played in orienting politics in Nigeria for 16 years between 1999 and 2015, during which Nigerian politics was made to be opposed to negotiations, it is important to acknowledge that the October 30 PDP National Convention is about the first time, since 1999 perhaps, that there is some semblance of negotiations to produce leaders of the party. Whether in the end, the new leaders will be allowed by the power blocs within the PDP to facilitate negotiations, is completely a different matter. By the way, the fact that the party can elect a young person, below 30 years as National Youth Leader means that PDP leaders have recognised that the old culture of arrogance and impunity must be avoided if they are to win the support of Nigerians, which is very positive. This is itself a confirmation that once processes are managed democratically; the right results would be achieved.
Every Nigerian should wish PDP, its leaders and party members well. Nigerians should hope that PDP leaders will build on the successes of the National Convention to re-orient their politics based on honesty and respect for one another. Being honest should be about taking responsibility. From all indications, PDP leaders have only moderated themselves and submitted to processes of internal negotiations up to the National Convention because they are out of power at Federal level. It can be predicted that had PDP been the ruling party in the country, the approach would have been different. Probably, as was the case with all previous PDP leaders, new leaders would have emerged without any negotiation and the National Convention would have been reduced to window dressing ritual, legitimising the instructions of a serving PDP President. Perhaps, everything leading to the PDP National Convention happened because there is no serving PDP President acting as the leader of the party. Good enough, being out of power, PDP leaders had to respect democratic process, which raises the hope of especially PDP members that the party is being reformed.
The worrisome issue is that notwithstanding some of the departures from the old abrasive PDP, just as Nigerians would want to wish PDP well, it must be pointed out that many of the speeches of PDP leaders at the Convention demonstrated lack of commitment to take responsibility. This is largely because, as far as PDP leaders are concerned all the problems facing Nigeria today is the creation of APC. Almost all the speeches of PDP leaders during the Convention were about winning election in 2023 and returning to power. Sadly, there is no indication, at any point during the Convention, showing how the party intend to solve Nigeria’s challenges. Not even a reference by any PDP leader during the Convention to any provision of the party’s manifesto, which must have gathered dust in the cabinet of INEC. Perhaps, apart from the few founding members of the party, almost all the delegates to the National Convention have never seen the manifesto of the PDP.
Recalling that the PDP, in November 2015, through Chief Raymond Dokpesi, then acting as the Chairman of the National Planning Committee for its then National Conference, admitted that it was ‘aware of the errors of the past 16 years, as human beings, we must have made mistakes and we could not meet the expectations of Nigerians, for that we tender an unreserved apology.’ Being honest is about taking responsibility. What were the errors and in what ways has PDP failed to meet expectations of Nigerians? Above all, how does PDP intend to govern Nigeria differently, if Nigerians are to elect them back to power? As much as it is rational for PDP leaders to campaign against the APC and its leaders, being a party that acknowledges its mistakes in 2015, PDP leaders should understand that mobilising Nigerians to vote them should take its bearing from how they want to govern the country differently from the way they did between 1999 and 2015. Anything short of that will be dishonest.
May be the last leader of PDP who was honest and was able to take responsibility was late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. This is because after acknowledging that the election that brought him to power in 2007 was fraudulent, he set up the Justice Mohammed Uwais Election Reform Committee, which laid the foundation for the reform of INEC. In addition, after more than six years of denial by the PDP controlled Federal Government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo that Nigerian army wasn’t responsible for the massacre of innocent citizens in Zaki-Biam, Benue State, which took place on October 20 – 24, 2001, in November 2007, late President Yar’Adua visited Benue State and personally apologised. Had the killing of 19 soldiers in Zaki-Biam of October 12, 2001, taken place during the present PDP administration of Governor Samuel Ortom, which led to the retaliation by the Nigerian military resulting in the massacre of innocent villagers, Fulani’s, and President Buhari would have been accused by Benue State Government as those responsible for both the killing of 19 soldiers and the massacre of innocent people of Zaki-Biam.
Without doubt, there are certainly leaders in PDP who are honest. The worrisome issue is that such leaders are few and face a lot of frustrations, which partly explains the exodus of many courageous political leaders out of the party. Instead of recognising this reality, the mainstream PDP leaders are in denial, which is why the party continue to delude itself with the belief that it can mobilise Nigerians to elect them back to power by simply claiming that all the problems facing the country is a creation of the APC. Unfortunately, somehow, the APC Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee led by His Excellency Mai Mala Buni has allowed someone like Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, who is among the dishonest category of PDP leaders to cross-over from the PDP to APC without any initiative to reform him (Mr. Fani-Kayode).
Liberal disposition of APC, combined with in the inability of some of the appointees of APC led Federal Government to manage issues of communication based on strategy of contracting partnership with Nigerians in responding to national challenges, allowed false misleading narrative of failure against APC government and President Buhari to dominate public debate. Consequently, some of the PDP leaders had the audacity to shamelessly accuse APC of being corrupt while addressing delegates during the National Convention at a time when the country is passing through the shock that some of the recovered ‘properties’ from a former Minister of Petroleum under former President Goodluck Jonathan (2009 – 2015), Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke include under wears (bras and pants), estimated at $12.5 million, more than N6 billion.
If the value of under wears bought with looted resources of the Federal Government by a PDP political appointee is more than N6 billion ($12.5 million), it can only be imagined how much Mrs. Diezani alone has stolen. This is not to talk of the $2.1 billion funds for the procurement of arms to fight insurgency diverted by Col. Sambo Dasuki, former National Security Adviser under former President Jonathan, which was allegedly used to fund PDP campaigns for 2015 elections. In fact, the new PDP National Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu is alleged to have collected N345 million out of the diverted $2.1 billion. Other mindboggling disclosures of corruption during the sixteen years of PDP such as cases of subsidy payments fraud, Police Pension Task Force racket, Halliburton, Malabo scandals, etc. are still fresh in the minds of Nigerians.
It may be necessary to also request the newly elected leadership of PDP under Dr. Iyorchia Ayu to perhaps investigate the management of funds mobilised for the construction of the 12-storey PDP National Secretariat located on Muhammadu Buhari Way, Central Business District, Abuja, which is now abandoned as a demonstration of commitment to rescue Nigeria. Having mobilised close to N30 billion and expended over N16 billion, a born-again PDP leadership committed to rescuing Nigeria should be able to fix its internal problems first. Like it is often said, charity begins at home. A party that is committed to rescuing Nigeria should first and foremost rescue itself from its internal adversaries.
PDP leaders must always remember the saying in law, he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. Having presided over the affairs of Nigeria for sixteen years between 1999 and 2015, what were the specific achievements of the PDP? How many times for instance was the contract for Second Niger Bridge awarded before 2015? How much was disbursed? And what was the level of work done before 2015? These questions can also be asked in respect of Lagos – Ibadan Road project and many other abandoned projects, which were inherited by the APC government of President Buhari. Today, the Second Niger Bridge is more than 50% completed with guaranteed funding and scheduled to be commissioned in 2022. So far, progress has been made by APC led government of President Buhari on abandoned or stalled projects that were inherited, like the Loko-Oweto Bridge, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Sagamu-Benin Expressway, the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, Onitsha-Enugu Expressway, Kano-Maiduguri Expressway, Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Expressway, Obajana-Kabba Road, Ilorin-Jebba Road, Apapa-Oshodi-Oworonshoki Road, and several others are in progress, with some already close to completion.
There are over 900 active road contracts, covering the construction, reconstruction or rehabilitation of more than 13,000km of Federal roads and highways across the country. In addition, the Federal Executive Council meeting of Wednesday, October 27, 2021, approved another set of road projects covering 1,804.6 kilometres across the country, estimated to cost N621.2 billion to be executed by the NNPC. Outside road projects, the railways have returned. Acknowledging that both the 168km Abuja-Kaduna Rail and the 42.5km Abuja Light Rail commissioned by President Buhari in 2016 and 2018 respectively were inherited from the PDP, the 156km Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge Rail, the first double-track Standard Gauge Rail project in West Africa was started and completed by APC led government of President Buhari and has been commissioned. In addition, the 327km Itakpe-Warri Standard Gauge Rail, was completed by President Buhari’s administration 33 years after construction began. This means all the different administrations of PDP between 1999 and 2015 met the project and left it uncompleted but APC government of President Buhari completed it. Other Rail projects commissioned by President Buhari include Ibadan – Kano, Port Harcourt – Maiduguri, Port Harcourt – Calabar and Kano – Maradi standard gauge lines, all with guaranteed funding.
Once the attitude of PDP leaders is to mobilise Nigerians without acknowledging this reality, it means nothing has changed in PDP. It should therefore be expected that PDP campaigns for 2023 will be oriented to mislead Nigerians into voting them into power. To achieve that every problem of the country will continue to be politicised and leaders of PDP such as Governor Ortom would continue to propagate hatred against APC and President Buhari based on so-called ‘fulanisation’ and ‘islamisation’ agenda. This is a variant of ultra-right-wing politics campaign, which is neo-fascist and neo-Nazist, which is being gradually adopted by PDP. Once PDP allowed its politics to oriented based on ultra-right-wing politics, its capacity to regulate the conduct of its elected leaders will be further weakened.
Part of the disturbing reality is that there are leaders in APC who unfortunately are also fascinated by politics of ethnic hatred, partly because it has become a way demonstrating their disappointment. While, unlike in the case of PDP, those APC leaders and supporters attracted to politics of ethnic hatred may be angry because they are unable to access elective and appointive opportunities in government, especially at Federal levels, to the extent that there are APC leaders and supporters who accuse APC and President Muhammadu Buhari’s of ‘imposition of Fulani hegemony on Nigerians,’ is indicative of the vulnerability of APC to ultra-right-wing politics. There are many leaders of the APC, who on account of not being appointed into any position in government are angry with President Buhari. On the other hand, there are also supporters of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole led NWC who are unable to reconcile themselves with the decision of APC NEC of June 25, 2020 to dissolve the NWC. All these create some unhealthy internal dynamics within the APC, which contribute to weakening the capacity of the party to appropriately respond and correct all the false narratives against the APC and President Buhari.
A major issue, which should unite all Nigerians irrespective of ethnic, religious, political and all other differences, is the issue of insecurity in the country. Recognising that the issue of insecurity remained a major national challenge, it is important that efforts to critically engage government to address the challenges should not be politicised. Where the government get it right, it should be acknowledged. Given that APC administration is taking steps to equip the security agencies and build morale, promote community-led solutions, develop new security infrastructure and operations across land and maritime environments, and address the underlying drivers of insecurity (poverty and youth unemployment), require some acknowledgement especially given that under 16 years of PDP, these were never the case. No doubt, serious challenges still exist, but acknowledging victories and successes recorded in fighting insecurity is a critical indicator of the commitment of any political party towards addressing all the challenges of insecurity facing Nigeria.
Therefore, commitment of political parties towards strengthening the current security structure in the country through radical reforms should not be subject of speculation. Issues of amending the laws to enable state governments establish state police for instance, should clearly be outlined in the party’s manifesto and other campaign documents. To the extent that none of this feature in the PDP Convention is indicative of PDP’s lack of commitment to change its approach to politics. If anything, PDP is only interested in getting back to power to continue its extravagant governance style, which convert public treasury to private accounts of elected and appointed leaders. In other words, because PDP failed to address all these issues at the October 30 National Convention, the party and its leaders lost a golden opportunity to demonstrate to Nigerians that they are indeed a reformed party capable of resolving the problems of the country, which they have either created or were unable to effectively address during their 16 years rule between 1999 and 2015.
This reality presents a good opportunity for APC and its leaders to demonstrate readiness to continue to manage the affairs of the country. Being a party founded through negotiations, more than anytime, the commitment of leaders and members of the party to negotiate the support of Nigerians is being called to question once more. Capacity of APC leaders and members to honestly respond to national challenges is being contested. Ability to apply knowledge to effectively mobilise Nigerians to endorse or support initiatives of APC and its government towards resolving national security challenges, is now being handled very defensively. Coordination among many leaders of the party in making public statements is weak. To a large extent, this account for the illogical and defensive approach by some senior officials of the Federal Government to attempt to argue that bandits operating in the North-West are not terrorist. With proper coordination in communicating initiatives of government, the explanation of the Minister of Defence, Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Bashir Magashi to the effect that the procedure to declare bandits as terrorists is yet to be completed would have guided all official communications on the matter.
As APC prepare for its National Convention, issues of the unity of the country and responses to national security challenges should be priorities. Just like election of leaders, how APC want to continue with the task of responding to challenges of insecurity should be part of the agenda of the APC National Convention based on which a decision is taken at the Convention by way of adopting an amendment to the party’s manifesto through majority votes by delegates. Once that is done, it will assist the APC, its leaders and especially candidates for 2023 elections to mobilise Nigerians to vote the party. At the same time, it will potentially prepare the party to be capable of neutralising PDP’s toxic politics of promoting hatred with the high probability that it can produce ultra-right-wing candidates for 2023 elections.
As much as it should be recognised that PDP was able to open itself to negotiation leading to the emergence of new leadership, to the extent that it failed to take advantage of the National Convention to simulate some internal negotiation within the party about how challenges facing the country should be responded to by a PDP government suggest absence of any commitment to work for a new Nigeria. May be as part of the efforts by the new PDP leadership to start a new beginning, they will initiate new processes of negotiating these issues. If that is to be the case, it will be necessary that the new PDP leaders take their bearing by taking responsibility in terms of honestly accepting their errors when they had the opportunity to rule Nigeria between 1999 and 2015. Anything short of that will expose the PDP and its leaders as being dishonest.
APC must therefore use its National Convention to demonstrate its commitment to change Nigeria. Apart from electing leaders, the manifesto of the party should be subjected to amendment debate. As part of the commitment to change Nigerian politics, APC must unambiguously commit itself to the unity of Nigeria based on governance initiatives founded on the principles of fairness and equitable access to resources and opportunities by all Nigerians from every part of the country. In addition, APC must commit itself to developing the productive potentials of every Nigerian and every part of the country. The issue of national development must be oriented based on clear strategies to develop the economy of every part of the country. Issues of industrialisation, human capital development through correspondingly aggressively high public and private investment in education and health sectors of the country must be prioritised. This should mean that commitment of political leaders to issues of development planning must be strengthened, and the Nigeria public service must be appropriately reformed and rebuilt to manage initiatives for national development.
Salihu Lukman
Background
On Tuesday, November 9, 2021, the expanded APC Tripartite Consultative Committee meeting chaired by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Members of the APC Tripartite Consultative Committee include the Chairman of the APC Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), HE Mai Mala Buni, Senate President, HE Ahmed Lawan, Speaker, House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum, HE Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, HE Kayode Fayemi, Deputy Senate President, Sen. Ovie Omo-Agege, Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Idris Wase, Chief of Staff to President Buhari, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami and Secretary of the APC CECPC, Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe.
The expanded meeting of Tuesday, November 9, in addition to these appointed members, was attended by Progressive Governors and all elected APC representatives in the two APC chambers of the National Assembly (Senate and House of Representatives). The agenda of the expanded meeting was the proposed amendment to the Electoral Act, which specifically require all political parties in the country to adopt direct primary for the nomination of party candidates for election. The decision to hold the expanded meeting was taken at previous meeting of the APC Tripartite Committee with the aim of facilitating synergy between members of the National Assembly, Governors, and the party on the proposed amendment of the Electoral Act.
APC: Direct Vs Indirect Primary
The desirability for using direct primary to nominate party candidates is popular given that indirect method, which require only delegates from among elected party executives at Wards, Local Governments, States and National levels is considered very corrupt and anybody who has money can buy his/her way to emerge as candidate. The belief is that delegates used during party primaries, who are few, relative to the size of party membership are loyal to Governors and therefore end up doing the bidding of Governors by electing only aspirants chosen by Governors. In addition, the delegates are alleged to also be very corrupt, which makes party primary to be very expensive because aspirants must virtually purchase the vote of every delegate. Nigerians, especially members of political parties detest the indirect method, partly because it is believed that it is the cause of almost all the leadership challenges facing the country whereby wrong people emerge into leadership positions simply because they can buy the ticket to contest elections.
APC emerged in 2013 with the commitment to bring about political change in the country. One of the changes envisioned by the founding leaders of the party was the adoption of the direct method, which is to broaden the participation of members, not just few delegates, in the process of electing party candidates at all levels. Between 2013 and 2015, there were internal debates in the APC to develop the necessary infrastructural platforms that should allow all members of the party to elect both leaders and candidates of the party. Under the Chief Bisi Akande Interim Management leadership, substantial investment was undertaken towards establishing computerised membership Data Centre for the whole country, located at No. 10 Bola Ajibola Street, off Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos. Sadly, PDP government, under former President Jonathan Goodluck, vandalised the Data Centre on November 22, 2014 based on the claims that the Department of State Security (DSS), which carry out the attack, acted on a petition, which alleged that the Data Centre was being set up to ‘clone INEC Permanent Voters Card with the intention of hacking into INEC database, corrupting it and replacing them with their own data’ (Premium Times, November 23, 2014).
As highlighted in Chapter II – Party Funding and Scope for Internal Democracy, in the publication Power of Possibility & Politics of Change in Nigeria, published in July 2019, ‘the internal dynamics that pushed for the establishment of the Data Centre included challenges during the conduct of the party’s Congresses and Convention between April and June 2014. One of the projections before the Congresses was to expand the process of electing party leadership at all levels beyond the scope of a limited number of party delegates, which should cover all members of the party. Partly, on account of experiences during the conduct of Ward Congresses in April 2014, which exposed the problem of conducting all-members’ inclusive elections for party offices without authenticated membership records, the Chief Bisi Akande Interim Leadership initiated the establishment of the Data Centre.’
Issues of maintaining verifiable membership register is a condition precedent for any new framework, which can allow credible election to be conducted within any political party based on the direct method. This is mainly because it is the membership register that is expected to be used to accredit members of the party during the election. This issue has been a major point of internal debate in APC since 2014. Ahead of every election, it always comes up. Since the time of the Interim Leadership of Chief Bisi Akande, the decision has been to use expanded delegates, involving majority members of the leadership beyond the few that are designated as delegates as provided in the APC constitution.
It is believed that through direct method, involving all party members, problems of imposition of leaders and candidates, vote buying, rigging, manipulation, associated with indirect methods of the delegates system will be reduced. The expectation is that direct primary will bring political party leaders closer to members, and consequently citizens closer to elected representatives. Inability of APC to institutionalise the direct method as the preferred option for electing leaders and selecting candidates of the party for election is a major source of disappointment for many party members and leaders especially given the way all the problems associated with the indirect method has also manifested in the APC.
The campaign therefore to get the APC return to its founding vision should be welcome by every committed party member, which may have been responsible for why President Muhammadu Buhari continued to insist that APC must be controlled by the people, on account of which he continued to push the party to adopt direct primary. Recall that, ahead of the 2019 election, President Buhari chose direct primary method to confirm his emergence as the candidate of the APC Presidential candidate for the 2019 election. The party’s National Convention would have been sufficient to confirm his nomination through majority votes. Instead of limiting his emergence to only delegates at the National Convention, he requested that members of the party should also be allowed to participate in the process of endorsing his candidature as the Presidential Candidate of the APC for a second tenure.
Although, many may argue that such a decision was academic exercise, it however influenced the decision of the National Executive Committee (NEC) in terms of the methods to be used to produce candidates of the party for the 2019 elections at all levels. This is because the decisions of NEC of August 30, 2018, inspired by the position of President Buhari was that stakeholders of the party in every state should decide the method – direct, indirect or consensus – that will be used for the nomination of candidates in the states. Lagos, Kano and Niger States opted for the direct primary. Except for few states such as Zamfara, in virtually all the other states, the indirect method was chosen. Zamfara opted for consensus, which was partly responsible for all the acrimony against the choices of candidates’ that resulted in the electoral disaster that rob the party of all the hard-earned electoral victories of 2019.
Expanded APC Tripartite Consultative Committee and Proposed Amendments
Noting that both the two chambers of the National Assembly have passed the proposed Electoral Act amendment bill on October 12, 2021, which among others require all political parties in the country to adopt the direct method of conducting party primary for the nomination of candidates and a conference committee involving representatives of the two chambers (Senate and House of Representatives) was working to harmonise the amendment, the expanded APC Tripartite Consultative Committee meeting of November 9 would have been expected to influence the final amendment to guide the work of the conference committee. Notice for the meeting was issued by the party, dated 4th November, 2021, signed by the CECPC Secretary, Sen. Akpanuduedehe. Certainly, all members of the APC Tripartite Consultative Committee, including the APC leadership in the National Assembly should have been aware of such expectation.
Interestingly, before the meeting, which was scheduled to hold, 5.00 pm Tuesday, November 9, on that very day, the plenaries of both the Senate and the House of Representatives considered the report of the conference committee on the Electoral Act amendment and adopted the report and passed the new Electoral Act amendment bill. With such development, the expanded Tripartite Consultative Committee was confronted with a fait accompli. The passed Electoral Act amendment Bill by both the Senate and House of Representatives contained the provision requiring that all political parties in the country should adopt direct method of conducting party primary for the selection of candidates. Section 87(1) of the bill provided that ‘A political party seeking to nominate candidates for elections under this Bill shall hold direct primaries for aspirants to all elective positions, which shall be monitored by the Commission.’
In addition, new Sub Sections 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 were inserted in the Electoral Act, which made the following provisions:
· Sub Section 3: The procedure for the nomination of candidates by political parties for the various elective positions by direct primaries shall ensure that all aspirants are given equal opportunity of being voted for by members of the party and given opportunity to have agents for the purpose of monitoring the primaries.
· Sub Section 4: The procedure adopted for the direct primaries shall be spelt out in a guideline to be issued by the political party and filed with the Commission at least 14 days before the primary election.
· Sub Section 5: A political party shall maintain register of its members and provide in the guideline for the conduct of the primaries that the register of its members shall be used for accreditation for the primaries.
· Sub Section 6: The Commission shall deploy personnel to monitor the primaries in all the centres where the direct primaries are held.
· Sub Section 7: Every aspirant cleared by the party to contest at the primary not later than fourteen days to the primary shall be entitled to a copy of the guideline for the conduct of the primaries in which he or she is participating.
The Issues
With these provisions, once assented to by the President, it will be mandatory for every party in Nigeria to use direct method, involving every member of the party, to nominate candidates for elections. If the objective of compelling political parties to adopt the direct method is to ensure credible process of nominating party candidates, additional provisions covering issues of how membership records of political parties should be kept, and processes and procedure required under the Act to satisfy admissibility of members of the party during direct elections should be well outlined. For instance, in the case of national elections, Part III of the Electoral Act dealing with National Register of Voters and Voters’ Registration made comprehensive provisions specifying details of National Register of Voters and Voters’ Registration, Continuous Registration, Qualification for Registration, Transfer of Registered Voters, Powers to Print and issue Voters Register, Powers to Print and issue Voters’ Card, Custody of Voters’ Register, Display of the Copies of Voters’ List, among many other provisions.
The amendment being proposed take many of these issues for granted. It is possible that these are matters for internal decisions of political parties, which may be why the new Sub Section 4 being proposed expect parties to adopt procedure, which ‘shall be spelt out in a guideline to be issued by the political party and filed with the Commission at least 14 days before the primary election.’ However, any commitment to affirm the right of political party members to participate in the process of electing party leaders and candidates for elections must be unambiguous. When for instance the only thing that exist as means of identification of party members is ordinary piece of paper and records of members exist only in hardcopies available perhaps to only Ward officials and National Secretariat of the party, it leaves much room for manipulation and extraneous practices.
Beyond the sentiments in favour of direct primary therefore, there is the need to properly outline a clear administrative framework under the law, which will guide the process and guarantee that all the bad practices associated with the indirect method are eliminated. Understandably, part of the sentiment informing the actions of members of the National Assembly is that Nigerians have little or zero confidence on the disposition of party leaders, who are alleged to be under the direct control of Governors. Largely because of this perception there is ongoing media campaign blackmailing Governors that they are the ones perpetrating all the bad practices associated with the indirect methods and therefore the reason why they are against the adoption of direct primary.
The truth however is that with the state of things in APC whereby in virtually all states with serving Governors, they (Governors) are in charge. The proposed amended law with all its ambiguities would instead strengthen the capacity of Governors or any leader who is in control of structures of the party to manipulate the process of nominating candidates. In states such as Delta, Sokoto and Taraba, for instance, where there are no APC Governors, leading members of the party in the National Assembly are the people in charge. There are other states such as Adamawa, Rivers and Bayelsa and at least eight other states where Governors are not responsible for the possible undemocratic practices taking place.
Besides, the issue of using the indirect method as a means of imposing candidates through corrupt practices, almost all elected representatives in the National Assembly are as guilty as Governors. From the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives to all the APC and House Representatives members, they must have all paid for every vote they got during internal party primary leading to their election. At that time, they must have been very good loyal partners of Governors.
By the way, there are at least twelve former Governors currently serving as APC Senators. While negotiating to emerge as Senators, they must have also been working to ensure the emergence of their preferred choices who are currently serving as Governors through the dreaded indirect method. Could these former Governors who are currently serving as Senators claim to be innocent of all the undemocratic practices associated with the indirect method? Could the current serving Governors be the only promoters of the bad undemocratic practices of imposition, vote buying, etc. through the indirect method?
Part of the underlying problems of Nigerian democracy is the problem of poor relation between members of executive and legislative branches. There is always a constant fight between Governors and members of the National Assembly of almost all states. Poor relationship between Governors and members of the National Assembly from states is partly responsible for high turnover rates of elected Senators and House of Representatives members. The turnover rate is estimated to be as high as 80%. Other factors that must be responsible for the high turnover rates would also include personal lifestyles of many elected representatives, which alienate them from their constituents. The relationship between most elected representatives and their constituents is largely transactional, which produce envy and, in many respects, undermined their electoral viability. On both the two issues of poor relationship between Governors and elected representatives, on the one hand, and relationship with constituents, how can the adoption of direct primary address the problem of high turnover rates?
As things are, based on proposed new Section 87 of the amended Electoral Act, which leave many open spaces for manipulation in the law, problems of internal democracy within parties may only get worse. Resolution of all the challenges of internal democracy within political parties require high measure of honesty from political leaders at all levels. It will be highly insincere for members of the National Assembly to attempt to play the ostrich by pushing the blame of lack of internal democracy within parties to only Governors. Once that is the case, instead of party leaders working as a united body to ensure that the adoption of direct method of electing party leaders and candidates for elections produce a truly new democratic framework, which eliminate problems of vote buying, imposition and all the vices associated with the indirect method, it can only potentially be another source of pains and disappointment for party members and Nigerians.
Direct Primary as a Cover
In several respects, the issue of compelling parties to use direct method for internal party elections as part of the Electoral Act is also popular perhaps because increasingly many political party members and leaders have lost confidence that parties can on their own adopt internal rules that can truly allow for direct primary. Otherwise, ordinarily the choice of direct primary should be decided internally within parties. To a large extent, it is also a matter that should define the ideological orientation of parties. There are political parties that operate as closed shops, implying that the process of decision-making is limited to some few interests. Under such a situation, parties would outline processes of qualification to be part of the decision-making process. Once the electoral law limits the choices of parties, it may undermine the provisions of the constitution with respect to freedom and political liberties. Lawyers and human right activists may want to cross-check all these.
It is worrisome that APC members in the National Assembly are the ones pushing for this amendment. Rather than leaders of the party negotiating among themselves on what needs to be done to produce internal agreement to resolve all challenges facing the party, increasingly structures of the party are being abandoned and other structures outside the statutory organs of the party are being used to attempt to address perceived problems. This creates problems of confidence in the capacity of structures of the party to address challenges facing the party. The whole scheming pushing party leaders to use structures outside the statutory organs of the party may not be even about addressing challenges facing the party but perhaps about realising political aspirations of some party leaders and power blocs.
The whole debate about adopting direct method as part of the Electoral Act is mainly an APC agenda. There may be a calculated attempt by a section of APC leadership whose interest is to hoodwink APC members and Nigerians with the direct primary dummy. If the truth is to be told, direct method of selecting candidates within the APC began to be corrupted under the dissolved National Working Committee led by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. There were instances during 2019 elections, when the process of nominating APC candidates for election was manipulated using the direct primary, largely because no credible membership register existed since the November 22, 2014 vandalisation of the APC Membership Data Centre by the DSS. There was very little effort to re-organise and rebuild the APC membership record. It was only around February/March 2020 that the Comrade Oshiomhole-led NWC placed some newspaper advertorials inviting biddings from interested service providers to assist the APC to establish computerised membership data register.
Although no reference was made to the previous APC membership data centre of 2014 in the advertorial, the invitation for bidding suggested non-availability of a computerised membership register. There was of course occasional reference by Comrade Oshiomhole that the membership register of APC has been uploaded on the Cloud. The question of access to such membership register has remained an unresolved puzzle, which was why the APC Caretaker Committee under the leadership of HE Mai Mala Buni had to undertake membership registration and revalidation exercise. The major challenge of the new APC membership register is that it is manually stored. Interestingly, some of the promoters of the current amendment to the Electoral Act campaigning to include the direct primary of conducting party primary in the Electoral Act were against the decision of the APC Caretaker Committee to undertake membership registration and revalidation exercise.
It is quite suspect that isolated aggressive campaign to include the issue of compelling parties to adopt direct primary to nominate candidates for election is being promoted by respected APC leaders without corresponding commitment of ensuring that the process of producing a verifiable membership register for the APC is finalised. Once direct primary is adopted without clearly unambiguously defined political party membership management framework, incidences of manipulation and crude practices leading to worse forms of imposition of candidates by leaders of political parties, will be the new order. In the piece Internal Party Democracy and Prospects for New Nigeria, some of the inflated results of direct primary in APC during the 2019 elections were highlighted.
The vulnerability of direct primary to manipulative intrigues of political leaders was further confirmed in the just concluded Anambra Governorship election. The APC candidate in the election, Sen. Andy Ubah, during the APC primary election was said to have emerged with 230,201 votes. But he only got 43,285 votes during the election. Some measure of honesty is required from all leaders to address problems of internal democracy with political parties in Nigeria. No doubt, Nigerian democracy need to be deepened to broaden the participation of party members in the process of selecting party candidates. But given the way some APC leaders are desperately and aggressively campaigning for the adoption of the amended Electoral Act as passed by the two chambers of the National Assembly, with all its ambiguities, makes it suspect.
The Way Forward
The whole insertion of the provisions requiring political parties to adopt the direct method in the Electoral Act would appear to be an afterthought. This is because, the original bill, which was subjected to joint public hearing by both the Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday, December 9, 2020, at the National Assembly complex in Abuja didn’t contain the insertion of Section 87 Sub Sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. There was only the insertion of Section 87(1 and 2), which provides that:
- Sub Section 1: It seeks to enact a new section 87 on the nomination of candidates by parties for elections by prescribing maximum fees payable by aspirants and restricting nomination criteria strictly to relevant provisions. Specifically, the bill states that total fees imposed by a political party shall not exceed N1million on a House of Representatives aspirant; N2 million on a senatorial aspirant; N5 million on a governorship aspirant and N10million on a presidential aspirant.
- Sub Section 2: ‘compels a political party not to impose nomination qualification or disqualification criteria, measures or conditions on any aspirant or candidate for any election, except as prescribed under sections 65, 66, 106, 107, 131, 137, 177 and 187 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).’
It was during the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill after the public hearing in July 2021 that the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila moved motion for the amendment to allow direct primaries to be part of the amendment.
In the case of Senate, after passing an amendment bill, which did not include the requirement to compel parties to adopt direct method for election of candidates, following a ‘motion for Re- Committal of some Clauses of the Electoral Act No.6 2010 (Repeal and Re- enactment) Bill, 2021 (SB. 122) to the Committee of the Whole as sponsored by the Senate Leader, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, All Progress Congress, APC, Kebbi North’ on October 12, 2021, Sections 87 (3, 4, 5, 6, 7) were inserted and passed.
It will be important therefore to appeal to both the Senate President, HE Ahmed Lawal and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and all the leaders of the National to provide the needed leadership for the country to have the right legal framework, which can guarantee the administration of direct primary by political parties in the country as a means of entrenching internal democracy during the process of nominating party candidates for elections. The proposal passed by the two chambers of the National Assembly on November 9, 2021 is highly inadequate and leaves more room for manipulation, which may produce more disaster for the country beyond what the nation is going through under the indirect method.
Accordingly, it is strongly recommended that given that the whole controversy about the proposed Electoral Act amendment is limited to the new insertions in Section 87, the National Assembly should consider reworking issues under Section 87 to make it unambiguous. The reworked new provisions should go through all the legislative processes including public hearing to enable Nigerians also contribute to making the law. This is a very sensitive issue, which no Standing Order of the National Assembly should be used to block the democratic rights of Nigerians in contributing to the law.
While the reworked Section 87 is being processed as recommended, the National Assembly may wish to adopt all the other amendments and transmit them to the President for assent. Unless leaders of the National Assembly are interested in blocking the possibility of amending the Electoral Act and want to shift the blame on President Buhari, it would be very inappropriate politically to expect the President to assent to the Electoral Act amendment with the provisions in Section 87 and all its ambiguities. The leadership of the National Assembly should take responsibility and not pass the buck.
Finally, all APC leaders must be appealed to, so that they are able to understand and appreciate that the challenges facing both the party and the nation require strong unity, especially among leaders. No leader should have the illusion than old methods of imposition of candidates by any means – direct or indirect – can guarantee electoral victory. As much as APC members and Nigerians want the internal process of nominating candidates for elections to be broadened to engender wider participation of party members, no political leader should attempt to introduce loose arrangements so that figures can be produced in the name of results for party primary. APC has worked hard in 2015 and 2019 to earn the confidence of Nigerians. No APC leader should take that for granted.
Salihu Lukman
Issues for Successful APC National Convention
Salihu Moh. Lukman
Progressive Governors Forum
Abuja
In the book, Great by Choice, Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen argued that ‘factors that determine whether or not a company becomes truly great, even in chaotic and uncertain world, lie largely within the hands of its people. It is not mainly a matter of what happens to them but a matter of what they create, what they do, and how well they do it.’ Company may as well be any organisation, community or society. Whether such organisation, community or society can become great is a function of what members or citizens are able to do and how well they do it individually and collectively.
Success or failure may simply reflect ability or inability to come to terms with the need to take responsibility in any given situation by individual members and act in ways that should contribute to producing desired outcomes. Even when members or citizens can take responsibility, organisations, communities or societies may graduate to bigger challenges, in which case, initiatives meant to respond to old challenges may be inadequate. Therefore, ability of leaders to expeditiously recognise such new reality and initiate appropriate responses become a critical determining factor for success or failure, however defined.
Without doubt, the world has been going through very difficult period since 2019. The presence of Covid-19 virus imposes additional challenging realities, which has crippled economies, destroyed businesses and human lives. In Nigeria, in addition to challenges imposed by Covid-19, problems of insecurity have graduated from insurgency to sophisticated acts of terrorism by so-called bandits. Unfortunately, public debate around these challenges is limited to partisan considerations with hardly any substantive specific recommendations by political leaders.
Consequently, challenges are reduced to partisan choices and the debate narrowed to what is happening without necessarily linking it to the bigger question of what needs to be done and how it should be done. Even when leaders initiate the right responses, excessive politicisation based on partisan choices is used to dismiss such actions. For instance, in relation to addressing the problem of insecurity in the country, the Federal Government has commenced the recruitment of 10,000 police personnel as well as increased the salary of police by 20%. These are hardly recognised by opposition politicians and critique of government.
While it is true that 10,000 additional police personnel may be inadequate to mobilise enough responses to Nigeria’s current national security challenges, it is important to recognise that within the context of the present institutional and legal framework whereby management of police services is exclusively the responsibility of the Federal Government, 20% salary increase and additional 10,000 police personnel in the country are commendable. Part of the problem of responding to national challenges in the country, is the false mindset that government has all the resources required. Such mindset is responsible for why in most cases public conversations hardly acknowledges costs of initiatives. For instance, how much it will cost the Federal Government to recruit additional 10,000 police personnel and award 20% salary increase is simply taken for granted.
Unless and until Nigerians come to terms with the reality that financing government initiatives is the collective responsibility of all citizens, capacity of government to implement initiatives that can meet the expectations of citizens will remain weak. The whole debate around reforming the Nigerian police for instance such that whether community or state policing can support the recruitment of more police personnel is practically about how much resources can be mobilised to sustainably manage the operations of the police force. Currently, the total number of police personnel in the country is less than 400,000.
With less than 400,000 police personnel, it simply means an average of about 500 per Local Government, which is far more than what exist. In fact, coming from Zaria Local Government of Kaduna State, there are far less than 250 police personnel in all the police stations across the Local Government. Together with Sabon Gari Local Government, with combined population of about 1.5 million, there are less than 500 police personnel. Officially, the Federal Government is said to be working on a plan to recruit additional 280,000 more police personnel in all the 774 Local Governments. The additional 10,000 therefore is a far cry. 10,000 additional police personnel mean an average of about 12 police in each of the 774 Local Governments. If the target of 280,000 additional personnel is to be met there should be at least 350 more police personnel in each Local Government.
Achieving the target of recruiting enough police personnel is a function of how much financial resources can be mobilised. The risk of recruiting, training, providing arms and meeting the operational costs of the police without guaranteed funding could only compound the problem of insecurity in Nigeria. Sadly, we exist in a country where citizens only think in terms of what they can get from government and not what they can contribute to strengthen the capacity of government to meet citizens’ expectations. Largely because of such mindset, during the sixteen years tenure of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), between 1999 and 2015, at a time when Nigeria earned trillions of Naira annually from sales of crude oil alone, when oil sold for more than $100 per barrel, PDP leaders converted government revenue to private wealth. Typical case was when under former President Goodluck Jonathan, in 2014, $2.1 billion meant to procure arms to fight insurgency in the North-East was shared among PDP leaders as inducement for 2015 elections. The current PDP National Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, got about N350 million out of the money.
Unlike the PDP administration, under the APC led government of President Muhammadu Buhari, the biggest investments in weaponry and equipment are being undertaken. Hundreds of new platforms are being acquired for the Army, Air Force and Navy. The Nigeria Air Force has received 23 new aircraft since 2015, including the newly acquired A-29 Tucano jets. The Navy has similarly acquired its first new Landing Ship Tank (LST) since 1979. The Administration has also launched a Nigeria Police Trust Fund. Sadly, public discussion in the country is taking place as if nothing is being done. Opposition politicians and critics of government have even argued that these are wrong investments. Some have argued that rather than invest in acquiring arms, including the A-29 Tucano jets, government should have recruited more military personnel.
There is no doubt that Nigeria needs more military personnel, just like the country needs more police personnel. Some security experts have suggested that to end the war against Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, there is the need to deploy not less than 200,000 ground troupes. Now, there is less than 50,000 ground troupes in the whole of the North-East, which is partly responsible for the inability to hold on to liberated territories after defeating Boko Haram insurgents.
Without doubt, government has succeeded in strengthening the capacity of Nigerian security personnel across all services to be able to respond to national security challenges in all parts of the country. The fact that Nigeria is still faced with the current security challenge arising from activities of terrorists and insurgents, require deeper introspection from citizens. It is true that problems of corruption in Nigeria must be won to ensure that government resources are optimally directed towards resolving national challenges. Reality of corruption should however not continue to serve as excuses for why citizens should not take responsibility. Once, as citizens, Nigerians continue to indulge ourselves with the false notion that government has all the resources, government’s initiative will continue to fall below public expectation, irrespective of partisan choices.
As things are today, only workers in public and private sectors pay taxes. Businesses and private citizens are mostly defaulters. Largely because of endemic culture of default in payment of taxes by citizens, Nigerians have gradually taken over government responsibilities. Instead of paying tax to government and expect government to provide security, Nigerians recruit personal security guards for homes and businesses. With that, Nigerians incurs expenditure multiple of what could have been the value of tax to government. Similarly, instead of paying tax to government to ensure that public schools and hospitals are managed efficiently and effectively, Nigerians patronise private schools and hospitals and pay prohibitive rates far below standard services. Even teachers and health workers are active practitioners in the default culture that pervade the Nigerian tax landscape.
Because of problems of insecurity, farming activities is on the decline. For the last three years, many farm owners have become absentee farmers. For those who have valid Certificate of Occupancy for their farmland are required to pay ground rent to governments to retain ownership of their farmland. For a farmland as small as 10 hectares, ground rent charge per annum may be up to N50,000. Once paid, such money goes into the revenue pool of the government, with hardly any commitment to dedicate any part of it to address the problem of insecurity affecting farming communities. Also because of poor organisation of farmers, but more because most farmlands don’t have valid Certificate of Occupancy issued by governments, nobody is making any demand for waivers of payment of ground rent or any form of reliefs, not even the affected owners of the farmland.
Coupled with challenges created by Covid-19 realities in the last two years, economic activities have been on the decline. Yet, Nigerians want to maintain the same consumption habits. Trade unions continue to demand the same level of wages, if not increased wages, even when production activities are on the decline. Both Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) continue to insist on payment of subsidies on petroleum products even when challenges of mobilising more financial resources to address the problem of insecurity demand that government must restructure its expenditure. NLC, TUC and indeed all Nigerian trade unions believe that it is the sole responsibility of government to mobilise all the needed financial resources. Already, as things are NLC has already issued strike notice to protest any proposal to withdraw subsidy on petroleum products, scheduled for January 27, 2022.
Why is it impossible to recognise the changing nature of our societies, which has created bigger challenges? It is so easy to argue that people are the government but when it comes to taking responsibility to address national challenges, the focus is limited to public officials. Given all the security challenges facing the country, why is it not possible for Nigerians, including NLC and TUC to negotiate that instead of spending estimated N1.8 trillion on petroleum subsidy, the money should be directed to strengthen Nigerian security services. Instead of the so-called proposal of paying monthly allowance of N5,000 to 40 million Nigerians, wouldn’t it have makes more economic sense to use the N2.4 trillion to recruit more police and military personnel?
Imagine NLC, TUC and civil society leaders in Nigeria directing their energy towards negotiating agreement with government to apply financial resources creatively towards addressing national security challenges by recruiting more police and security personnel in the country. Also imagine that details of the negotiations, for instance, cover the recruitment of 500,000 additional police and 250,000 military personnel in the country. Specifically, in the case of conditions of service of police and military personnel, there is the need to place these services on enhance conditions of services to justify the sacrifices they will be required to make, including loss of lives.
How can Nigerian politics be oriented to achieve all these? Politics should be elevated to negotiate these matters. With 2023 elections just about a year away, how are political parties and leaders responding to these challenges? The reality is that, left alone, it will be reduced to partisan choices based on contest of personalities. Nigerians must take steps to ensure that partisan choices come with all important agreements to guarantee the right initiatives from government to address all the national security challenges facing Nigeria. Specifically, the right initiatives should be about combined economic choices which Nigerians must accept to guarantee adequate security of lives and property in the country.
Nigerians must break away from all the fallacies that deceptively guarantee certain levels of consumption habits in the country at the expense of productive activities. Ability of government to succeed in resolving the current national security challenge will be dependent on the capacity of Nigerians to support government to mobilise all the financial resources required to recruit, train, fund and provide arms to all Nigerian security services. How much sacrifices Nigerians at all levels are ready to make will determine how quickly government can succeed?
As a party, APC need to do everything necessary to refocus national debates towards strengthening the initiatives of President Buhari led government to produce the desired outcome of securing the country. Strengthening the capacity of APC led Federal Government to produce the desired outcome, in the short run, is about massive recruitment of police and military personnel in the country, in addition to the investment that has been made towards procurement of arms, including the A-29 Tucano jets. In the long run, it is about providing good conditions of services and sustainable funding framework for the operation of police and security services in the country.
As a party preparing for its National Convention in February 2022, we must appeal to APC leaders to include debate about what needs to be done by all APC government to mobilise the support of Nigerians to bring to an immediate end the current national security challenge in the country. Recommendations that emerge from the Convention should guide the process of reviewing the APC’s manifesto. Unlike other parties, including the PDP, APC must continue to set the needed political agenda to drive the process of mobilising Nigerians for change.
As a party envisioned to be social democratic, in addition to the challenge of insecurity facing the country, the issue of massive mobilisation of financial investment towards the development of education and health sectors in Nigeria must also be debated at the Convention. Having demonstrated political commitment towards infrastructural development in the country, which has led to the revival of rail transportation and reconstruction of road networks in the country, APC must initiate the rebirth of public education and public health in the country through similar massive investment to build new schools and hospitals, rehabilitate old ones, mass recruitment of teachers and provision of teaching materials. These are not issues that can be achieved based on the current budgeting structure in the country at all levels.
As we say goodbye to 2021, therefore, APC leaders must focus the planning for its February National Convention towards mobilising the support of Nigerians to contribute in every way necessary, including making personal sacrifices to create the New Nigeria every citizen desire. The New Nigeria citizens desire will be a product of collective responsibility, shared values and sacrifices and therefore guaranteed security and abundant wealth. Success or failure will be practically about how much sacrifices APC leaders are able to convince Nigerians to make. Once the debate at APC Convention in February is limited to who emerge as leaders of the party without addressing these fundamental issues, the ability of APC to mobilise Nigerians to build a New Nigeria would have been sacrificed. APC leaders have since 2013 demonstrated capacity to mobilise Nigerians based on clear political agreements. The February 2022 National Convention shouldn’t be an exception.
Happy New Year 2022!!!
Salihu Lukman
Plausibility of February 2022 APC Convention:
Open Letter to APC Leaders
Salihu Moh. Lukman
Progressive Governors Forum
Abuja
Ordinarily, there should be no need to be doubtful about whether our party, APC, will be having its convention in February 2022 or not. Recall that after the end of the year 2021 meeting of the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) on Monday, December 20, 2021 and in the APC 2022 New Year Message, both signed by the Secretary, Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe, there was confirmation that planning for the National Convention has commenced. Members and the general public have been put on notice that relevant committees will be setup. The major gap, however, is that no date or details of Committees, their membership and terms of reference, were given.
Largely because of the gap, the public speculation is strong that the Convention may not hold in February. It is quite worrisome that speculations about the Convention are allowed to create strong doubts as to when the Convention will hold. It is very clear that there is a decision about when the Convention will hold. It is public knowledge that following consultations between APC Governors and President Buhari, February was agreed as the date for the Convention. This was announced to State House Media Reporters by His Excellency, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, Chairman, Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) on Monday, November 22, 2021, immediately after a meeting with President Buhari.
The whole issue around whether the Convention will hold in February 2022 was therefore settled. The CECPC under the leadership of His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni is vested with the responsibility of implementing the decisions. Inability to commence the necessary planning to hold the Convention and communicate it to members and all stakeholders, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as required by the law is what is responsible for all the suspicion and speculation that the Convention may not hold in February 2022 as earlier announced.
Speculation about the Convention not holding in February 2022 began to be strong when a letter written by Sen. Orji Uzor Kalu to the APC CECPC Chairman, His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni, dated December 13, 2021, calling for the postponement of the Convention was widely reported in the media. Sen. Kalu was said to have suggested that instead of the February 2022 Convention, ‘a simultaneous event’, combining ‘presidential primary and election of National Working Committee members’ hold ‘on the same day and venue to avoid rancour and litigations.’ This suggestion basically means possible extension of the tenure of the CECPC by another six months.
It is very difficult to understand the logic of such a recommendation. In fact, if anything, going by the recommendation, it means that the CECPC will be saddled with the additional responsibility of organising all party primary for all positions for the 2023 elections. If Anambra 2021 Governorship elections is any reference, the argument about avoiding ‘rancour and litigation’ cannot be sustained given that on December 20, 2021, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja ruled that Sen. Andy Ubah, APC candidate for the Anambra 2021 Governorship election was never a candidate of the APC following a suit filed by one of the aspirants of the APC, Chief George Moghalu who argued that the party failed to conduct a valid primary. In addition to the suit, it is also public knowledge that following the declaration of Sen. Andy Ubah as the candidate of the APC for the Anambra 2021 Governorship election, notable party leaders in Anambra, including Sen. Chris Ngige declared their resentment.
In the end, with the support of the CECPC, Sen. Andy Ubah was the official candidate of the party. Had APC won the Anambra 2021 Governorship election, the December 20, 2021 High Court judgement clearly indicated that another Zamfara would have played out. All these are confirmation that management of internal party contest during party primary are being handled very recklessly even by the CECPC. Unfortunately, since Anambra election no party organ has met to review what has happened. With Ekiti and Osun election primary about to hold and to be managed by the CECPC, there is the urgent need to appeal to all party leaders to learn the appropriate lessons and avoid the crude show of power whereby candidates of the party are imposed without following party and electoral rules.
It is very difficult to excuse the CECPC from the campaign to postpone the February Convention. If the CECPC is not interested in the postponement of the Convention from the agreed February 2022 date, why is it difficult to make formal announcement about the date and venue of the Convention? Statutorily, by the requirement of the Electoral Act, the party is expected to serve at least 21 days’ notice of the Convention to INEC. Which basically means that if the Convention is to hold any day before February 28, 2021, the notice to INEC should be given on or before February 7, 2022. That being the case, the temptation could be to argue that there is more time. Some reminders would be necessary at this point.
First, in June 2020, when the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party dissolved the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole led NWC, one of the expectations was that holding the Convention in December 2020, would have free the party from all the tempestuous atmosphere created around national elections. It would also have provided the needed atmosphere to review issues in the party before the process of selecting candidates for elections. All these would appear to have been forgotten and lost. And for whatever reasons, arguments are now being given about why ‘presidential primary and election of National Working Committee members’ hold ‘on the same day and venue to avoid rancour and litigations.’ Anyone campaigning for ‘presidential primary and election of National Working Committee members’ hold ‘on the same day and venue’ simply want a situation whereby any possible dispute around presidential primary will submerge the emergence of leaders (NWC members) of the party.
This leads to the second ugly scenario being setup by those campaigning for the postponement of the Convention, which is the possibility that all candidates of the party from all the 36 states of the country to be submitted to INEC by the same NWC members whose elections may be disputed would be in jeopardy and subject of litigation. Once that is the case, we would have succeeded in making the 2019 Zamfara electoral disaster a national phenomenon in 2023. Is that what the CECPC members under the leadership of His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni want to subject the party to?
The third issue is that both the CECPC and by extension all leaders of the party should be fair to President Buhari. The President has so far, with very good reasons, endorsed all the prayers of majority party members and leaders. Beginning with the June 25, 2020 dissolution of the Comrade Oshiomhole led NWC, to the extensions of the tenure of the CECPC. Understandably, the President want to ensure that the capacity of the party to manage its internal affairs is strengthened. The need to develop the infrastructure to guarantee participation of members in the process of candidates’ selection required that more time is given for the CECPC to execute membership registration and revalidation exercise. No doubt, the CECPC did a good job in this respect. Unfortunately, the relevant department in the party’s National Secretariat, Organisation, is not able to competently take the process of preserving the membership records of the party to the point whereby party membership are displayed or can be accessed, in any way possible.
The fourth issue is that with the suspension of meetings of organs of the party, notably NEC and National Caucus, capacity of leaders of the party and members to get the CECPC to be accountable and take all the needed guidance from party leaders is weakened. This is partly responsible for the momentary anger by APC representatives in the National Assembly following the conclusion of Wards, Local Governments and States’ Congresses who felt shortchanged allegedly by Governors on account of which they inserted the clause on compulsory Direct Primary on all political parties in the amended Electoral Act. Again, ordinarily, if organs of the party are meeting, especially NEC and National Caucus, aggrieved members would have used the platforms of these organs to contest issues and seek redress. The attempt to impose Direct Primary on all political parties by aggrieved APC representatives in the National Assembly was borne out of desperation to seek redress of perceived act of injustice by the CECPC.
Fifthly, since the suspension of meetings of organs of the party, internal debate in APC is very low. A lot of things are happening in many states with grave consequences to the electoral fortunes of the party. To be far to His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni and the CECPC, within their limited capacities, they have taken some initiatives. The reality, however, is that without superior decisions of organs of the party, in particular NEC and National Caucus, many leaders of the party in states have acted or are acting almost disrespectfully to the CECPC and Hs Excellency, Mai Mala Buni. A typical example is the raging war of attrition going on in Imo State. Apart from the war of attrition going on in Imo State, the broader question of uniting leaders of the party in all states ahead of the 2023 election is proving to be very impossible.
It is very clear that since 2013, when APC emerged, its electoral strength is derived from the unity of party leaders. This is being eroded systematically since the 2015 election. It became worse with the scandalous management of party affairs under the Comrade Oshiomhole led NWC. With the emergence of the CECPC in June 2020, His Excellency Mai Mala has done an excellent job by bringing down tension within the party. Sadly, all the good work of the CECPC under His Excellency Mai Mala is about to be destroyed once it yields to the temptation of staying longer than February 2022.
At this point, His Excellency, Mai Mala, party leaders and indeed all members of the party need to be reminded that the one most important political legacy, which we must all support President Buhari to bequeath to the nation is a functional, responsive and representative party. At the moment, no registered political party in the country is functionally responsive and representative. The truth is that all parties function only as platforms for election. The APC is about the only party that has been going through internal contests to make it functionally responsive and representative. It is a very hard internal struggle, which must be sustained and won to justify the confidence of Nigerian electorates since 2015.
APC was produced out sacrifice by leaders and members of all the legacy parties that merged in 2013. Both the merger process and the process of contesting the 2015 and 2019 elections made leaders of the party to undertake objective review of national challenges especially since 1999. Very honest debates, which aggregates the expectations of Nigerians took place within the party, which endeared both the party and its candidates for elections to Nigerians. This was the foundation laid for both the 2015 and 2019 electoral victories.
It will be foolhardy to expect that the popularity of the APC will be sustained in 2023 without undertaking similar objective reviews. It would be such objective reviews that would assist the party to renegotiate and retain the support of Nigerians. Also recall that it was the process of reviewing challenges that enabled President Buhari to develop the policy priorities of APC led Federal Government since 2015. And to be fair to the President, he has been very faithful to all the agreed priorities despite all the slanderously sectional campaigns promoted by the opposition against his person, his government and the APC. The President has provided leadership to the party and the nation in a very trying time. Notwithstanding all the odds, he is able to reinvent governance and prove that there can be strong correlation between politics and physical development of the country, which was lost under the sixteen years of PDP.
In all these, the President has maintained a very dignified honesty by always recognising and accepting challenges, notwithstanding many of the landmark achievements of the administration. The issue of insecurity, especially in the last two years, is one issue that every party leader must be very concern. There are many false narratives out in the public domain which only a process of comprehensive review will strengthen the capacity of the party to combat opposition propaganda that the current challenge of insecurity is a confirmation that President Buhari and APC have failed. Sadly, people who have shared money meant for the procurement of arms to fight insurgency in the country in 2014 are today parading themselves ahead of 2023 elections as the saviours of the nation.
APC leaders must wake up to the responsibility of providing the needed political leadership to the country. We must remind APC leaders that the process of setting the right agenda to drive governance in the country post 2023 must begin with strong internal debates within the party. No one should imagine that agendas set in 2014 or 2019 are sufficient to respond to contemporary challenges, which post 2023 governance will be expected to respond to. If anything, it may also be important to emphasise the fact that to respond to contemporary challenges facing the country would require massive investment in human capital development in the country. This will call for a deliberate and aggressive policy to mobilise large scale public investment to rebuild public schools at all levels. The correlation between collapse of education since the mid 1980s, rising levels of unemployment and insecurity are very glaring. As a party, we must come up with practically convincing answers, which should form the basis of public support by Nigerians to guarantee victory in 2023 elections.
The burden of responsibility to strengthen the capacity of the APC to put itself on a vantage position to commence internal negotiation around all these issues is on the CECPC, especially, the Chairman, His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni. Inability to discharge this responsibility or avoid it by toying the path of a deceptive campaign for postponement of Convention can only spell doom for the APC and return Nigeria to the hands of those who laid the foundation for all the challenges facing the country.
By way of an appeal to APC leaders, as much as the question of who emerge as the candidate of the party is very important, it is not only who emerge as a candidate of the party that can win the election. But how united are party leaders behind the candidate will be a more determining factor. President Buhari, with all his mass support in the Northern part of the country, may not have won the election in 2015 without the unity of all APC leaders from every part of the country. All APC leaders must be reminded that, there is no one political leader in the country that enjoy convincing mass support of any region of the country.
Therefore, the process of internal debates within the APC to enhance the confidence of party leaders from every part of the country and by extension Nigerians to support any potential candidate of the party should be oriented around agreement on what needs to be done to address national challenges. In fact, ability of the party to manage internal party contest for the emergence of Presidential candidate for instance, will be dependent on the kind of confidence that would have emerged among party leaders during internal debates. Party leaders and all members should try to see the bigger picture and work for stronger internal unity within the APC. The only reason why some leaders, perhaps including the members of CECPC, are attracted to campaign for postponement for the Convention is the deceptive belief that any candidate who emerged, whether elected or imposed on the party can win the 2023 elections. This is a big lie!
Finally, we must also appeal to the CECPC to ensure that the February 2022 Convention is not just about electing NWC members. There must be some reflections about the challenges facing the country, with priority focus on problems of insecurity, rebuilding public education and health through mosilisation of massive financial investment in these sectors. As part of the review of public education and health, consequences of avoidable strikes actions and how to bring an end to what has become clearly destructive to these sectors must be considered. Conclusions and recommendations from the Convention should guide the review process of the party’s manifesto and bring out some of the campaign agenda of the APC for the 2023 campaigns.
Ayisha Osori
Salihu Lukman
February APC National Convention Require no Consultation
Salihu Moh. Lukman
Progressive Governors Forum
Abuja
In the afternoon of Tuesday, January 12, 2022, there were media reports attributed to sources close to the APC Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) claiming that the APC National Convention is postponed from February to June 2022. Shortly following the news of the alleged postponement, the Secretary of the CECPC, Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe issued a statement of rebuttal, calling on the general public to ‘completely disregard fake news on the reported suspension of the planned National Convention’. The statement further informed the public that the CECPC ‘is already embarking on consultations with party stakeholders to prepare the ground for a rancour-free National Convention.’ Sadly, the statement, like previous ones from the CECPC didn’t announce any date and venue for the National Convention. Very disappointingly, the statement said ‘sub-committee on budgeting and other substructures will be set up in due course.’
This is a slap on the face of Nigerians and an insult on party members. How can a statement from ‘a focus-driven, process-oriented political party’, make such a scandalous statement allegedly assuring that a Convention scheduled to hold in February without indicating a date and venue for the Convention? If subcommittees, whether for budget or anything are to be set up, to perhaps mobilise funds for the Convention, why are they not set up with just about two weeks to the end of January?
Somehow, it is difficult not to conclude that the CECPC is intentionally promoting speculations around the APC National Convention by claiming to embark on ‘consultations with party stakeholders to prepare the ground for a rancour-free National Convention.’ Recall that on November 22, 2021, the Chairman of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), His Excellency Abubakar Atiku Bagudu led a delegation, which include the CECPC Chairman, His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni, to President Muhammadu Buhari to finalise consultations on the date of the Convention. Immediately after the meeting with President Buhari, His Excellency Bagudu announced the agreement reached with President Buhari to the effect that the Convention will hold in February 2022.
With such an agreement, the responsibility of the CECPC is to go ahead and start organising the Convention. With almost two months after, the CECPC has not issued any notice of the Convention to anyone. Not even the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which by the provision of the Electoral Act as amended is required to be given at least 21 days’ notice. It is very difficult not to conclude that both the Chairman and all members of the CECPC have no respect for President Buhari, which is responsible for why they are doing everything possible to sabotage decisions validly taken to hold the APC National Convention in February after consultation with the President.
For whatever reasons, it would appear that the leadership of CECPC are enjoying all the public speculations maligning Governors and some other senior leaders of the party as working to stop the APC National Convention from holding in February 2022. This is most unfortunate. The truth must be told, the responsibility of organising the February 2022 APC National Convention rests squarely with the CECPC. At this point, it will be necessary to remind all members of the CECPC and by extension all leaders of APC that part of the reasons that made it very necessary to dissolve the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole led National Working Committee (NWC) was the disrespect for leaders and members of the party, especially by Comrade Oshiomhole, the former National Chairman of the party. It was on record that during the tenure of Comrade Oshiomhole as National Chairman, the recommendations of party leaders and members were hardly considered.
The CECPC leadership have returned the party back to mode of open disrespect for any recommendation given. It is even worse now given that the CECPC is ready to sacrifice the future of the party. Clearly, what is steering us in the face is that all the bad leadership records under Comrade Oshiomhole led NWC is about to be met and outstripped by the present CECPC. This clearly raises question about political leadership recruitment approaches in the country. Unless this is addressed, as a party, APC may continue to change leaders, but the problem will remain. APC, being a party envisioned to facilitate the process of political change in Nigeria, must appropriately use the present challenges to begin to introduce changes to the process of political leadership recruitment in Nigeria.
However, the first challenge now is to ensure that the CECPC has no option but to organise the APC National Convention in February 2022 as decided based on all the consultations that has taken place. The CECPC must be told that all consultations about organising the Convention ended with the meeting with President Buhari on November 22, 2021 and therefore the CECPC leadership should stop lying to Nigerians and APC members. The CECPC should also stop claiming that it is waiting for the meeting of Progressive Governors before it takes all the necessary decisions to commence the process of organising the Convention. Such a claim is not only dishonest but also taking the support of Progressive Governors for granted, which is why Progressive Governors have been reduced to punching bags of all party members regarding all the challenges facing the party.
Progressive Governors, like all party members will not associate themselves with any act of disrespect to decisions validly taken in consultations with President Buhari. They will not take the responsibility of actions or inactions of the CECPC. Every responsibility of organising the Convention is vested with the CECPC. Therefore, in the event that the CECPC is unable to implement the decision to hold the Convention in February 2022, as decided, the leadership of the CECPC should honourably resign to save the APC, its leaders (including Progressive Governors) and members from the current spate of avoidable public embarrassment, simply because the leadership of the CECPC have decided to disrespect the decision to hold the APC National Convention in February.
At this point, we must appeal to all APC leaders to take the issue of leadership recruitment beyond the question of loyalty. Given that already, 2023 electoral atmosphere is gradually setting, the temptation that choices of leaders of the party will be based on permutation for 2023 will be very significant. Once that is the case, the probability will be high that the soul of APC will be sacrificed in the process of assembling new leaders. Party leaders need to adopt some minimum guiding principles to determine the qualification of potential party leaders especially the National Chairman. Some of the recommendations include:
- Any potential candidate must have good relations will party leaders at national level, especially President Buhari.
- The candidate must also have good relations with all party leaders in his/her state, including the Governor, where there is an APC government.
- It should be a strong advantage when the aspiring person has played any role during the merger negotiation that produced APC and has been consistent in the party since 2013. This means such a parson would have the needed institutional memory to recognise and respect sacrifices made by party leaders and members to make the merger that produce the APC successful.
- It should be a strong disadvantage when any aspiring candidate has records of defection from the party or any of the legacy parties that merged to form the APC.
- Finally, public service experience will not only be an advantage but a measure of determining the democratic credentials of the candidate. Any candidate with public service experience at whatever level without incontestable records of achievements, such a person can not inspire any party member and by extension Nigerians into believing that his/her leadership can bring any good electoral fortune for the party.
Without any fear of contradiction, ideally, APC should have been the pride of Nigerian democracy given that it is the only party in the political history of Nigeria that successfully go through political merger negotiations and produced a new party. It is also the only opposition party in the history of Nigeria that defeated a ruling party in 2015. Unfortunately, reckless party leadership is diminishing all these excellent political credentials. APC leaders must wake up to the responsibility of resolving the leadership challenges facing the party. Part of what is required at this point is to commence leadership engagement towards consensus building on a number of these issues and assess all the so-called aspirants. Where necessary, APC leaders may wish to stretch the search for a National Chairman beyond current aspirants.
APC need a National Chairman who is humble, with very good relations and respect among both party leaders and members. Steps must be taken to ensure that APC National Chairman and other members of the NWC do not reduce themselves into extorting parting leaders, especially aspiring candidates. APC leaders must take every step to avoid vesting the responsibility of the National Chairman of the party on another ‘emperor’ who will end up conducting affairs of the party with absolute disrespect and contempt for decisions taken. APC need a National Chairman who can provide every level playing field for the internal party electoral contest for 2023. Any new National Chairman of APC who can lead the party to electoral victory in 2023 must not be a surrogate to any aspirant for 2023 Presidential contest. Similarly, such a person must be ready to control other members of the NWC from demonstrating bias in favour of any candidate for 2023 Presidential contest within the party.
Being a humble National Chairman, such a person must be ready to subordinate himself/herself to party leaders at local levels. A situation whereby as National Chairman, the person become overbearing to leaders at state level must not be acceptable. There should not be any debate or contest about who should exercise leadership at state level. The model should be what exists between President Buhari and leaders of the party in Katsina State. It is a known fact that President Buhari doesn’t interfere with activities of the party in Katsina State based on which party leaders in Katsina State are able to take every decision on party matters. However, the National Chairman and party leaders at state level should be encouraged to develop structured processes of consultations to ensure that the political interest of the National Chairman is protected in the state. Similarly, the National Chairman must also accept to protect the political interest of other leaders from the state, especially any serving Governor of his home state.
Beyond the National Chairman, APC leaders must also take every necessary step to elect very competent Deputy National Chairmen (North and South). It is important that the two Deputy National Chairmen to be elected are people with integrity. In addition to Deputy National Chairmen, positions of National Secretary, National Legal Adviser, National Organising Secretary and National Publicity Secretary must be head hunted. Individuals with good records of public service, very competent and committed to the party should be identified based on which the positions are zoned to states where they come from. The approach to blind zoning and trusting the judgement of party leaders to produce candidates who would occupy these offices will only produce cronies with hardly any consideration about their competence. If any of these offices are to be zoned to any state, it must be based on clear identification of particular party leaders from the state.
The more the party continue to allow the leadership of the CECPC to continue to hold everyone captive and refuse to commence the process of organising the February APC National Convention, the more party leaders would have supported the CECPC in weakening the electoral prospect of the APC. Largely on account of delaying the implementation of decision to organise the February APC National Convention, there is hardly any internal party preparation for the 2023 electoral contest beyond individual leaders declaring their personal aspirations for offices. Without any prejudice to the aspirations of leaders, it is important that the party is able to set some minimum standards for the 2023 campaigns so that individual aspirants can orient their internal party mobilisation around those minimum standards. APC must not make the mistake of orientating its internal party mobilisation for the emergence of candidates for 2023 elections, especially Presidential Candidate only based on personality contest.
Personality contest will only weaken the APC and undermine the capacity of the party to link its 2023 electoral contest with the achievements of the party, especially the Federal Government led by President Buhari. Once that is the case, the party will be strengthening the false opposition narrative about the failure of APC and President Buhari. If APC want to unassailably win the 2023 elections, it must take all the necessary steps to correct this false narrative. This can only start happening if everyone, APC leaders and members, rise to the challenge of ensuring that the CECPC faithfully implement the decision to organise the APC National Convention in February 2022. A major indicator for this would also include a review of the APC manifesto at the Convention.
Unless the CECPC has given itself the new responsibility of being the political and electoral undertaker of the APC, it must stop promoting some subversive campaigns suggesting that it is undertaking ‘the immediate task of addressing contestations within the Party, litigations, fallouts of recently conducted Congresses and generally reposition the Party ahead of the National Convention.’ Once this is the case, it simply means the CECPC’s new objective is probably to take APC to its political grave. This should not be acceptable!