Mercifully, the poster and billboard war is over. Some funny faces of unknown political quantities would no longer stare at us from posters and billboards, at least for the next four years. We will enjoy some temporary relief from the politics of the dumb in the land of the politically deaf. Ours is the only country in the world where the billboard is the acknowledged instrument for political leadership recruitment process. Don’t puke.
The state governors are the most powerful group of politicians in our country today. They decide what does or does not happen in our national politics. They alone decide the fate of everyone who nurses a political ambition at any level. As you can see, they have spoken through the farcical party primaries that enlarged the pimples on the pork-marked face of our democracy – and left the world wondering where our democracy is actually headed. Not to worry. Concern of the rest of the world is a minor problem.
With their enormous and unchallengeable power, the state governors handpicked their anointed successors and simply told us who they are. And thanks to them, some powerful legislators in the national and state assemblies are soon to add the dreaded prefix, former or ex– to their illustrious names. As anyone with some iota of political nous can see, the 2015 general elections have already been won and lost. Congratulating the anointed men is in order, as indeed, some persons and groups of persons are already doing by addressing the nominees are their excellencies in colourful congratulatory messages in the newspapers. Their soon-to-be former excellencies are already celebrating with their next prefix: distinguished senators. Ah, yeye dey smell.
Something sticks in the maw. The conduct of the party primaries has once again thrown up a) the lack of internal democracy in the political parties b) the cynical narrowing of the democratic space and c) the incipient emergence of political dynasties. The levers of political power will now be kept in the hands of a few to the detriment of the many.
These, to my mind, are serious issues that need to be tackled if we are to have and enjoy the fruits of true democracy – the only form of government built on pluralism and the right of the individual to aspire to a political office of his choice without let or hindrance. In our own case, there is let and there is hindrance. Party moguls also known as godfathers or stakeholders or elders have assumed the right to decide everyone’s political fate. This is nothing new. What is new is that it is getting progressively worse. It makes for instability in the system. I am sure that if we had listened to the then vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, as far back as 2003, when he repeatedly decried the lack of internal democracy in his then political party, PDP, we could have arrested the inevitable slide. I do not think it requires rocket science to appreciate the simple fact that if the political parties have problems with managing their internal democracy, they would inevitably have greater problems trying to build and nurture democracy in the larger national context.
The narrowing of the democratic space is a direct consequence of the lack of internal democracy in the political parties. The power given to or assumed by state governors to anoint their successors is clearly anathema to the tenets of democracy. It should not be the prerogative of state governors to anoint their successors. It should be their primary duty to ensure a level playing field so that the poor and the rich can slug it out in an atmosphere that promotes mutual trust and confidence in the system. This is the process that builds the integrity of elections. If the process is flawed it follows as the night the day that the election itself will lack integrity and legitimacy, whatever election observers, local or foreign might say.
It is hardly surprising that given the situation in which our country finds itself, the emergence of political dynasties is creeping up on us as a fact of our national political life. State governors anoint their close relations to succeed them. What this means, in effect, is that once a man grabs the levers of power, he will not let go. He keeps it in the immediate family or the extended family. Perhaps, this is not a bad thing. It makes for an easier blame game. In truth, it makes for instability in the system. It makes the struggle for power a do or die affair.
I admit that the right of the individual to change political parties is a given. However, as far as I can see, the exercise of that right is forced on our politicians. They move from one political party to another, not in search of ideological soul mates but in search of some space in which they expect to realise their political ambition. The constant toing and froing destroys politics of conviction.
This forced movement of people in search of a political foothold has characterized our national politics. To take two instances after the generals were done with their corrective regimes. We had five registered political parties in 1979. Each of them controlled at the least two states and had representatives in the national assembly. By the 1983 general elections, the pragmatic politics of the stomach and rosy cheeks had made nonsense of the political pluralism fostered by this great political space at the disposal of the politically ambitious.
In 1999, at least four national political parties provided more people the chance to test their popularity in the political market place. Four years later, our democratic political space was narrowed by the squeeze the PDP, as the NPN before it, put on the other political parties. I have had occasion to point out elsewhere that the relentless drive by the PDP leaders to foist a one-party state on the country is the surest path to the enthronement of mediocre politics, mediocre leadership and a political space so narrow that the enslavement of the many by the few with their fingers on the levers of power is fully guaranteed.
It makes my old stomach churn.
