By Ebuka Onyekwelu, Ph.D
Nigerian political parties participating in the 2027 General Election are now rounding up their primary election exercise to determine who becomes a candidate in next year’s election. This time around, the process is clear as many political parties, including the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), are experiencing the direct primary election mode for the first time. There are inherent challenges with trying something for the first time, but beyond that, the bigger problem is when there is no honest and deliberate commitment by all stakeholders who are players in the process to play by the set rules. This includes members of the party who want to be induced to vote for an aspirant, aspirants who want to induce party members in exchange for their votes, and party leadership who give mixed signals, thereby weakening the faith of aspirants and party faithful in the process. There were also logistics problems, which delayed the process in many places. In different wards and LGAs, there were conflicting reports as to who won the primary for various positions. APGA has fixed Tuesday to conduct a mop-up exercise in places where the exercise was marred significantly. However, whatever the result of today’s mop-up might be, it is doubtful that it will alter the impression the exercise has left of the party. 
There were diverse stories and reports of deviation from the laid down guidelines for APGA primaries, which many had noted while withdrawing from the process or after their competitor was announced the winner of the process. As expected, no winner in that process can admit that there was anything wrong with the primary election held across Anambra State last Saturday. For winners, it is perfect, but for losers, it is flawed. If one looks at it from those prisms, one will miss the point. First of all, do right and wrong not apply in politics? Then, is there no standard gauge that speaks to right or wrong in politics? In this instance, the APGA primary election guideline is the standard gauge. Yet, the reason winners extol the outcome and losers fault the process is that many of our people have not advanced into the realm of systems thinking and building. So the basic philosophy is that as long as it goes in a certain way that correlates with one’s interest, it is good. If the tables were turned, the parties involved would behave in a similar way. That is, if the winner were the loser, and the loser were the winner, they would take the opposite position in their reactions. Basically, at that level, they are only loyal to their ambitions. The other reason is that out of desperation, politicians all do the same thing to win, so when one somehow outmaneuvers others, it is typical to conceive of this as a genuine victory, rightfully or wrongly. This is why it is also common to see other aspirants in a party work against their party through any available means, thereby exposing an inclination that naturally opposes democracy. The main idea of democracy is that in a political contest, it must not be “me,” because it is the people who decide. Unfortunately, this has not been accepted within the Nigerian political space, where politicians are not loyal to principles or ideologies, but to their ambitions.
For a party like APGA, this pattern, which is widely observed across all Nigerian political parties, is not an indictment as many of its aspirants insist. Since Saturday’s APGA primaries, there is a pattern where aspirants who had reservations about the outcome had openly written to express their disappointments, but not in the party; however, in certain omission of details in the primary process. Some of the aspirants, while opposed to the outcome of the primary exercise, affirmed their faith in APGA and committed to remaining in the party. This might be the first time politicians who did not win the APGA ticket in a primary election they considered flawed were measured in their approach. The normal practice among Nigerian politicians, even in APGA in the past, was to reject a party that did not yield its platform for the service of their ambition. While this shift might be considered minute, its impact on the party’s prospects is huge, especially if the party reaches out to uphold the merits of their genuine reservations and addresses them. In that instance, what looked like errors can become the building blocks for progress and strengthening internal party democracy within the APGA.
Also on Saturday, there were places where internal community dynamics thwarted democratic exercise, and those were supervised not by APGA, but by “big man syndrome,” whereby people arrogate to themselves the power to choose leaders for their community. Again, while this might be opposed to democracy, it is not a verdict against good leadership.
In the final analysis, last Saturday’s APGA primary election recorded both gains and errors, which the party leadership must carefully evaluate and use to inform further reforms that will incrementally position the party on the path to sustained growth.
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