INEC should be empowered to reject flawed primaries to save democracy — Dukawa
Party primaries in Nigeria have increasingly been plagued by chaos, malpractice, and bitter disputes, often spilling onto courtrooms and undermining public trust in democracy. In this interview, Associate Professor Sa’idu Ahmad Dukawa of Bayero University Kano (BUK) warns that unless the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is empowered to reject flawed primaries, Nigeria risks entrenching […]
Party primaries in Nigeria have increasingly been plagued by chaos, malpractice, and bitter disputes, often spilling onto courtrooms and undermining public trust in democracy. In this interview, Associate Professor Sa’idu Ahmad Dukawa of Bayero University Kano (BUK) warns that unless the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is empowered to reject flawed primaries, Nigeria risks entrenching anti-democratic practices. He spoke on why primaries are failing and their impact on the larger electoral processes.
What do you make of the just concluded primaries?
The results of primary elections are always chaotic in most political parties because of the self-centered nature of the primaries. Normally, party leaders tend to put selfish interests and for that reason they avoid most rational solutions.
Rational solutions such as elections. I don’t know why Nigerian politicians are afraid of elections. They have avoided the delegates; that is indirect election so that the process can be sanitized.
Yet, they have failed in doing so because the two options that remain, the best of them is still the direct election. Unfortunately, they prefer what they call consensus of which normally it is a presentation of a preferred candidate of the political elites of the party to other contestants even though he may be less popular.
Should such results be accepted?
So first and foremost, you mean the results of the outcome of the primaries that are a result of chaotic process in which many party members object to the results? Elections that have been objected to, ok, that are likely going to be contested in courts, if that is the one, then why should people accept primaries that are clearly anti-democratic, that are clearly in violation of the respective party’s constitution. There is no reason why people should accept it.
What should be the ideal role of INEC in party primaries?
The ideal role which INEC should play in primaries should not just stop at observation of the election, it should go to the extent of guidance, guiding the party leaders regarding what election means, what it entails, the benefits it gives to the democratic process, and what constitutes illegal processes and how to avoid them.
So, as a matter of fact, I think if the parties, if the primaries are chaotic, INEC should even be empowered to reject them, if they are not empowered already,. And if they have the power to do so, I don’t know why they are not exercising the powers,.They should, even within the provision of the extant laws, they should have powers to reject parties which they witness and which are chaotic, which are anti-democratic. If the laws have not provided for that, I think it should be included in the next round of legal amendments.
What is the implication of these irregularities on Nigeria’s democracy?
The impact of malpractice in primary elections is monumental on the larger democracy because it is in that primary elections that the civic culture is expected to be imbibed by party members. For example, it is anticipated that when you hold internal primaries, there will be competition and the competition should be neat and orderly.
Now, the competitors will learn the skill of campaign, of mobilisation, of lobbying, of making promises that should be fulfilled. They will also learn the skill of looking at the constitution of the political party so that they do not do anything that contravenes the constitution. They will learn the art of looking at the manifesto of the political party so that they will know what and what aspect they will concentrate on and campaign for so that when they win they can concentrate on delivering on that promise.
It is through that process that they will learn how to organise elections, how to conduct the election, how to accept defeat, how to woo those who didn’t win, to be on their side so that they can campaign together for the success of their party.
It is anticipated that if each and every political party follows this process and learns this culture, they will come out to the larger election with a civic culture, meaning they will not do anything which is against the laws of the land because they have learned to avoid doing things which are against the constitution of their respective parties. They will learn to campaign neatly without use of violence, without buying votes.
If they didn’t learn that, they will come out and commit such atrocities in the larger elections. When they come to the general elections, they may end up perpetrating all sorts of malpractice such as vote buying, use of thugs in politics, such as intimidation and they will not accept defeat whatever the case may be.
So, every election will be contested and people will end up in courtrooms and we end up having people who are selected by courts rather than by the people. All these are counterproductive to democracy.
What can be done to improve primaries?
First and foremost, if improvements are to be recorded in the general process, politicians need to realise the benefit of voting. Voting is a scientific way of solving any conflict for that matter, not to talk of political conflict. Any conflict, when you subject it to voting and you do it scientifically, it wil; be good. So, the tendency is that people who feel they are more competent or they are more qualified or they are more loyal even to the party leadership, but are not the preferred candidates, tend to raise alarm and objections and then at the end of the day what results is chaos.
INEC should be empowered so that it can reject the result of party primaries that are clearly, not just chaotic, but violate legal procedures. But such should be done with caution and with sufficient evidence of contravention of the rules of the land, laws of the land, and in particular the constitution of the respective parties.