The 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ormer Vice President Atiku Abubakar has listed five (5) critical tracks that must be addressed to safeguard and deepen Nigeria’s democracy.
Atiku spoke on Monday as a thematic discussant of a paper titled “Party Politics and Political Integrity: The Role of Political Parties and Opposition in Democracy” presented by Prof. Bayo Olukoshi at the National Conference on Strengthening Democracy in Nigeria held at the Continental Hotel Abuja.
1. Institutional capacity: Democracy can’t be sustained without strong political parties, especially opposition parties. Parties need to be strong and democratic enough to be able to fulfil their roles. Ownership of parties by or their subordination to individual big men is the antithesis of democracy. Party supremacy is critical. But party supremacy can’t be achieved through the current funding model for our parties. Funding by governors and a few wealthy individuals is not a democratic model. As we know, he who pays the piper dictates the tune. Funding must be democratised.
Members must invest in and co-own parties. When people start from the point of view that “Tinubu is rich or Peter Obi is rich or Atiku is rich, so I don’t have to contribute”, they surrender to the big man’s dominance of parties. In more effective democracies, parties and candidates raise funds from the mass of members and supporters. When people invest in something, they tend to be more engaged with it. So, our people, especially party members need to be enlightened.
The transition to truly democratised parties won’t be easy but must be begun. Could we consider some public (government) funding of parties during the transition period? Perhaps proportionate to each party’s elected officials in the legislatures to avoid parties springing up just to collect public funds?
2. Normative acceptance (compliance by members, especially leaders) of party rules and the country’s laws. Laws that are not obeyed cannot effectively influence people’s behaviour. Party members, especially leaders, must subject themselves to party supremacy and the rules of the game. Democratizing funding will help to get leaders to abide by the rules. And so will:
3. Consequences for non-compliance: It must be made costly to ignore party supremacy/rules. Elected members decamping must vacate their seats. That should not be open for discussion/debate when it happens. And, more broadly, electoral malpractice generally must be punished rather than rewarded. These are necessary for political integrity.
4. Coalition-Building: In addition, opposition parties must realize that it is extremely difficult to dislodge a governing party, however unpopular it may be and however fed up the people may be with it. Coalition-building and outright mergers are critical for building the capacity of the opposition to achieve that goal. Our own history and examples from other countries prove that.
5. Judicial reform to curb judicial recklessness. In a period of less than 20 years the Nigerian judiciary has moved from being the beacon of democratic sustenance to becoming, arguably, the biggest threat to Nigeria’s democracy. That must change. The same judiciary that affirmed the primacy of parties in choosing their candidates and leaders now sanction and indeed promote destruction of parties by a few, and in some cases, a single individual with a personal agenda.
The judiciary also seems to have replaced the voters in choosing our leaders. The involvement of the judiciary in electoral disputes was intended to affirm the choice of voters. But the judiciary, even at the highest levels, twists and contorts to find technicalities to deny voters their choice rather than affirming the voters’ choices.
I know enough of history to understand that when democracy dies, the judiciary and its leadership do not necessarily survive intact. The judiciary survived the implosion or death of our First Republic democracy mainly due to the presence of strong independent justices. It wasn’t for want of trying. However, as the corruption of every facet of our society deepened, the judiciary soon followed. And it is, perhaps, the most dangerous because there is nowhere else for the aggrieved to turn to. No one is there to check the excesses of the other branches of government. If the rot in our judiciary persists without severe consequence for the perpetrators, our parties and our democracy are unlikely to survive.
