Political Parties in Nigeria: Historical Perspectives
By
The political AIDS virus called party registration was alien to our political culture. It was never indigenous to it until the trio of Obasanjo, Danjuma and late Yar Adua militarily smuggled it into the system.
This was how our first set of bullet created parties were born. Babangida came with his own brand and coerced us into a two party formation. They were the creation of dictatorship. Abacha multiplied them by two and a half and gave us five as Obasanjo did. Abubakar expunged them and created his own; three if not two and a half.
In all of this it was not the ballot that was acting but the might of bullet power and when it prevailed the former was in the guard room.
Underlining this approach has been the assumption that at the core root of our political pitfalls have been the menace of multiples of political parties and so the less they are the better for the system. The truth is that this is a wrong reading of our political history. It was more the struggle for power, among the elites, of various colours, including the military brass, that was central to our political draw backs than the political parties. Indeed, in attempts to secure the system and create for it a cohesive national outlook almost all the major parties reached out to one or the other. We cannot be unkind to their commendable role in creating inter- regional alliances, compelled, of course, by the inherent alliance nature of the Nigerian nation, one of core factors that have been sticking us together up to this moment. The military have remained poor copy cats in the sense that they stole from the First Republic, the idea of party spread through states offices, which the political parties, on their own, achieved through alliances. Indeed, at the early stages of the evolution of our party structure then, was so much hustling for either electoral alliance, won alliance, parliamentary alliance or outright fusion. It may interest many to know that key leaders of the A.G. and NPC including Awolowo and the Sardauna, with people like Bode Thomas on board, met on 2/2/1953 for the purpose of forming an alliance. Infact there was an amalgamation of the two into Nigerian Peoples Congress, NPC as agreed to by their leaders at their meeting of November, 1954. This couldn't however pull off when the NCNC manoeuvered and struck one with the NPC in 1955.
When some of us accuse the A.G. of inward looking tendencies history is certainly being assaulted. The attempt at parliamentary alliance between it and the NPC apart, it had one with the Borno Youth Movement when the latter broke away from the NCNC- NEPU alliance in 1958. There were also agreements between it and the Habe Peoples Party of Southern Bauchi, the United Middle Belt Congress, UMBC of Joseph Tarka and another with the NCNC in 1964 among several others. Given these facts it may not be proper to say that A.G. was only interested in poaching at fringe political formations in the North and East. What could be is that after the NPC NCNC parliamentary alliance in 1955, its natural fall back was to lean on the so called fringe parties in the two regions This was how it became the main opposition party in the Northern House of Assembly through its UMBC alliance and in the East through Sam Ikoku its only member in the Eastern House, who, in a way, was a one man opposition leader. For sure, the Action Group was never without foster brothers across the landscape. In my far away Michika Federal Constituency, in Adamawa State its candidate won the 1959 election against my own brother.
The NPC too was not without political kith and kin in several places. The NPC-NCNC parliamentary alliance of 1955 apart, its major collaborator in the South was the Niger Delta Congress, NDC. When people like Harry Marshal, Edwin Clark and others insist that the Delta region has been a political end of the North they know what they are saying. The Middle Zone League, a faction of the UMBC, the Tiv People Union, a faction of the Ilorin Talaka Parapo, headed by Hon Ibrahim Lalaro were at various time affiliates of the NPC. Even BYM joined ranks in later years.This was after flirtations with NEPU, NCNC and AG plus of course UMBC, the party that made its (BYM) Kanuri leader win election in Tarka s Gboko, now in Benue State" It was in the NCNC together with NEPU from where it teamed up with Awo s AG. This apart, NCNC was quite formidable in the south west where it was believed to have swept the 1952 polls, though, of course, this was never the exact history, the carpet crossing issue notwithstanding. NEPU, on the other hand, had, such affiliates as the Askisnists Zabaral Haq: Tabrunal Haq, Nujuma Zaman, Bauchi Habe Tribal Union, Ngizim - Kerekri Tribal Union and the National Liberation Movement of Mudi Spikin. They were all in the NCNC on the back of NEPU.
If honest cognisance is taken of the ethnic composition of the NPC, the accusation of its being a Hausa- Fulani party cannot stick. In addition to those already mentioned, such as the NDC, it had also, the National Emancipation League based in the West, Idoma State Union, Igbira Tribal Union, Offa Progressive Union, Idah Divisional Union, Biu Divisional Union, Jamiyyar Bagarmai Tehad, lgala Tribal Union, Kabba Divisional Union, North East Convention Peoples Party and the Nigerian Commoners Liberal Party. The UMBC, had the Tiv Progressive union, Jos Tribal Union, Alago Progressive Union, Nzit Progressive Union, Chamba Progressive Union, Gwen Progressive union and Igala Peoples Union. We have gone this far to demonstrate how smaller, even tribal political associations existed and found relevance in the wombs of bigger formations giving them, in return, national colourisation making them by far more broad. based than the AD of today, which Soyinka, in a recent outing in Tempo, mercifully lamented its "mono cultural identity. None of the major political formations of that era had such a facial tribal mark, a factor late Bola Ige was out against causing a split in the rank. The inherent alliance nature of the polity was further demonstrated after independence but particularly as the 1964 Federal election approached. There was a trend toward a two party structure emerging in alliance with others. The Action Group, the National Council of Nigerian Citizens, along with their associates, teamed up to form the United Progressive Grand Alliance-UPGA, while the NPC and NNDP of Akintola and also their own associate formed the Nigerian National Alliance, NNA.
NEPU stood out on its own refusing to tag along with the NCNC into the UPGA alliance. After the election however, the NCNC entered into a parliamentary alliance with the NNA leaving AG and associates to their fate until the l966 coup.
The effort at forging alliances continued into the Second Republic when four of the five political parties i.e. UPN, GNPP, PRP and NPN attempted a loose electoral alliance under the umbrella of the Progressive Governors to fight the NPN. However, owing to their inability to choose between Awolowo and Azikiwe, as the flag bearer for the 1983 presidential election, the alliance could not glue. The underlining point here is that they saw the need for a broad based coalition for effective performance on the national terrain and they were doing this by strategic approach rather than through militaristic methodology as was compelled during what we might call the aborted Third Republic and before it the Obasanjo era. The working parliamentary alliance between the AD and the APP, for the purpose of the 1999 presidential election is a further testimony that Nigerian politicians are not mindful of the need for a wider territorial field for effective operation. Late Bola Ige realized this, as did Akintola before him, when he sought to broaden the national horizon of AD. Wole Soyinka as already noted, articulated this need in a recent interview with Tempo (31/1/2002).In truth therefore, Nigerian politicians do not need any lecture on the importance end relevance of broad based political parties.
Where they have been coerced into doing so, the problems have been monumental. The example of the aborted Third Republic readily comes to mind. If the truth must be told, part of our problem today emerged from the SDP wing of the political formation when several political formations were clustered into a single structure even as each was viable enough to be on its own. The race within for the capture of the flagship was so fierce that it created serious problem for us and we are still living with it to this very day. The SDP had within it, AG-UPN, NEPU-PRP, PF(now the Peoples Democratic Movement) some elements of BYM-GNPP, NCNC-NPP, etc. Each was viable enough to stand on its own. Denied an outlet, a fierce struggle for the flag ensued within. Twice the PF emerged with the flag and twice the AG-UPN faction threatened fire should the PF inspite of its victory, be allowed to lead. What happened later is already history. But in summary, it created the extension of military rule from 1993 to 1999, created June12 and all its associated problems, the ravaging hatred within the political terrain, leading to mass massacre if not genocide and such other unwholesome stuff. Had each been allowed a flag bearer of its own, perhaps, the problems wouldn't have gone this far. We must admit that this was not the case with the rival NRC which was largely a revived NPC-NPN in a different colourful dress. Of course, it had other attachments such as the NDC but its NPC- NPN character was clearly visible.
The obvious lesson here is that where you force powerful formations into a coerced alliance, by factors of decree and particularly when the alliance formations are unwilling to dissolve into a solid whole of mix, preferring to retain their old identities, serious frictions are bound to occur. Today s PDP is a sure example. No single political party in our history has many old political parties within than it. It contains NPC-NPN-NRC, NCNC-NPP; NEPU-PRP; BYM-GNPP; UMBC- NNDP, PF, SDP, NRC etc and virtually all their former associates as enumerated. I dare say that AG UPN is the only party formation that is not in the PDP. Of course there is much of BYM-GNPP and Shinkafi s faction of the NRC in the APP along with what we may call, Saraki s Party, which has its own distinctive trait. Simply put, PDP is a party of parties being held together only by its presidential victory.
Considering its internal contradictions if it fails to remain in occupation of Aso Rock in 2003 the probability is that the PDM , the successor to PF, would emerge to replace it. In terms of the struggle within, the PDP is no less worse than the SDP. What has been demonstrated so far is that militarily created political parties have created more problems for us than those freely created by politicians. Of course, we are not unmindful of what occurred in AG, but Akintola s NNDP had an outlet which those in SDP never had. Beside, there was more political intolerance than schism as the root of the AG crisis. Akintola had an easy outlet because the system in place was quite liberal and tolerable in forming political parties. This is not the case today. Even with the removal of the so called smuggled sub-section 80 (1), the electoral bill is still rigid and intolerant of party formation. Let us have as many parties as we care to including even religious parties (we had Islamic parties in the Lagos axis in those days) and allow Nigerians to weed them out through the power of their votes " Democracy demands that political parties should find their level through the sovereign power of the people. The right to create them therefore should be vested in the people. But for military intervention, they would have done exactly that for us by now. The Nigerian nation is more inclined towards the free formation of parties as democracy demands than the rigid military approach to the issue. Our obligation is to stick to the demand of democracy.
April 2002