Payback time

Even an elementary student of politics knows it is essentially a game of compromises. Many atimes, compromises are made as upfront deposits to be cashed upon at a future date, even when what has to be given up in the instance accords more with personal inclination. That must be what Canadian-American diplomat and intellectual, John Kenneth Galbraith, meant when he said: “Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.” Where an upfront deposit of compromise made by one party is, for whatever reason, unreciprocated by the other party at due time, you could expect payback in hard-handed retaliation by the depositor. That seems the situation on hand presently in the Nigerian political space. 

President Muhammadu Buhari has till date withheld assent to a hurried reworking of Section 84(8) of the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2022 by the National Assembly that would have allowed statutory delegates to vote in the primaries and conventions of political parties leading up to the 2023 general election. Statutory delegates are elected party officials and political office holders on respective party platform including the President and Vice President, Governors and Deputy Governors, federal and state lawmakers, members of the National Working Committee of each party, state party chairmen and secretaries, council chairmen and vice-chairmen, councilors as well as political party chairmen in all the 774 council areas nationwide. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held its convention over the weekend while the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will head into its convention in the coming week, with statutory delegates in both parties denied the opportunity to vote. Same fate applies to other parties in their primaries and conventions. There is good reason to suspect that the President’s withholding of assent to the fresh amendment is linked to an earlier refusal by NASS to amend Section 84(12) as he had requested after signing the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2022 on 25th February. 

Section 84(8) in its extant framing provides: “A political party that adopts the system of indirect primaries for the choice of its candidate shall clearly outline in its constitution and rule the procedure for the democratic election of delegates to vote at the convention, congress or meeting.” Members of the Senate and House of Representatives came to sudden realisation earlier this month that the provision stipulates only elected delegates – Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege who sponsored the amendment in the red chamber described it as an unintended error on the part of the legislature – and reworked the section to as well accommodate statutory delegates. Senate passed its amendment on 10th May and the House its concurrence on 11th May, with stated expectation that the executive arm would assent “within the week.” But the President had yet to sign as at last week when the political parties went into their primaries and conventions. The legislators came off hugely shortchanged by their own drafting of the law because they were left as spectators at the crucial party elections where bloc votes in their large numbers could have significantly impacted on outcomes.

It was a long road of self-interested articulation of the law that led to the debacle. NASS members had always felt uncomfortable with the imperial capacity of state governors to manipulate party processes where indirect primary or the consensus option is involved – a capacity often deployed to upend their own chances of re-election whenever any legislator falls out of favour with his/her state governor. They had sought to checkmate that capacity with provisions of the electoral law stipulating transparent elections, hence in the 2021 electoral amendment bill they mandated exclusive use of direct primary by all political parties. But President Buhari declined assent to that bill, citing multiple reasons why he considered exclusive use of direct primary unhealthy in the Nigerian context; his reasons included cost implications of direct primary especially for smaller parties, existing constitution of respective party that already accommodates indirect primary and consensus option, and the security situation across the country that is inclement to large gatherings. 

Owing to other desirable provisions in the electoral law such as statutory mandate for electronic voting, the public plied intense pressure on NASS to hastily rework Clause 84 to accommodate indirect primary and consensus option and return to the President for assent in good time before polls. In reworking the clause, however, the legislature stipulated election of delegates for the indirect primary as contained in Section 84(8), and excluded political appointees, who often constitute the electoral army of the executive arm, from voting and being voted for as contained in Section 84(12) that reads: “No political appointee at any level shall be a voting delegate or be voted for at the convention or congress of any political party for the purpose of the nomination of candidates for any election.”

“NASS members burnt the bridge…but they are back with Section 84(8), and it is apparently payback time for the President to withhold assent in retaliation for Section 84(12).” 

President Buhari objected to Section 84(12) of the electoral law, arguing that it disenfranchises political appointees and prevents them from engaging in the electoral process as should be their inalienable right in a participatory democracy. But just like NASS members, he was under intense public pressure to give assent to the law, especially as he had withheld assent on five previous occasions. And so, he signed the law as an apparent gesture of compromise in February, but sent an immediate request to the legislature to amend the contentious Section 84(12). With the law having been signed, however, the two chambers of the NASS spurned the request for amendment, compelling the presidency to resort to litigation in the bid to get redress over the disputed section. That issue is currently making the rounds before the judiciary, with the Supreme Court having slated its verdict for a yet to be determined date. You could bet that when the legislators spurned the request for amendment of Section 84(12), they least expected they would be getting back to President Buhari so soon for fresh assent to the same law. They burnt the bridge, so to speak; but they are back with Section 84(8), and it is apparently payback time for the President to withhold assent in retaliation for Section 84(12). One cannot rule out other possible factors like internal headwinds within the presidency against assent to the fresh amendment for ulterior objectives. But even if that were the case, NASS played smack into that storm.

Only it wasn’t just the legislators who were shortchanged. So also were operators of the executive arm who could not deploy their electoral army of appointees – both at the presidential level and the state governors whose dread motivated the National Assembly’s articulation of the law in its present framing. There’s a benefit, in that the fewer number of delegates translated to lesser costs of organising respective convention. But it wasn’t that the parties were unscathed. There were reports of crises in some areas where contestants complained of lists of ‘dark horse’ delegates being sprung on them. In other words, elected delegates had the turf as prescribed by law, but how some of those delegates got ‘elected’ remained a sore point in the conduct of the party elections. Under such circumstance, it is doubtful the intendment of the electoral law was achieved.

Truth is, to promote credibility in the electoral process and entrench internal party democracy, mandatory use of the direct primary method as prescribed by NASS in the 2021 electoral amendment bill is the way to go. The prescription, however, should never have been aimed principally at self-preservation on the part of the legislators, which perhaps informed some overreaching adjunct stipulations. And neither should the NASSists have shut the door on interim compromise that could have softened the ground for future amendments. But neither is President Buhari justified in withholding assent to the fresh amendment. American author Fletcher Knebel once said: “Statesmanship is harder than politics. Politics is the art of getting along with people, whereas statesmanship is the art of getting along with politicians.” The President must rise into statesmanship in overall interest of the Nigerian democracy.