Between party and national interest

THE  happenings at the National Assembly in recent times have opened our eyes to the inevitability of change. When the time comes for change, you either ride with it or you’re blow away with it. It is happening so fast that keeping up with the pace has become a real challenge, more so, with the internet social media and new technologies, people have become better informed and with new insight, are ready to take on and bring down established patterns and beliefs. It is not only in Nigeria but all over the world. The question is, at what point should the line be drawn between national interest and the party interest, constituency interest versus party interest and personal ambition versus the others? Why must the APC party insist that only those chosen by them should hold leadership positions in the House, irrespective of the decisions of the majority House members, some of whom are also party members? Why will the party members disobey the directive issued from the party leadership? Which position is right and which one is wrong? First, let us understand the power and function of a political party in the Nigerian context. Professor Adele Jinadu in a lead paper at the inaugural Political Parties dialogue series, held on October 4, 2011 with the title “Inter-Party Dialogue in Nigeria; Examining the past, present and future” gave a functional definition of a political party as “(a) Presents the electorate with a choice of candidate and programmes from which to choose; and in doing so (b) helps to decide which party or coalition of parties should govern for a fixed number of years.” He went on to state further that: “…the party provides the medium through which the accountability of the executive and the legislators to the electorate is exercised through periodic elections under a multi party electoral politics.” According to Jinadu, much of the above definition is theory; the reality on ground is much different “because of the constricting effect on the choice of the electorate of (i) contradictions such as oligarchic and undemocratic tendencies in political party organisations and (ii) market imperfections and structural distortions in the economic organisation of the liberal democratic state.” If we are to go by the above explanation of Prof. Jinadu and relate it with the activities in the National Assembly, we can say that; in theory, the party has the prerogative to dictate who constitute the House leadership, therefore the position of the APC leadership that their candidate must prevail is right, legal and constitutional but again, Jinadu says that this is not practicable in our politics of today because of other extraneous circumstances which have come into play and have made it impossible for the rules of the party to be obeyed. Can the party say that it has truly followed due process in the course of fielding candidates into various positions for elections? Has the process been transparent? I am not referring to the presidential election alone but elections to party positions right from the grassroots councilors to governors and senatorial levels, have they been fair to all? Have they made the position open to all and sundry  interested in contesting for positions under the party’s cover? What happened to candidates with lean financial resources? Have there been impositions of candidates against the will of the people? Can the APC beat its chest and boast that the selection of candidates for party positions along the ranks are not done by a negligible few, whose primary concern is the pursuit of their own interests? This is the contradiction that Jinadu is referring to. If this is so, then nobody can blame Senator Bukola Saraki and his House of Representatives counterpart Hon. Yakubu Dogara for the stunts they have pulled against the party. If this action was done in the politics of the sixties, they would not have succeeded because then, the tradition of fielding candidates for election was by imposition, anyone the leadership chooses is accepted by all, that was the practice in the NCNC (National council of Nigeria citizens), Action Group (AG) and the Northern People’s Congress (NPC). The situation now is no more the same, things have changed. The people are now more informed, enlightened and independent. Parties are no more formed on ideological basis but on personal interests. The parties that we have today consists of strange bed fellows, of extreme conservatives mixed with social democrats, it will take time for real fusion and understanding to take place. As time goes on, through the dynamics of our political process, the real political parties with true ideological souls would emerge and like minds will stick together. In the mean time, our democracy is still evolving. Because there is no sincerity at the party leadership level, there is reciprocal disloyalty from the representatives of the party, as a result, we can say that none of the two sides is innocent. For peace and stability to reign therefore, we should allow the two Houses’ decisions to remain the way they have chosen to have it; while the APC party leadership find means of putting its house in order by instituting policies and programmes that will be acceptable to the rank and file of the party and attract party loyalty. That is the right thing to do. Mr. Sunny Ikhioya, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Lagos.