Once in a generation effort to sanitize and stabilize Nigerian political parties was torpedoes by the President, Muhammadu Buhari, and his attorney general Mr. Malami. President Buhari based his decision not to sign the Initial electoral bill which mandated all political parties to conduct direct primary on the advice of his attorney general.
Any honest Nigerian knows that Nigerian political parties is broken and unrepresentative of Nigeria population. Will of the electorate are negated by the politicians who are unaccountable to their citizen and constituents. The reason for the unaccountability is because the system that brings them to power is rigged from the beginning via so called indirect primary. Indirect primary is a system where delegates are selected to vote for candidates during party primary convention. These delegates are purposefully selected by governors, party bosses and told whom to vote for in the convention. They normally vote as directed. The result is that loyalty to the governors, president, and party bosses rather than competency becomes the criteria for ascending into political office. Nigeria has been in bad shape for decades because of bad leaders who are morally bankrupt with penchant to raid and divert public fund to private use without serious consequence.
The governors have used indirect primaries to weed out anybody they perceive as potential rival or any elected official under their domain who refuses to do what they want. This has led to instability in all political parties. Nigerian political parties at the state and national level have routinely broken up into factions. Some party members who felt that they did not get fair shake in the primary election have often carved out a faction in the same party and conducts their own primary, and then ends up battling it out in the court which faction will be recognized as legitimate representative of the party.
The House of Representative and the senate finally produced a bill that mandates direct primaries for all political parties that would have moved power to regular party members. Direct primaries would have given power back to the party members who will be free to choose whom they want as their flag bearer and are likely to choose somebody who will have a better chance of being elected in the general election. Direct primary would have stabilized Nigerian political parties that are in perpetual crisis which ends up with factions and endless court battles. Direct primaries would have stopped governors, presidents, and party bosses from imposing their preferred candidates on the party via so called indirect primary. Good leadership have eluded Nigeria because incompetent leaders who ascends to office through rigged indirect primary never performs well when they ascend to the top.
President Buhari decided not to sign the electoral bill and requested that not only should indirect primary be included but went as far as requesting that a third option called consensus candidacy be added to the options. Consensus candidacy is worse that indirect primary. Governors, presidents, and party bosses will now move from indirect primary which is bad to consensus option which is worse. They will now claim that any candidate they impose on their party was a consensus candidate.
The only problem I have with the first version of the electoral bill is that most of the political parties will not have the resources to conduct direct primary. The responsibility and cost of conducting direct primary should have been given to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). INEC could conduct primaries for all the political parties in one day. Party members eligible to vote must have registration card from the political party they are affiliated with in order to vote. Results from any primary election conducted by INEC will be accepted by party members. You will not see endless court battle and fractionalization as we normally have now after each primary election by INEC. The governors, presidents and party bosses will lose their power to impose candidates. Candidates elected under direct primary will have a better chance in the general election.