Form of Government

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK

This sort of situation must never again be allowed to occur, either in the whole of the Federation or within a constituent State. In this latter respect, we hasten to emphasize that it is not impossible, unless we take steps now to prevent it, for a political party in a Region to confine its membership and activities to only one or two tribal groups within the Region and still win power there, as in the case of the major party to which we have just previously referred. One way of going about the solution to this problem is to make provision in the new constitution to the effect that all political parties should be registered, and that only a political party which is Nigeria-wide in its membership, character, and operations shall be so registered. In other words, the constitution should stipulate that every political party must be country-wide in name, must make its membership open to all Nigerian citizens without any discrimination whatsoever, and must be able to field candidates in at least three-fourths’ of all the constituencies at general elections. Furthermore, it should be provided that any political party which does not fulfil these conditions shall not be registerable, and if already registered shall be struck off the Register.

Since the extent of a political party’s field of operation and its capacity to contest three-fourths of the seats at general elections cannot be known in advance, the procedure should be that any political party which applies for registration should be registered. The acid test of its bona fides will come when general elections are about to be held. If at the time a political party fails to field the required number of candidates, or it is discovered that the list of candidates submitted by it includes fictitious names which if removed will bring the number of candidates remaining below the minimum statutory figure of three-fourths of the total number of seats, then the electoral commission should have the power to exclude it from taking part in the pending general elections, and to strike out its name from the Register.

This proposal may appear harsh on the face of it. But a closer look will reveal that Nigeria stands in dire need of this kind of provision. The continued unity of Nigeria, as a democracy, will depend to a very great extent on the emergence and continued existence and virile growth of a strong country-wide political party system. In this connection, it should be noted that one of the reasons why the regional governments proved stronger than the central government was because each of them had a region-wide political party in control of its administration. If a country-wide political party had been in charge at the centre instead of an alliance of regionally and tribally based parties, the government of the First Republic would have been much stronger and inspired much more confidence. It is, therefore, one of the paramount duties of the constitution to encourage the emergence, and foster the growth, of country-wide political parties.

At the same time it is possible that those who are unable to place or keep on the Register sectional or tribally based political parties may choose to stand as independent candidates. Our own experience is that those who form sectional or tribal political parties, by whatever name they are called, or who stand as independent candidates, are invariably a few disgruntled party men who for some personal and mercenary reasons have fallen out with their parties, or who have failed to secure official nomination on the platforms of their parties and believe that they can whip up the narrow sentiments of their tribes or clans to collect enough votes for victory at the polls. A good deal of fulmination has been uttered against narrow nationalism and extreme tribalism, and various suggestions have been made for stamping them out. Now, if we are genuinely sincere in our desire to stamp out these evils, then one of the fertile soils for their growth which must be ruthlessly scorched is an independent candidate at elections. There should be provision in the constitution, therefore, that only persons who are sponsored by registered political parties shall be allowed to stand as candidates in any elections.

It can be argued, with attractive plausibility, that a provision such as this would be a denial of one of the citizen’s fundamental human rights. But surely, as we have abundantly shown, the possession of fundamental human rights by the citizen does not mean that he can do just what he likes or fancies, regardless of the consequences of his actions to his neighbours or to the State. In this case, it has been shown that to make room for independent candidates at elections is to advance the cause of harmful sectionalism, which has, with unanimity, been pronounced one of the deadliest enemies of the corporate continuance of Nigeria as composite State. In the circumstance, it becomes our bounden duty to discourage its growth, even though the citizen’s fundamental right in this regard may be subjected to disciplined and other -regarding restraint and direction.

Besides, as we have said before, only a few, mercenary and disgruntled persons contest elections as independents, or form ad hoc tribally based political parties, usually on the eve of a general election. An analysis of federal electoral figures for 1959 shows that only 16, out of an aggregate total of 312 successful candidates, were independents and members of tribally based parties. Together they scored a total of 578,893 votes out of an aggregate total of 7,185,555, while the percentage of their total votes over the aggregate votes cast was 8.1 %.

CONTINUES NEXT WEEK