For a resilient and disciplined political party system

The dysfunctional state of the country’s political party system is worrisome and unacceptable.

Equally of great concern is the propensity for opposition parties to slip into coma and disarray once they lose an election and fail to form government, becoming weak, rudderless and unable to project alternate policy options to those offered by the government of the day. Multi-party democracy thrives when there are contending ideas and alternate viewpoints, which political parties articulate and propagate as part of their ideology and beliefs.

Discerning Nigerians are particularly dissatisfied with the perennial commotion in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the oldest and most dominant political party in this fourth Republic, that has governed the country for 16 years. The other two parties registered alongside PDP in 1988, the All Peoples Party (APP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) are now defunct.

Once the PDP lost power in 2015, it refused to climb out of the abyss of defeat to provide formidable opposition, as is the manner with resilient political party systems in other jurisdictions. For instance, the African National Congress (ANC), the number one South African political party and Black nationalist organisation was founded in 1912. The ANC suffered nearly a century-old repression at the hands of the old apartheid regime. It was banned in 1960 and it was not until 1990 that the ban was lifted; but the ANC did not abandon its ideology, which was to demand and ensure voting rights for Black Africans and coloured persons.

The Nigerian political parties, and indeed other parties in Africa need similar resilience and principled disposition. The ANC stood for something noble and refused to exchange it for fleeting lucre or positions in the oppressive regime. Scholars and political scientists postulate that the party system in Nigeria lacks gravitas because they are not grounded in any notable ideology. They mainly operate as vehicles to contest elections, form government and pillage resources they ought to deploy to solve the poverty and misery in the land.

But Nigerians must remind themselves, that once upon a time, the party system in the country was ideologically inclined, with a default leaning towards the welfare of the people. For instance, the Action Group (AG), in the late 1950s and early 1960s adopted democratic socialism as the official ideology and opted for federalism as the better form of government. The party defended the welfare state and pursued the agenda to mitigate poverty, ignorance and disease. The AG gave free education to the people of the Western Region and the result was an enthusiastic leap in many school-going children.

The National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) was equally progressive and welfarist in outlook, though more nationalistic in posture. The political parties in the first Republic were arguably focused on how to alleviate the people’s ignorance and lowly state. Even after they were proscribed in 1966 due to political unrest and the civil war, they were rebranded in the Second Republic, largely retaining their welfarist philosophy.  Even the conservative National Party of Nigeria (NPN), in 1979, proposed the Green Revolution as a credo upon which it sought to return the country to the agrarian success it enjoyed before independence and in the first Republic.

Admittedly, the parties in the First and Second Republics were not perfect, but they exuded the ability to organise and maintain discipline along the value chains. In those days, party supremacy was a gospel well understood and acknowledged by members. The leadership commanded respect and the rules were obeyed. Current political parties should return to the drawing board to articulate practicable ideologies that relate to the needs of the people. We advocate manifestoes that encourage people’s welfare and revolve around the immediate and long-term needs of the people, economically and otherwise.

Regarding party discipline, the way and manner today’s political parties are mismanaged and exploited is greatly distressing. Cheaply and rather disgustingly, supposed national leaders of the PDP jump in and out of courts to procure ex parte rulings to assist them set aside the Constitution of the party. Whereas the Constitution is very clear on what happens when a national chairman vacates that position, those entrusted with interim management chairmanship status now smartly claim to have substantive capacity. Certainly, there are camps whose factional indiscretions are weakening the party. This is detestable.

Instead of acting as a strong opposition, the PDP is divided and unable to coherently act on behalf of the six million voters who sided with it in the 2023 presidential election. It is also shameful that the party is unable to nip in the bud the dispute in its Rivers State Chapter, where one of its 13 governors, Governor Siminalayi Fubara, is struggling to hold the reins of power. This abnormality is traceable to the failure of the party to put its house in order before the last general elections when it surrendered the primary process of electing and presenting candidates to the whims of one man, former governor Nyesom Wike. Wike has since confessed that he alone selected and processed candidates for the elections, including that of governorship, state Assembly and National Assembly. For that, he demands to keep the structure of the party in the state, after leaving office and becoming a minister in the government of an opposition party. That is absurd.

Political parties are not to be administered as private property of an individual. It is an aberration; and the PDP should wake up and put its house in order.  The country needs strong parties to recruit members and articulate ideas and interests on behalf of the people. Parties are constitutionally empowered as political entities to mobilise and campaign for good governance, without which democracy will be imperilled.

There should be a return to the buoyancy, vibrancy and critical thinking that was the tradition of political parties in the 60s. Parties shape the democratic process and governance output of any country, through representation, education and policy formulation. To do that, parties must exercise moral authority to correct, reprimand and enforce discipline. Present-day parties in the country seem to have surrendered that moral authority to individuals, particularly governors who misappropriate state resources to subvert party supremacy and authority.

All the parties, including the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Labour Party (LP) should embrace better management and discipline. They are not any better than the PDP in poor organisation and disorderliness. If politicians want democracy to survive, they must all return to the rule book, discipline and organisation.