The ward congresses of the ruling APC was trailed by the death of a number of persons in some states. It’s subsequent state congresses produced two separate groups of executive committees in, at least, 26 of the 36 states, each claiming authenticity.
The PDP had also had its wild days with a high turnover of national chairmen and executives and the de-registering of several of its leading members, all in the struggle for the control of the party.
While it is understood that dispute is inherent in the plurality of democracy and usually can be left for the courts to resolve, these occurrences are pointers to the lack of internal democracy in the major parties.
Matters have been made worse by such incidents as the forceful removal or stealing of maces in the National and various State Assemblies, incidents of impeachments through dubious procedures and duress, wanton disregard for the rule of law, arm twisting of the judiciary and cases of flagrant violations of the orders of court.
While the politicians are free to politic with intrigues, they must bear in mind that Nigeria as a nation has suffered various tortuous situations to arrive at the present longest running democratic dispensation which we must preserve and defend with all sense of responsibility.
The First Republic was short lived, lasting only five years before the military struck to abort the young democracy, thereby destroying not only our unity but dragging us into a long civil war that devastated our nationhood, the effect of which we still feel today, and calling out the military from the duty of defence into the craze for power. That General Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari remain today as the most prominent factors in our political leadership, several years after they had served as Heads of State, is a clear testament something is wrong.
That can be deduced from the fact that the posting of military officers as State Governors and Ministers not only distorted the mental frame of the military and their understanding of their role in the polity, it bred a generation of officers who became more interested in political leadership than in the core calling of national defence.
While after the civil war, we aspired for return to democracy, they simply waited by the wings as General Olusegun Obasanjo midwifed the Second Republic only for General Muhammadu Buhari to strike again four years after, slaughtering the civil democratic rule and destroying the second generation of Nigeria’s committed politicians and statesmen on the alter of his personal lust for power.
It needs to be examined how General Obasanjo supervised that transition without building a defence for democratic rule against the interruption of the military. This failing allowed another long stay of the military in power.
This would be seen in the fact that after Buhari’s lustful takeover, General Ibrahim Babangida’s transition programme followed with, at best, a mockery of democracy. While he transmuted to a military president, he displaced freedom of association, decreed the formation of two political parties into which he forced all the politicians, categorising them into old and new breeds and banning and unbanning them at whims. Most curious was that after taking the nation round in circles for eight years, he concluded by annulling the election which he himself organised, denying Nigerians the mandate they conveyed on Chief MKO Abiola.
If IBB’s programme was a mockery of democracy, General Sani Abacha came with even a more ridiculous scheme, allowing the formation of five political parties but intimidating the politicians to declare him the sole presidential candidate of all of them.
If not for providence, only God knows where that scheme could have led us as a nation.
Interestingly, while all of the military leaders use the propaganda of corruption against the civilian class and even their predecessors as excuse for seizing power, we have come to see that they are the most corrupt with the Abacha loot standing as a metaphor.
Minding these antecedents, we must appreciate the efforts of General Abdulsalami Abubakar in re-organising the politics of the nation to enthrone the longest running democratic experience in our national history.
Abdulsalami simply reconnected our democratic chain to the point at which General Buhari broke it. This would be seen in the fact that the 1999 constitution on which the present dispensation stands was a modification of the 1979 constitution which was suspended by Buhari.
Abdulsalami ensured that the military bore no influence over the Constitution Debate Coordinating Committee (CDCC) led by respected Supreme Court Justice Niki Tobi in drafting our present constitution. There were no members of the military in the committee which consulted and received memos across the country. He also brought in respected Supreme Court Justice Ephraim Akpata to head the Independent National Electoral Committee (INEC) to ensure integrity.
While he released political prisoners from detention, unbanned banned politicians and allowed free association for the formation of political parties which he dutifully registered, he distinguished himself with clear sincerity of leadership and integrity of mission to give confidence to the populace that there would not be the kind of hanky-panky experienced in the previous transition programmes. This encouraged the hitherto suspicious and tired citizenry to participate in the process.
As Simon Kolawole once noted in a Thisday newspaper article, as the Chief of Defence Staff under Abacha, he reserved the power and privilege, like the military power mongers before him, to perpetuate himself in power, but he chose the honourable path.
“Actually, Abdulsalami had other options before him. One was to use delay tactics by saying he wanted to write a new constitution. To set up a constitutional conference, hold elections into it, allow time for deliberations, recommendation, presentation of report, and then appraisal and approval by the Provisional Ruling Council. Abdulsalami could buy at least two more years for himself and enjoy power for longer. He could even begin to toy with the idea of transmuting to a civilian president. But he was simply in a hurry to see the birth of democracy,” Kolawole wrote.
Even in its early days, this democracy had been threatened by the attempt by President Obasanjo to reconstruct the constitution to allow him a third term, but thank God for the impetus and strength Abdulsalami constructed into the new dispensation by which even Atiku Abubakar as Vice President and the National Assembly could stand up to counter the schemings of the president on the move.
It is this democracy that we enjoy today but it must be pointed out that the onus falls now on practicing politicians, especially the civil class, to sustain it. There is nothing to cheer about politicians not playing by the rules of their own parties for internal democracy, for it should not only be about elections against opposing parties but also about interactions within the parties. When we continue to exhibit contrary standards to the requirements of law and order we set bad examples that will continue to jaundice our aspiration for progress. This way, we make politics and power the issue and the end and relegate nation building to the background.
