Critical stakeholders in the political arena have argued that the absence of reliable party membership registers negatively impacts the selection of leaders in the country and the overall governance process, alleging that parties are now mercantile entities for profit making, ADAMU ABUH writes.

Critical stakeholders in the political terrain have blamed the absence of a credible membership register by the entire 18 political parties in the country for the poor leadership recruitment process and bad governance in the polity.

The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), the Conference for United Political Parties (CUPP) and the immediate past chairman of the Inter Parliamentary Council (IPAC), Yusuf Yabagi Sani, argued that the situation is responsible for the inability of party members to actively participate and contribute to shaping political discourse and policies at the local council, state and national levels.

They contended that the ugly trend has denied political parties a strong membership base, which would have translated into financial resources through membership fees, thereby bolstering the operational capabilities and outreach efforts of the parties and decision-making processes.

In a chat with The Guardian, Sani blamed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the situation, arguing that the menace of godfatherism and imposition of candidates, which throws up misfits to occupy various positions of governance, would have been averted if Nigerians play active roles in the affairs of political parties.

Sani, who is also the National Chairman of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), noted that the situation is unfortunate, wondering why the INEC was indifferent about it.

He said: “It’s already part of INEC responsibility. But what are the consequences? Does it prescribe any punishment? INEC cannot disqualify anybody. It is the court that can disqualify candidates. And if you go to our courts unfortunately, it is all about cash and carry. It’s cash, cash and cash everywhere. If we can solve poverty and corruption in the land we will get there. The only way is when we get responsible leaders.

“It is the stage of our development as far as political party management is concerned and it’s not unconnected with the fact that members are hardly loyal to the party. They only care about political parties when they want to contest for election. Somebody can be a member today or this afternoon and by evening, he will tell you that he has moved to another party.

“Aside from that, the bulk of members of parties don’t pay membership dues. They tell you they don’t have money. Some of them cannot even afford to pay the membership fee, which is not more than N1000 due to the high level of poverty, ignorance and nonchalant attitude of the political parties.”

Continuing, he added: “It is the reason we have godfatherism because the members of political parties, as I said, either are economically disadvantaged or ignorant of their rights or they don’t just care and have no allegiance to the party. They are just members of the party in name. In fact, if you ask some of them they would ask which party; is it the one we used during the election?

“It affects the leadership recruitment process. Of course, it does because it has been commercialised at even the party organisation itself, which is not supposed to be so. In our clime, money talks not credibility; not reputation; and after money, primordial sentiments.”

The TMG led by Malam Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, while decrying the development, remarked that political parties in Nigeria are not meeting global standards.

He argued that current political parties in Nigeria are simply vehicles for capturing power and more or less business enterprises where moneybags invest their money to make profit in return.

He noted: “It is not about issue based politics and responding to the yearning of the people. The Nigerian political system doesn’t really care about grassroots membership. What the current political leadership are concerned about is that during election and campaign, they come and mobilise people irrespective of whether they are their members or not.

“All they do is to rent a crowd and unleash violence on the people for political purposes. During elections, they are not talking about people voting for them on the basis of merit and integrity. It is money that they use to get into power in many instances after humiliating voters by giving them peanuts, and using security agents and judiciary to get what they want.

“So, the issue of accountability does not even arise. At the national level it is whatever the president wants that will happen. At the state level it is what the governor wants that happens. No capacity to checkmate them on the basis of quality membership. So, this is why political parties in Nigeria are platforms for mercantilism. It’s not about social and political engineering and addressing problems.

“The consequences of what we have are full blown privatisation and commercialisation of governance. You don’t expect any transparent and accountable leadership because people feel that they have used their resources to get in there. That is why even when there is a constituency project it is the person who claims to be representing the people that decides the projects he wants.

“You can’t call those who govern us to order because they did not emerge from a system that is based on membership approval. This is why the political parties in Nigeria are unable to live up to the expectations of Nigerians. You can see that during the nationwide protests even the opposition political parties that should have challenged the government over some of the issues that led to the protest didn’t do so. Instead, they were comfortable with the situation in the country except for a few individuals who stood out.

“Another consequence is there would be disillusionment in democratic rule. There would be a total misunderstanding of what governance is all about. Again, it would have undermined the leadership recruitment process because political parties are supposed to be platforms for leadership recruitment.

“The absence of a robust political system creates indiscipline among those who claim to be members of that party. Even at the level of the legislature, despite the number of political parties you have up there, you discover that they are almost the same people, the same perspective. They are the same character. Politicians talk about parties during elections.

“You can see even in the ruling parties, there are no regular meetings because everything revolves around strong individuals. It is all about how much money you have to throw around. Political parties unfortunately have been totally misrepresented in the Nigerian contest.”

On its part, the Conference for United Political Parties (CUPP) noted that the inability of political parties in Nigeria to develop credible membership registers reflects the low level of democratic evolution in Nigeria.

CUPP’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Peter Ameh, acknowledged that the development has had significant implications for party politics and leadership recruitment in Nigeria.

He argued that given the centrality of political parties to the democratic process, the lack of party membership registers speaks to the fundamental weakness of political parties in Nigeria as agents for mobilising political participation by the general citizenry.

Ameh stated that the trend is reflective of a profound deficiency on the part of political parties to function as agents for galvanising the general citizenry around ideologies, visions, perspectives and programmatic thrusts for societal progress and development.

He noted that the absence of credible membership registers is the major factor contributing to the high attrition rate of political parties.

Ameh, who is a former national chairman of IPAC, remarked that this explains the lack of differentiation among Nigeria’s political parties and the promiscuity of the political actors in the country.

He added: “Lack of reliable membership registers frustrate the institutionalisation of political party formations since it is enduring membership that will enable definition and sustenance of party goals and objectives, values and tenets, culture and practices.

“Leadership selection then becomes the process of sifting and sorting party members on the basis of their internalisation, embodiment or otherwise of all the above. Without credible/documented membership, a party can neither evolve cultural values nor summon the personnel who will attain leadership through exemplification of such.”

However, IPAC chairman, Alh. Yusuf Dantalle, disagreed with the notion that political parties in the country don’t have membership registers.

Dantalle, who is the National Chairman of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), argued that the fact that one political party or the other does not have a membership register does not mean that all political parties are guilty of the infraction.

“If you go to INEC today and you request the membership registers of political parties, you will get it. Don’t forget that membership of political parties is not static. You see people moving from one party to another. And that of course would affect the statistics. The fact that parties are updating their registers does not mean they don’t have it.

“My party has a membership register and if you go to INEC they will make it available to you. INEC intermittently requests for the register of parties and we make it available to them. The issue of whether the numbers are inflated or not inflated is the business of that political party. But parties maintain membership registers and it is a statutory condition,” he argued.

Recall that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which some time ago claimed to have a membership strength of over 40 million, had acknowledged discrepancies in this figure, with some admitting that the actual membership may be closer to 10 million.

The admission by the Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the party came after the party garnered less than 10 million votes in the 2023 presidential election won by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, thereby raising questions about its membership claims.

As a face saving measure, the APC is currently undergoing an electronic registration process to accurately capture its membership data.

The exact membership strength of the Labour Party (LP), which gave the APC a good run for its money in the 2023 polls, is unknown in spite of emerging as a strong third force in Nigerian politics.

The current total membership strength of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) equally remains unknown due to the fluid nature of the defection and return of people in its fold since the return to democratic rule in 1999.