By Tonnie Iredia

Nigerians went to the polls yesterday to elect a new president for their country. 18 political parties got the green light to sponsor candidates for the elections. Prior to 2002, Nigeria had only 3 officially recognized parties, namely: Peoples Democratic party (PDP), Alliance for Democracy AD and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).  One of the achievements recorded by the legendary Gani Fawehinmi was his legal victory against the attempt to restrict political associations from becoming political parties. Gani’s victory moved the number of parties to 30 but his liberal tendencies have since been exploited by several clowns and adventurers who establish political parties for material gains.Nigeria certainly does not need the type of 18 political parties of today which feature unserious individuals who only wish to be described as presidential candidates.

Indeed, members and party officials pose greater problems than their leaders. Quite often, the parties break into factions with different groups adopting the presidential candidates of the more viable parties. In 2019, a faction of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and that of the Allied Congress party of Nigeria (ACPN) endorsed President Buhari of the APC as their presidential candidate. With Buhari as the incumbent president, many saw the behaviour of both the ACPN and the SDP as materialistic.

Some accused them of having been out rightly bribed or promised to be appointed into offices once the president was reappointed. It would have been differently perceived if the politicians concerned had much earlier defected to the APC instead of adopting the last minute posture of political buccaneers.

Four years later, the SDP led again in adopting candidates of other parties. Interestingly, any person who watched this season’s political debates and town hall meetings would have highly rated the current SDP candidate Adewole Adebayo.

The man spoke well wherever he went, showing clearly that he had a clear mission to take Nigeria to greater heights if elected. Using a court case on the legitimacy of the party’s constitution and leadership as an excuse, the party abandoned him. The implication of this is that there are people in certain parties such as the SDP that are mere opportunists hanging around to the last minute before moving away from all the ideals they had sold all through the electioneering campaigns. The drama this time is that while one faction of the SDP endorsed the APC candidate, Bola Tinubu, another faction refuted it and affirmed that the party had a deal with only the Labour Party.   

Evidence that money is at the heart of Nigeria’s political confusion is aptly provided by the Labour Party itself. On the eve of the 2023 general elections, the Gombe State chairman of the party who serves as the coordinating chair of the party’s chairmen for the 36 states, Sani Abdulsalam issued a 12-hour ultimatum for the party to address alleged marginalization of its executives nation-wide. In short, state chairmen who should serve as owners of the party were the ones lamenting the alleged refusal of the party to release funds to them to run elections.

At what level are funds generated and where are they kept? Are there no funds generated at state level? If so, what value do the state chairmen add to the party? A second allegation credited to the coordinator that the national leadership of the party prefers Obi’s support groups to them seems to speak volumes on value addition. Could it be that the party leadership decided to discourage those who think that a political party is a platform for appropriating money?

Incidentally, many politicians have always had such a materialistic mind-set making it almost impossible for any party without money-bags to survive.   In 2019, the main grouse of the members of the ACPN was that their candidate, Oby Ezekwesili who later withdrew from the race did not account for all the monies belonging to the party. But why was the party’s fund allegedly in the possession of the presidential candidate and not the treasurer? 

Could it be that the candidate was the sole financier or sole marketer of the party while all the members were waiting on her for manna? Those opposed to her withdrawal explained that her interest in their party was to use it as a platform to bargain for the position of Finance Minister. What the controversies confirm is that mutual distrust and suspicion reign high in Nigeria’s small parties where personal interest is pivotal. If so, do we need such small-minded politicians?

Against this background it is easy to comprehend the adoption of candidates of major political parties by members of smaller parties. At the last count, 10 political parties were said to have endorsed the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The parties reportedly arrived at the resolution at a meeting held in Ikeja a few days before voting in this year’s election. Speaking on behalf of the parties concerned, Temilola Akinade, the chairperson of the National Resistance Movement, (NRM) said the parties endorsed Tinubu because they found him to be “the most competent among the contestants.”

Other persuasive attributes of the APC candidate listed by Akinade included his belief in true federalism, equity and justice as well as state police. Apart from the fact that almost all the 18 candidates preached same sermon during the campaigns, it is curious that the 10 parties that endorsed Tinubu learnt of his attributes only some 48hours before voting.

It appears that it was the same attributes that influenced 5 other parties that endorsed Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The parties are Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Action Alliance (AA), African Democratic Congress (ADC), Action Peoples party (APP) and National Rescue Movement (NRM). The parties made their decision public at the PDP presidential rally in Yola. Yusuf Dantalle, national chairman of the APM who spoke on behalf of others said they all wanted to stand behind Atiku because it was time to unite, reconcile, heal and secure Nigerians.

Dantalle also said that while the five parties would collapse their structures to work for Atiku, their members were at liberty to vote for governors and legislators of their choice. This sounded strange because Atiku and all PDP candidates ought to have the same manifesto articulated by the party. What restricted the faith of the endorsers to only the presidential candidate and not the entire party?

In Abuja, Mani Ibrahim, chairman of the Board of trustees of the Action Democratic Congress announced the decision of his party to endorse Peter Obi as its presidential candidate. As if to show that the decision was unanimous, Mani claimed that it had the blessing of the National Executive Council, the National Working Committee, the Diaspora Network, and the National Youth Council.

He called it a star alliance which consulted with former President Olusegun Obasanjo before making an informed decision. It is difficult to differentiate this endorsement from others because of its timing just as it confirms that many of our political parties are too fragile to serve as stand-alone entities. They lack cohesion and a unity of direction to offer leadership- a good example being the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) which all through, had 2 presidential candidates, Peter Umeadi and Chekwas Okorie.

But perhaps the endorsement that is hard to condemn is the one announced by 15 deregistered parties that have announced support for the Labour Party and its presidential candidate Peter Obi. The point here is that they cannot be described as confused like other parties that endorsed candidates of other parties while they have one that emerged from their own internal process. The 15 unregistered parties claimed that although they are no longer recognised parties, they still have their structures with which to support Obi. 

The only viable parties in Nigeria today are those whose candidates were endorsed by others. But being a small party is not bad, provided the party cuts its coat according to its size. If all that a party can afford is councillorship or state house of assembly, it does not have to pretend to be a big party. It can steadily grow. Adventurers who run parties for material gains should lose the platform to so act. Luckily, INEC is now empowered to deregister mushroom political parties.