THE PRICE TAG OF PARTY REPRESENTATION: NIGERIA’S POLITICS IN RETROSPECT

A breath of political fresh air

Political representation in public service is a call to serve the general populace with emphases primarily centred on individuals within a given political jurisdiction, then the national space as a whole.  

But at what price should such representation be to individuals within a political party at signifying  their interest to serve and transform the ideologies of the party into individual manifestoes to the good of the electorates when granted the privilege to serve sequel to victory at the polls.

With the multi-party system practiced in Nigeria entailing over 90 political parties registered according to the electoral body – Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)– the competitiveness of politics is monetarily muscled and has over the past 19 years since the current civilian dispensation largely been a two horse race, emphatically PDP being the more consistent side of the coin.

The other side of the coin, the ruling APC - formed in February 2013 - vis-à-vis the alliance of the –‘three strongest’ opposition party at the time – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) was founded due to the need to unseat the then ruling party, Peoples Democratic Party.

The strategy, well implemented with the word ‘Change’, resonating across the length and breadth of the nation, a mantra timely used when the lot of Nigerians were bored by the political inadequacies of the PDP, with leadership efficiency frustrated by corruption. Indeed, the people wanted to have a breath of political fresh air, something different from what was breathed some sixteen years prior to the 2015 general election.  The failure of the PDP led government to effectively deliver the dividends of democracy was the genesis to the revelation that Nigeria was at the verge of witnessing a new chapter to its political helm. And truly the strategy worked.

The Value of Candidacy

But what moves a party are its members, the value of its candidates. With news filtering of the price tag set by the PDP and APC for party members keen on representing the respective party at the national and state levels, the reiterated thoughts beaming my mind is should the value of candidacy be performance or monetary based?

Performance based: This is rooted in having representation with very minimal monetary value attached to the nomination form. Here, each interested candidate is mandated to bring forward his or her plans and manifestoes in line with the Party ideology. Should there be more than 10 candidates, these are closely screened to 5, with the best 5 made to have an open debate and party members made to vote for the candidate of their choice.

Then the individual with the most practicable and insightful thought is selected to represent the party at the national level as members are made to vote for the candidate that performed best in the course of the debate.

This approach if rightly carried out would have the following benefits:

·         True participation across the party

·         Mitigation of god-fatherism in politics

·         Familiarity with party representative

·         The high level chance of producing an effective government

Monetary based: This, the type obtainable in Nigeria at the moment is all about the money sharing to party delegates. The shortfall include

·         the more likelihood of the party system favouring God fatherism

·         it supports the emergence of a corrupt government

·         government ineffectiveness could take centre stage due to the best candidate not emerging

·         a misplacement of party ideology

Beyond these shortfalls, to my mind, no benefit exists in the monetary based approach.

As culled from vanguard Nigeria, “at the last nationwide vote in 2015, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of then-president Goodluck Jonathan charged 22 million naira per nomination form. The All Progressives Congress (APC) of the eventual winner Muhammadu Buhari asked for 27.5 million naira just to stand in the party’s presidential primary. Now, as both parties prepare for polling in February next year, the APC wants an eye-watering 45 million naira ($125,500, 108,000 euros) per presidential primary candidate, according to newspaper adverts on Wednesday. Individuals wanting to be selected to run for a governorship post have to pay 22.5 million naira, up from 10 million naira last time round. The PDP has reduced the cost of its presidential candidate forms to 12 million naira and the selection for a tilt at a governorship from 11 million naira to six million naira

Whilst the PDP’s drop in the cost of nomination of interest form is a welcome, it is still out of the reach of many party faithful and citizens with the right interest.

However, the Nigeria Senate are on the verge of passing the electoral act amendment bill into law with a view to limit or control campaigns excesses. This indeed, is a welcome development but the missing piece is pegging the cost of the nomination form as the performance based approach to party candidacy and representation at the polls positions the party with a more focused chance at producing more creditable individuals when compared with the monetary based approach currently being obtainable in Nigeria.