It is related in the Talmud that “If the stone shall fall on the jug, then that is unfortunate for the jug. If the jug shall fall on a stone, that is also unfortunate for the jug. It is always unfortunate for the jug.”
To rephrase this nearly two-thousand-year-old saying from a holy book, “If Nigerian political parties hold indirect primary elections through congresses and conventions to choose their flagbearers, that is unfortunate for the aspirants without money and without state power. If Nigerian political parties hold direct primaries to choose their candidates, that is also unfortunate for the aspirants without money and state power. It is always unfortunate for the aspirants without money and state power.”
The force, alleged to be the Presidency, that stampeded the Senate to insert an afterthought amendment in the Electoral Act last week to prescribe that all registered political parties must hold direct primary elections, probably meant well. It wants to end the overbearing influence of money and godfathers in the selection process, since convention delegates are known to regard the event as a fortune-of-a-lifetime bazaar.
In 1993, a government-appointed state party secretary told me a story about what happened during the SDP’s Jos convention. One by one, presidential aspirants visited his state’s delegates at their lodge. On the morning of convention day, Chief M.K.O. Abiola sent word that he was on his way to visit them, so the delegates refused to enter their buses and go to the convention venue. After MKO left, they departed for the convention venue but when they arrived, they all refused to submit themselves for security checks. That was because each delegate’s pockets were bulging with money. They could not leave it behind because they were lodged in a school dormitory.
I was just thinking; if every major presidential aspirant at that convention dished out huge sums to delegates and they accepted money from all of them, then on what basis did they make their choice? Was it to the highest bidder, or did other factors come into play? And if other factors could still come into play, then why should an aspirant waste his money on delegates when there is no guarantee that they will vote for him?
Okay, instead of a stone falling on the jug and breaking it into pieces, how about if the jug instead falls on the stone, that is, the parties do away with indirect primaries, do away with delegates and instead bring in all registered party members to vote in the primaries?
Some people will hurriedly say that American political parties do direct primaries. We see Democratic and Republican aspirants dashing around from New Hampshire primaries to Iowa caucuses to “battleground” states from until someone locks the nomination. Well, there is a snag here. In Nigeria, no one knows exactly who is a member of which party. Many people simultaneously belong to more than one party. Godfathers also have reserve membership cards which they give to supporters on primary election day. No one knows the difference between the main parties. Stop any alleged party member and ask him or her what is his/her party’s stand on any issue, and you will draw a blank.
US President John Kennedy’s press secretary Pierre Salinger once wrote that “an American election campaign is built around the speech.” A candidate and his staff spend most of their time writing and rehearsing speeches and planning the events where they will deliver them. Former White House counsel John Dean once wrote that President Richard Nixon spent 60% of his time on speeches. Over there, it is what you say, and how say it, that largely determines whether people will vote for you.
In Nigeria here, neither candidates nor voters give a damn about speeches. If it is speech that makes anyone to win an election in Nigeria, Obasanjo, Yar’adua, Jonathan and Buhari would never have made it to Aso Rock. Nigerian leaders tend to have the speech-making abilities of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which TIME magazine once described as “natural sleep therapy” because it sent his audiences to sleep.
Party members voting in a Nigerian direct primary election are no better than convention delegates. It will be a case of dropping the jug on a stone instead of dropping a stone on the jug. One observer alleged that Senators hurriedly inserted this measure because they believe it will free them from the influence of state governors who control congress delegates. Who told senators that governors will not control rank-and-file party members in a direct primary the way they control congress delegates in an indirect primary?
Lest I be accused of being an “armchair media critic” who “offers no constructive suggestion,” let me recommend something, for what it is worth. Indirect party primaries in Nigeria will improve somewhat if state congresses give elected convention delegates binding instructions on which aspirant to vote for. This will take away the power of individual delegates to engage in wheeling and dealing at the convention venue and sell to the highest bidder. Candidates will then also work on each state branch and obtain its support before its delegates leave for the convention.
As an added advantage, much like American party conventions, the winner will be known even before the convention starts.
