Direct primaries good but has so many shortcomings —Niyi Akintola

In this interview with WALE AKINSELURE, a senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Niyi Akintola, identifies various stumbling blocks in direct primaries being adopted in the nation’s electoral system.

 

There are several arguments for and against the National Assembly passing into law a bill mandating political parties to use direct primaries to produce their candidates. What is your take on the debate on direct primaries?

For me, direct primaries is good but it has so many shortcomings, especially within the Nigerian environment. You cannot be talking of direct primaries without a credible register of membership of political parties. As we speak, none of the political parties has a credible register of their members. Under the circumstances we have, for now, you cannot go through direct primaries and have peace. There will be thuggery, hooliganism. What about the logistics! You have to man all the wards. In Oyo state, you have 351 wards; in Kano State, you have about 400 wards. You have 774 Local Government Areas across the country, how do you man such primaries?

 

But the intention behind direct primaries is to, in some ways, return the party to the people.

That is good, but how do you solve one problem by creating another. Those, who have reservations about direct primaries, have genuine reasons. As desirable as direct primaries are, there are dangers ahead because our environment is not conducive for such, for now.

 

Shall we continue with what has been adjudged to be a flawed electoral process?

We should have credible leaders at the helm of affairs of political parties and as such, parties will eventually get back to the hands of the people. All we need to do now is to recruit credible leaders to man the political parties so that the people will believe them; people will have confidence in them. Political parties should endeavour to engage and elect credible party leaders, like we used to have in the past. As it is now, direct primaries will create so much confusion, logistics problem, security problem and above all, there is no credible register to demonstrate how many members each of the political parties have.

 

As a legal luminary, is there any stumbling block from the legal side?

Another stumbling block is the legal angle. A political party is a voluntary organization and if the members have agreed to establish and join that political party, and they have guidelines and constitution binding them, as envisaged by Section 221 of the constitution, will it be right for anybody to enact a law to encumber that right of the party? The constitution of the country is the grundnorm that binds everybody so no institution can deprive any citizen of the right conferred on it by the constitution. Unfortunately, our legislators are going in that direction. The law they passed, if it is assented to, can it stand the test of constitutional provision? These are the questions they have not asked themselves before embarking on that. The rules and guidelines of political associations should not be uniform. You and I should be able to form a political party; it could be gender-centric, regional-centric. So, the rules guiding them should not be uniform. That would amount to forcing things down the throats of members. It is a voluntary organization; what obtains in party A may not obtain in party B. it is not done anywhere in the world and they have not shown us a single country in the world where what they are proposing is in practice. In the United States, the Republicans have their own mode of primary just as Democrats have their own.

 

Will you be surprised if President Muhammadu Buhari goes ahead to give assent to the bill?

Well, it is his constitutional right. I do not know his mind but I will be surprised.

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