News Editor
By Steven Kefas
A Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Director General of the National Orientation Agency, Dr. Mike Omeri, OFR has expressed both optimism and concerns over the adoption of the direct primaries by both chambers of the national assembly, saying that even though the decision of the lawmakers will greatly enrich the Nigerian democracy, the demerits of direct primaries if not properly checked will injure Nigeria’s nascent democracy.
Dr Omeri stated this during an Exclusive TMS News interview in Abuja on Friday 10th December, 2021.
The communication expert who holds a PhD in War and International Studies from the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna said that even though the adoption of direct primaries will give the Nigerian people ample opportunity to participate in the democratic processes, political parties must be smart enough to adopt what he calls a modified version of direct primaries that can fit properly into the Nigerian democratic space.
Talking about the indirect primaries in used before now, Dr Omeri has this to say;
“My views are straight forward on this matter; I know that there are political party positions on how they can conduct their internal selection process among aspirants who want to be candidates to contest political positions.
“But again we have to look at what had happened in the past with regards to indirect primaries, that process eventually threw up tyranny of a few within the political setup, the arrangement even at the internal level.
“Tyranny in various ways, first leaders of political parties became gatekeepers, champions that you cannot reach delegates without them, Governors who were firmly in control of the state structures in their respective states became gatekeepers, even the delegates themselves became so expensive, so it became a little bit difficult that politics was eventually becoming reserved only for the rich, not for the popular candidate. You may have popularity but a candidate is imposed on you and we saw the consequences, we saw a number of people doing protest votes or refusing to come out for the political process at all and that is not good for the kind of democracy we want to build in all sense of honesty and sincerity.” He said.
Commenting on the direct primaries adopted by both chambers of the National Assembly, Dr Omeri said that the direct primaries option is a product of self-preservation. Saying that the lawmakers need direct primaries to help them acquire tickets from their respective parties against the wishes of their state governors who most of them (lawmakers) are at loggerheads with.
“The direct primaries option which the National Assembly has proposed, good as it were it is also a product of self-protection or self-preservation as you can see because most of the lawmakers, if they continue to fight with their respective state governors, they may lose out, the state governors will refuse to give them the opportunity to get the tickets. We have seen it in various platforms, the PDP, the APC or whichever platform.
“So the best thing is for them to face the people and see how they can test their popularity. So essentially the direct primaries could make the political experience richer due to the participatory nature of all and sundry.
“Direct Primaries as good as it were, also have it demerits because it can also give governors fraudulent powers.
“The governor can sit down in his house and write figures, a typical example is what transpired in Kano during the APC presidential primary election in 2019 and just recently in the Anambra APC governorship primaries.
“Buhari is a beneficiary of that flawed system of direct primary.
“These fraudulent powers of the governors in writing results during direct primaries often times could not be challenged in court because getting 100 of thousands of witnesses to testify is a herculean task that cannot be done. That is another demerit of direct primaries.” the Nasarawa politician said
Dr Omeri also said that another challenge worthy of note with the direct primaries is how political parties in the country can manage the outflow of members from their respective houses to come and participate in a convention to choose candidates from multiple aspirants that will eventually fly their party flags in various elections. He said funding could be a major barrier for political parties considering the fact that INEC has said it cannot fund direct primaries for political parties.
“One other point of caution which I see, is a party’s mechanism for selecting its candidates should not be imposed on every other person. Let this derive from the will of the people.
“The model of the American democracy is not good for us, because even though they practice direct primaries, they have mechanisms in place to ensure that only candidates that meet certain requirements are allowed on the ballots. This helps in addressing the issue of spending huge resources in selecting candidates.
“Since INEC has made it clear that it will not fund direct primaries, Political parties must device means of organizing direct primaries in such a way that less money will be spent.
“In the U.S., parties have mechanisms in place that allow candidates that are popular to emerge during primaries, for instance party delegates liaise with members to agree on popular candidates to represent them in elections, this process is so transparent that party members are satisfied at the end of the days.
“For us in Nigeria therefore, we must modify our direct primaries to reflect the wishes of political party members and also save political parties cost.” Omeri said.
On the APC’s inability to conduct successful direct primaries and also its failure to hold any national convention since inception, Omeri has this to say;
“The APC had tried all sorts of direct primary options and we have all seen the chaos that characterized their conduct of primaries and congresses, it has been commotions everywhere. They have been unable to conduct any convention since the party was set up, which in itself renders the operations of the APC as illegal at the moment as it were.
“The provisions of the electoral acts are clear, the provisions of the party’s constitution are also clear on what they should do and how they should operate but they have not done that.
“May be because they are taking advantage of the fact that they are in power, they are applying some aspect of impunity into their own system and style which is not good for democracy, am not talking from a partisan perspective, am talking from a Nigerian perspective where we want to see democracy grow. He said.
The PDP Chieftain also berated the governors’ opposition of direct primaries, saying that the governors are afraid that a successful direct primary mechanism will strip them off their god-like status where they determine who gets what in their respective states.
“The governors on the other hands I will say are even more biased because they want to continue to control the leavers of the parties, therefore they will continue to determine who gets the tickets.
“The governors, government houses have the resources to decide the direction of the parties in their states.
“Talking about usurping the functions of political parties, the governors have since usurped the functions of the political parties themselves, now the lawmakers have found a convenient way of usurping the powers of the governors and the political party leaders and transferring it back to the people. That is the cause of all these confusions.” Omeri said.
When asked about why Senator Andy Uba scored over 200,000 votes during the direct primaries to emerged the APC candidate in the just concluded Anambra governorship elections but scored less than 50,000 in the polls, Omeri said that Uba’s scores in the governorship polls shows how flawed the process that made him emerged his party’s flag bearer was marred by.
“I want to speak broadly on that, first it is the kind of flaws that we see in the conduct of direct primaries, where political parties just go and write the figures irrespective of whether people came out or not, thst is s typical example.
“The president himself was nominated by over how many hundred thousand people, they said direct primaries when we know that they didn’t come out and we have seen similar examples all over the place in relation to the APC congresses that selected candidates in 2019 and subsequent elections.
“Many of those votes in Kano for instance, they just wrote them, there are evidence to prove that but we didn’t border much because it has to do with them (APC) but if we are coming with s refined process that will ensure they figures are not manufactured in favour of candidates because governors are in charge of their states therefore they can input any kind of figures, claiming that these are the figures they voted during the elections, then we will like it that way.
“In the case of Anambra, apart from the fact that the voted alluded to the then APC aspirant, 230,000 pr something did not manifest in his selection process, we can again conveniently blame s number of factors, among which there was voters apathy, people are disenchanted, they are not too happy, they are not sure of what democracy means anymore with the conducts of individuals in government both at state and federal level, so they are adopting the ‘wait and see approach’.
Dr Omeri said he believes that a ‘modified direct primaries system’ will strengthen the Nigerian democracy and reduce the amount of money spent by political party aspirants seeking for offices in the country, he said the indirect primaries have been reduced to financial contest where those with bigger financial war chests always carry the day.
“Indirect primaries are more expensive because they are more of financial contests than elections where delegates votes for the highest bidders as against credibility of aspirants.
“That is not good for our democracy and as you can see over the years, mediocre have repeatedly found their ways into offices they are not capable to occupy, using the indirect primaries.
Speaking on the need to restore party sumoremacy, Omeri said political parties in the country today are mere tools in the hands of the executive arms of government.
“Party supremacy is another thing that is missing in our democracy today.
“Political parties must exact supremacy over the executives unlike what is obtainable today where the executives constitute themselves as demigods.
“In the second republic, the ruling party chairman doesn’t go to hold meetings with Shagari, Shagari goes to meet with Adisa Akinloye who was the chairman of the NPN.
“The story today is completely different because the executives fund the party unlike what was obtainable in those days when party members pay dues to the party, allowing the party to function independent of the executives.
“Today in Nigeria, governors nominate candidates they want because they fund the parties and as it is often said he who pays the piper dictates the tune.” He concluded.
