The hullabaloo around direct primaries

Last week in the piece titled, ‘Governors as political godfathers’, I imagined that the direct primary elections clause in the new electoral bill must be causing concerns in government houses across the nation. It turned out to be an understatement of immense proportion, considering the huge hullabaloo that broke out throughout the week. Readers might […]

Last week in the piece titled, ‘Governors as political godfathers’, I imagined that the direct primary elections clause in the new electoral bill must be causing concerns in government houses across the nation. It turned out to be an understatement of immense proportion, considering the huge hullabaloo that broke out throughout the week. Readers might recall that in the refurbished electoral bill that will soon be presented for Presidential assent, political parties are being compelled to conduct direct primaries for all electable posts and INEC would be required to supervise the process.

I must confess that having been on the watch, from this perch, since the Electoral Bill started its tortuous journey for amendment at the 7th Assembly’s milepost, the issue that drew universal attention was the electronic transmission of results. Suddenly, at the tail end of the journey, we are hearing of direct party primaries as one of the major clauses in the bill that is raising this hullabaloo. Ever since governors became the Primus Inter Pares, first among equals, in all the political parties, calling the shots in their states in all electoral matters, there have been a groundswell of agitation to prune them to size. This has been more evident generally in Abuja, which would be assumed to be away from the prying eyes of the governors.

The direct primary election clauses unobtrusively made its way in the House of Rep and was passed at a plenary. Nonetheless, you would expect our younger leaders in the House of Representatives to willingly take on such political hot potatoes. The Senators were slow to be convinced. However, soon after the recent PDP convention and the APC local government and state party congresses where the governors had a field day nominating whomsoever they wished to run the parties, it became crystal clear to some of the Senators that their days in the Upper House might indeed be numbered. That’s the point, from my perspective, where their views on the direct primary elections dovetailed with their younger colleagues in the House of Representatives.        

The battle line is now drawn between the governors and the lawmakers. The alarm bells are chiming from one end of the country to the other. The gloves have been pulled off and it is clinched bare-knuckles showing all over. Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and Abubakar Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi have been leading the attack on behalf of the APC governors. Governor Bagudu spoke as Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) after a closed-door meeting to discuss the issue and I watched Governor Bello on Channels TV. Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State of the PDP spoke to reporters in Makurdi.

Whether it is a PDP or APC governors, they all spoke in the same vein, parroting the same reasons why direct primary elections portend danger to the rights of their parties to choose the mode of primary elections. They also accuse some members of the National Assembly of elevating the personal rifts they have with their governors to national discourse, which has now been translated into law. Governor Yahaya Bello particularly points at the rupture in the relationship between Kano Senators Ibrahim Shekarau and Jibrin Barau with Governor Ganduje and also Gombe State Governor, Inuwa Yahaya and Senator Danjuma Goje as well as the running battle between Kebbi Senator, Adamu Aliero and Governor Bagudu. They also alluded to the fact that it would be very expensive to saddle INEC with overseeing the party primary elections which would be as heavy as supervising a general election. They said that it would be a major distraction from INEC’s main assignment of conducting the general elections. In any case, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has made it known that he would drag the National Assembly to court whenever the President assents to the bill.

There is a perception that’s rather difficult to disprove that the governors have become a cartel of sorts and rather tyrannical in handling party issues in their domains. The mode of consensus in the party constitutions innocently written there to allow for a broad acceptance of candidates standing for elections has been stood on its head by the governors. In most states during primaries, consensus just means what the governor wants and every other party member has to kowtow, willy-nilly! There is a feeling that governors have become so despotic that they have constructed their personal interests as state interest and to stretch it even further, the national interest. The game of musical chairs they played with primary elections into their state assemblies as well as the National Assembly have ensured that these national institutions are always being denied the benefits of experienced law makers. Lawmakers perceived by their governors as trouble makers would always be denied a return ticket, which becomes a loss to the institutional memory of national legislation.

The winners in the electoral bill are not celebrating yet. Many stakeholders I spoke to say that the clauses as they are now could still be manipulated by the governors for their own end. I raised this with one leading advocates of the bill in the Senate who assured me that the intention is to have the principle enshrined that would strengthen popular participation at the grassroots and deepen democracy. Whatever deficiency that is detected, the National Assembly has the mechanism to correct it.