Emphasise strong parties, not leaders

For President Jonathan and his group the only game in town is regime survival. The internal opposition within PDP wants to simply seize the party and field an alternative candidate. The APC believe they are more competent, more focused and thus more deserving of replacing the PDP as Nigeria’s next government. All of them are […]

For President Jonathan and his group the only game in town is regime survival. The internal opposition within PDP wants to simply seize the party and field an alternative candidate. The APC believe they are more competent, more focused and thus more deserving of replacing the PDP as Nigeria’s next government. All of them are under the grand illusion that the problem with us is simply the absence of good leaders. We risk being trapped into the Hobson’s choice of one or the other. Some even reduce it to Jonathan or another from his party versus Buhari/Tinunbu or some other messiah.
The truth is that it is only a political party that can aggregate our collective interests, come up with solutions, spell out how to achieve these and come up with the leader or leaders to captain the ship of state. Right now all the groups we have fail short of these basic requirements. They are not yet political parties but interest groups representing the elites, with only slight differences in style and emphasis, not in substance.
Political Science 101 teaches us that political parties perform at least five basic functions. They attempt to aggregate the interests of various groups in society (farmers, industrial workers, businesses, self-employed and the unemployed etc.) and articulate them into a cohesive platform. Secondly, they formulate visions, goals, policies and programmes and present these in their constitutions, election manifestoes and party conventions and sell them to the electorate as a reason for seeking to control government. People vote for them (or not) based on their interests and perceptions as to whether they feel the party truly represents their hopes and aspirations. By recruiting members, training and indoctrinating them, the party forms the elite from among whom party leaders are nurtured and developed. The fourth function is mobilisation; it seeks to win over the majority through debates, rallies and publications because the core membership of the party do not constitute a majority and their votes alone cannot get it elected into office.
Electoral competition is implied in a multi-party democracy and so a party sells itself as representing something, be it continuity or change, to the existing arrangements of the society, or ways of conducting governmental affairs. Finally, when elected it seeks to control the government and to determine policies.
Sadly, in our case most of these functions are not fully developed or are totally lacking. The interests they articulate are deliberately obscured because they are too narrow to sell to the wider society. Most of them hardly bother to tell us where they intend to lead us or how. Their dominant thrust is ‘vote for us because we are better than the other guys’. It is easy to argue that the Jonathan group are clueless, inept and very corrupt. Indeed it would be a tragedy to end up with the same group beyond 2015. But what are those seeking to replace him planning for us? For those seeking to remain within the PDP and offer an alternative, what exactly are they planning to do to ensure that the party changes for the better? What alternative policies and programmes are we to expect from them? A party that is totally controlled from the Presidency is a problem because it should be the one to guide the government, not the other way around. Governors Sule Lamido, Rotimi Amaechi and Aliyu Babangida as well as the other PDP big shots like Atiku Abubakar and David Mark need to come out and tell us what they intend to do differently. Clearly we cannot continue with “business as usual”. Is it even possible to change PDP from its chosen path?
The APC can be excused temporarily because it is busy trying to get its house in order and become one unified entity. But for how long? The hope is it is working on its manifesto and would soon make it public. It would need to ensure that it builds a viable party that would come up with a leader acceptable to all and subject to the wishes and aspirations of the people. It must seek to create a party that is democratic and more inclusive than the alternatives. Otherwise it risks being grounded in personal squabbles and ambitions.
We need parties that are truly democratic, parties that articulate very clearly where they intend to lead us to, and how. We cannot be trapped in sterile debates about personalities, power shifts and ethnic or religious representation. We demand to see their analyses of Nigeria’s problems and what they intend to do about them. These must be articulated and sold to the public. We demand parties that would develop appropriate leadership cadre to steer our affairs for the better.
Under our constitu-tion, political parties are not the government itself but organs for developing policies favourable to various interests and groups that support these interests and aspirations, organs for organizing and persuading voters to elect their candidates to office, and tools for controlling government and its policies.
The PDP risks becoming a “regime party” allergic to opposition and insensitive to criticisms. The alternatives assume that all we are waiting for is for them to come up with a leader or leaders to replace the existing lot.
We need political parties and the parties would evolve the leadership to move us forward. We need viable institutions not messiahs. The problem with us politically is that we have no viable, strong and representative parties. It is beyond just the absence of leadership. People may be good but we must not tempt them by giving them a carte blanche to do whatever they feel like. Let us know what is in store for us. It is not too soon; the building of genuine democratic parties must start now and they must “sell” themselves to us. The pillage of this nation has gone far enough.