We can see this attitude more pronounced in our political parties that always find it difficult or a challenge to conduct primaries to nominate candidates to flag their flags in the general elections.
Primaries always become a bedlam of disorderliness, confusion and turf warfare culminating in. floodgates of litigation which the responsibility to resolve falls on the judicial branch.
I want aspirants in the 2022, All Progressives Party (APC) Senatorial primary election in Cross River State and experience first-hand the shenanigans and chicanery that took place just to allow the preferred candidate even though the party mindlessly sold nomination to aspirants for a whopping #20 million.
However, in the interest of party solidarity and unity, I had to concede rather than fighting the party they would have affected the party in the general election.
My experience is just a replica of what transpired in all the state chapters of the APC in the country.
The preferred candidates were helped by the party to get tickets to the detriment of less privileged aspirants.
The entire process was never transparent and never provided the opportunity by those who are favoured to win
tickets.
The lack of transparency and frenzy by Nigerian political parties to be democratic and provide a level playing to its membership, especially in the choice of candidates is a huge drawback and blot on the country's democratic experience.
We experience first-hand how internecine and factional infighting with the Zamfara State branch of APCculminatethe party losing the governorship National and State Assemblies seats it swept in the general election in a swoop to PDP.
One would have thought that the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Zamfara State in 2019 works guide political parties to put their house in order in 2023 but alas it was not to be.
The scenario of the APC Zamfara State fiasco was re-enacted in full in Plateau State where due to factional infighting a High Court had declared that the Caretaker Committee constituted by the Party should not be saddled to conduct primaries to nominate candidates for the 2023 general elections.
But true to type and characteristically of the lawless of the elite in Nigeria, the lawful order of the High Court was treated with scorn, and disdain and ignored by the PDP. The consequence is that PDP victory in Plateau State governorship, National and State Assemblies have been nullified.
The debacle suffered by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State can.be partly laid on his declaration to get a ticket by all means after he failed to obtain that of PDP. He hurriedly joined the NNPP after the deadlines prescribed for political parties to fill the nomination of their candidates had expired.
Characteristically of the predilection of the Nigerian elite and lack of respect for the law by Nigerian political parties to be law-abiding, the NNPP wrangled its way till it was pushed Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf's candidacy for the 18 March 2023 gubernatorial election in Kano State.
But rather than taking responsibility and owing up their blunders some people like former President Olusegun Obasanjo Atiku Abubakar, and Northern Elders Front are making incendiary and inflammatory statements are making the judiciary a scapegoat and trying to create the impression that it endangering the country's democracy.
Until Nigerian political parties learn lessons, reform and manage their affairs with fairness, and transparency, constitutionally and democratically we will continue to experience what played out in Plateau and Kano States.
@ Okoi Obono-Obla
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