INTRA-PARTY CRISIS IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF THE ALL PROGRESSIVE CRISIS

Abstract

Intra-party conflicts in All Progressive Congress has been an issue for a long time and thus, has been a major issue to deal with during the Fourth Republic due in part to the lack of internal democracy in the party. Internal democracy describes a wide range of methods for including party members in intra-party deliberation and decision-making. Some advocate of internal democracy argued that parties using internally democratic procedures are likely to select more capable and appealing leaders, to have more policies, and as result, to enjoy rancour free, peace and greater electoral success. However, the nature and patterns of party politics especially in the fourth republic have caused a lot of crises and conflicts that have gone beyond the shore of the political party and thus, escalated to the elections. Thus, this study probed questions of what is the nature of intra-party conflicts in APC? What are the factors contributing to intra-party conflicts in APC? And importantly, what are the effects of intra-party conflicts on elections in Nigeria? These issues were interrogated against the backdrop of prebendalism, weakness, corruption, lack of internal democracy, lack of ideology, festering crises and overwhelming nuances that detract political parties from fulfilling their sublime function of deepening good governance. The study adopted mixed research design, consisting primary and secondary data. It is a research design that combined the strength of the methods to investigate and dig beyond the surface. It provided an in-depth discussion with nine (9) stakeholders drawn from major APC as (2), representative of INEC (2), some members of election tribunals (3) and some community-based organisations (2). It also relied on relevant similar studies from academic journals, books, archival documents, newspapers, news magazines, and other secondary sources. While descriptive was used to analyse the interview, content analysis was used for most secondary data. Findings showed that intra-party conflicts have heightened and affected election administration in Nigeria. The APC is unable to manage the difference and contour among the members and various groups of the party which has snowballed to the elections. It also identified major contributing factors causing intra-party conflicts in APC as issues of leadership recruitments, the selection of candidates for general elections, the rising magnitude of political vagrancy on the basis of selfish and parochial interests, the high level of party indiscipline and intolerance, lack of transparency in the party financial administration, lack of clear ideologies, money bag politics, use of unguarded and foul languages, etc. The study recommended among others strengthening of the political parties informed with clear ideology, transparency, principles of internal democracy and strong and reliable mechanism to manage its crises effectively. While the study concludes that intra-party conflicts accords a bad image to a political party which weakens party’s capacity to win an election, it also underscores that conflicts cannot be absolutely avoided in a political party with multitudes, for such party is prone to experiencing divergent opinions and interests towards a political cause.

Chapter one

Introduction

1.1Background of the study

Democracy requires active participation of political parties. Political parties are one of the essential tools for a democracy. According to Scarrow (2000:1), democracy needs strong and sustainable political parties with the capacity to represent citizens and provide policy choices that demonstrate their ability to govern for the public good. According to Oyovbaire (1987:3) democracy as a system of government seeks to realize a generally recognized common good through a collective initiation and discussion of policy questions concerning public affairs and which delegate authority to agent to implement the broad decisions made by the people through majority vote. Thus, in contemporary times, democracy has been referred to as the expression of popular will of the political community through elected representatives (Adamu: 2012:10). Political parties are traditionally the most significant intermediary organization in democratic societies. Students of political parties have commonly associated them with democracy itself (Orji, 2013:1). Political parties, as “makers” of democracy, have been so romanticized that scholars claim that neither democracy nor democratic societies are thinkable without them (Omotola 2009:79). In other words, the existence of vibrant political parties is a sine qua non for democratic consolidation in any polity (Dode, 2010:3). Shively (1997:3) sees political party as a group of officials or would be officials who are linked with a sizeable group of citizens into an organization; the chief object of this organization, is to ensure that its officials attain power or are maintained in power. Parties are unique organizations that fulfill a number of interrelated functions central to the democratic process of governance. Some essential party roles are: contesting and winning elections, in order to seek control of government, aggregating and representing social interests, and vetting and training political leaders who will assume a role in governing society

Intra-party conflicts have existed in Nigeria before the fourth republic and have been a permanent feature among political parties in Nigeria till date. According to Eme (2011:16), intra-party crisis can be seen as a period of great distress, trouble and pain created in a political party due to the failure of the party concerned to provide solutions and reunite effectively its internal disagreements or conflicts. In 1962, there was crisis among the leaders of the Action Group in south west mainly between Obafemi Awolowo and Samuel Ladoke Akintola. There were differences in political and economic in ideologies between Akintola and Awolowo which led to crisis between the two leaders. The conflict between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Samuel Ladoke Akintola in the first Republic had a semblance of a political situation where absence of internal democracy created severe political crisis in the post-colonial Nigeria. While Akintola, rejected and frowned at the continuous overbearing influence of Awolowo on him even as Premier of the Western region, the aftermath was the crisis arising from the disagreements between Awolowo and Akintola who later entered into an alliance with the Northern People’s Congress which was government at the center. After Akintola had emerged as the Premier of Western Region under the Action Group, he later dumped the party for his party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party, NNDP. The outcome of that feud short lived the tenure of Akintola and his NNDP (Babangida, 2011:44). The outcome of the crisis weakened the Action Group in the Western Region and there was an imminent collapse of the party structure because of divisions within the party that reflected cleavages within the Yoruba society (National Mirror, 2013). Also the conflicts within the Alliance of Democracy (AD) in the fourth republic led to two major factions within the party. This later led to the exit of some prominent and significant members of the party

After sixteen (16) solid years of military rule, interspaced with a three year diarchy mostly at the state level, the Nigeria military regime under General Abdulsalami Abubakar, affected haphazard hand-over to a civilian regime led by a former military head of state, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999. Thus was born the current Fourth Republic. A towering feature of incipient politics throughout the federation became the pervasive crises rocking all political parties that participated in the re-civilization electoral activities of 1998-1999. In this, the ruling PDP generated the negative demonstration effects on other smaller parties like the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All People’s Party (APP). In portraying the crises inside Nigeria political parties, a useful methodological course will be to provide indicators of crisis situations. One is the visible alteration within the ranks of party membership at all levels of the federal structure. The second is high turnover in the election and/or appointment of members of the executive committees of political parties. A third indicator is the breakup of parties and subsequent formation of factions. The fourth manifestation of party crisis is rampant defections across parties. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had held sway at the National center with an overwhelming number of states – in fact at times as many as 23 states out of 36 states more reference will be made to it. We shall however focus on party crises at the state and federal levels in view of the large number of local and ward chapters of all the parties. The PDP has since 1999, had more than its due share of crises, having had a spectacular rate of turn-over in its National Executive Committees. For instance, during the first term in the presidency of the PDP which lasted only 4 years, the Party had more than 3 National Chairmen: Chief Solomon Lar, the pioneer chairman, Chief Barnabas Gemade Chief Audu Ogbe. It was the same for other key officers like the national secretary. The states and local governments had their own due share of unusually high turnover. This trend was reproduced in other two major parties, the AD and APP. Through the second tenure 2003-2007, there was even higher rate of turnover, as the souls of all the parties were virtually seated in the pockets of the political chief executives depending on the level of government in the Federal structure at which a party holds political sway; for the PDP it was at the Federal, State and local levels. For the AD it was the six states of the South West – Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti and this only for one term of office 1999-2003; because from May 2003, the President who is also of South West extraction, had tricked all the Governors of the AD into a deceptive pact that turned out to be monumental political suicide. And so the AD almost fizzled out of the country’s political, landscape as the PDP swept five states leaving only Lagos, where the Gov. Bola Tinubu had displayed delectable smartness and never yielded his political constituency to President Obasanjo’s political trap.

The crises in the leadership of so many chapters of almost all the parties had provided ready-made excuse for party members who are enamored of party flirtation in search of greener political pasture. Hence, the political lexicon of Nigeria soon became saturated with defection, decamping, cross-carpeting. Such cases have become legion and they apply to all the political parties. What is more, between 2007 and 2011 general elections not less 60 political parties mushroomed and about 25 appeared in the ballot papers of the 2001 general elections.

Right from the inception of the present Republic, Politicians have shown no qualms about moving in and out of political parties, depending on their perceptions of political advantage; the First Senate President in this dispensation, Senator Evans Enwerem, was originally the governorship candidate of the All People’s Party (APP) in Imo State (Mbah 2011). But he lost his bid to bear the flag of his party for the subsequent general election. He decamped to PDP before the general election; upon offer of senatorial ticked by the Party leadership. He did not only win election to the senate but was also railroaded by Chief Obasanjo’s Presidency and the national leadership of PDP to the Senate Presidency. In Plateau State, Alhaji Alhassan Shaibu, for a relatively frivolous reason, decamped from the All Peoples’ Party (APP) and joined the PDP in 1999. As compensation, the President appointed him member, Northern Nigeria Development Company (NNDC). Another striking decamping during the Obasanjo regime was that of his Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. He was a foundation member of the party, having played active role in late Musa Yar’adua’s PDM. He defected to the Action Congress which became the new name of Alliance for Democracy (AD) after an open pitched battle with his boss, the President: contested as the presidential candidate of the Action Congress in 2007 general elections, returned to the PDP in 2011 (Mbah 2011) and ludicrously decamped again from the PDP; became a leading force in the formation of the New PDP and subsequently joined the emergent organizational colossus now known as the All Progressives Congress (APC).intraparty crises, real and contrived, resulted in a spate of defections involving governors of different party affiliations: the Governor of Bauchi state up till 29th May 2015, Alhaji Isa Yuguda was a PDP member, failed to pick the party gubernatorial ticket in 2007, decamped to now All Nigerian People Party (ANPP), won the election under the latter’s platform and subsequently decamped back to his original party, the PDP. The former Governor of Imo state as originally a member of PDP, decamped to Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA), won election under its platform and almost immediately reverted to PDP; Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State followed the same pattern by changing party identity from PPA to PDP. The Governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko won his governorship election on the platform of the Labour Party (LP) but later decamped to the PDP. In the North, Aliyu Shinkafi of Zamfara State (ANPP) and Saminu Turaki of Jigawa State (ANPP) defected to the PDP (Mbah, 2011).

The Nigeria National Assembly is by no means spared of this gale of defections and cross carpeting, as no fewer than 13 Senators and 35 members of the House of Representatives had switched party between 1999 and 2013, when’ tsunami’ rupture balkanized the so called Africa’s largest party, the PDP. At the Mini-Convention that the PDP conducted in 2013, seven state governors – Kano, Kwara, Rivers, Sokoto, Adamawa, Niger and Jigawa with their teaming supporters walked out of the venue, the Eagle Square in Abuja, moved to the Yar’Adua Centre where they addressed a press conference and announced their intention to form a new party to be called the new PDP. After an initial running battle with the parent body, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the new–PDP decided to strike a deal for a merger with the now mega party the All Progressives Congress (APC). The party eventually won the presidential election in March 2015 and a reasonable majority of state governorship seats. Ever since its inauguration at the centre the pattern of defection has reversed in its favour. Early August, 2015 a former state chairman of the PDP and leading members of the party in Bayelsa state decamped to the APC at the state party rally that was massively attended by both national regional and state officials of APC plus their teeming supporters/ followers. The decamped members reeled out a plethora of reasons for their action. Based on this background the researcher wants to investigate the intra- party crisis in Nigeria. A cases study of All Progressive Congress crisis

Statement of the problem

Intra-party conflict is a permanent feature among Nigerian political parties. It has served as backdrop to the growth of Nigeria’s democracy (Omitola, 2003:2:54). According to Egoh&Anichie (2013), internal party democracy is an issue that has consistently eluded Nigerian democracy because political parties have always been hijacked at all levels by powerful individuals who impose loyalists as candidates for election. The pervasive level of intra and inter political party crisis in the country‘s democratic system can be attributed to the state of mind and perception that politics is the most lucrative industry in the country. These believe is intensified by the growing culture of impunity and blatant disregard to the rule of law emblematized by the Nigerian political elites. Unfortunately, political parties have become veritable platforms for the political elites to assume power through elections that are often characterized with fraud and other forms of electoral malpractices. Shale and Matlosa (2008:13) identifies the causes of intra-party conflict to include: favouritism promoting one‘s kith and kin; unequal sharing of resources (leader‘s constituency gets a lion‘s share); lack of regular meetings; centralized authority power concentrated at the top. According to Aleyomi (2013:1:289), the APC lacks a clear cut ideology, it has both capitalist and conservative nature without clear policy positions as a basis of popular mobilization and legitimacy of its actions. Iyare (2004:92) observed that there is almost nothing to choose between APC and other parties in terms of ideological leaning. The selection of candidates for various elective positions has led to crisis in the All Progressive Congress (APC).

According to Aleyomi (2013:1:286) The case of intra-party democracy in the All Progressive Congress (APC) cannot lay claim to democratic consolidation if it continues with the current mode of organizing her primaries and the Party National Convention in 2022. The act generated hostility and several petitions among members. This led to the creation of several factions within the party in the state and cross carpeting of some members to another party.

According to Okoli (2001:2), several factors have led to conflicts, instability and intra party opposition within the All Progressive Congress (APC) like personal difference clash of socio economic interest, lack of party discipline, influence of money politics, the power of incumbency and the failure of the party leaders to manage the afore mention factors have generated into conflicts, instability and intra-party opposition within the Peoples Democratic Party. According to Nwodo (Punch Newspaper, 2010:19), “for the All Progressive Congress to experience growth and development internal democracy must be strictly adhered to”. In that regard, to Olisa Metuh, opine that the failure of the People’s Democratic Party to manage its internal crisis might lead to the implosion of the party and someday might be in opposition (The Nation, 2010:13). The internal crises in the All Progressive Congress have led to many prominent members and founding fathers decamping to opposition parties. Notable among them are Yakubu Dogara, Babachir David Lawal, among others. There were different allegations and counter allegations between them mostly based on corruption (Ikelegbe 2012:29).

Objective of the study

The main objective of the study is to investigate the intra-party crisis in Nigeria. A case study of All Progress Congress. The specific objectives are;

1. To examine the nature of intra-party conflicts in APC.
2. To evaluate the factors that incite intra-party conflicts in APC
3. To assess the effects of intra-party conflicts on elections in Nigeria.

Research Question

The following research questions are formulated to guide the study;

1. What is the nature of intra-party conflicts in APC?
2. What are the factors contributing to intra-party conflicts in APC?
3. What are the effects of intra-party conflicts on elections in Nigeria?

Significance of the study

This research study will theoretically add to the existing and present body of academic knowledge on intra party conflict in a democratic dispensation. The research study will also practically be of huge significance to political leaders and policy makers in Nigeria and will also inform and educate the masses on the functions and duties of political parties in democratic governance. The research study will provide practical solutions to some of the challenges of political parties in Nigeria democratic system.

Scope of the study

This research work is an examination of the effect of intra-party conflicts in Nigeria. Using All Progressive Congress as a case study, considering the necessity to emphasise major factors that propel and aggravate such conflicts and the possible mechanisms to adopt in order to address the causative agents of the conflicts to give room for democracy in All Progressive Congress. The study is conducted on the 2019 general election in Nigeria with particular focus on All Progressive Congress (APC) in order to unleash the effects of intra-party conflicts in Nigeria. The All Progressive Congress is picked because it is the major political party in Nigeria. The study equally delves into the feasibility of the internal conflicts to affect the masses’ volitions in the process of general electioneering, beyond the circumference of political parties

Research Methodology

The research study adopts the qualitative descriptive and historical method in the analysis of data collection. Qualitative descriptive method is a form of data-gathering techniques that are focused on the significance of observations made in a study rather than the raw numbers themselves. The descriptive method is applied to go deeper into issues of interest and explore nuances related to the problem at hand. Thus, the study relies on the use of secondary data collection by making use of relevant information from Journals, Books, Newspaper, Magazines, official publication and through the use of internet.

Limitation of the study The research study was limited by dearth of materials and time, but it has not hampered the successful outcome of the research study

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