Herbert Macaulay founded the Nigerian National Democratic Party in 1922. But the Nigerian Youth Movement, formed in 1938, became the cradle of modern political party system in Nigeria. The NNDP and NYM advocated economic and educational development of Nigerians, Africanisation of the colonial civil service, and self-government for Lagos. The National Congress of Nigeria and the Cameroun, the progenitor of the National Council of Nigerian Citizens, the Action Group and the Northern Peoples’ Congress, were the first full-fledged political parties in the country. But these parties, including the NCNC that seemed to have had a more national spread, shrank into sectional parties. The NPC, the most blatant in its regional orientation, set out to protect Northern political institutions from southern influence, and regarded the Nigerian project as a distant secondary issue. The Northern Elements Progressive Union and the United Middle Belt Congress were also formed to protect minority interests in Kano and Nigeria’s Middle Belt region respectively. Actually political parties grew from tribal unions such as Igbo Federal Union and the Yoruba Egbe Omo Oduduwa.
Nigeria was a forced fusion of varied ethnic nationalities, ruled by the British as two separate Southern and Northern Protectorates, with different laws and political systems. While the South was ruled directly by British Colonial Officers, the North was ruled through Indirect Rule that involved Emirs as Native Authorities. The first generation of Nigerian indigenous rulers thus grew up with different worldviews and expectations of governance. They came into national politics as delegates on behalf of their regions. While southern politicians, who had imbibed democracy, encouraged the aspirations of everyone interested in governance, northern politicians saw governance as the birthright of males of noble birth. Indeed, seemingly modern northern leaders were firmly connected to the traditional power structure.
Because the political parties were limited to their ethnic or regional bases, it was imperative for them to form coalition. At the centre, there was a coalition between the NPC and the NCNC. While the NCNC was almost a stand-alone in Eastern Nigeria, it formed a coalition with Ladoke Akintola’s version of the Nigeria National Democratic Party, to overwhelm the Action Group, and form the Government in Western Region. The AG remained an orphan Opposition Party in the centre. The NCNC’s coalition with the NPC at the national level, and Akintola’s NNDP in Western Region, were highly vicious and repressive of the opposition. The coalitions connived to rig elections with impunity. When the NCNC discovered that the NPC was only interested in its parochial Northern agenda, it realigned forces to form the United Peoples’ Grand Alliance with the AG. The NPC formed the Nigerian National Alliance with the NNDP.
This scenario was almost repeated during the Second Republic. The National Party of Nigeria, essentially northern, but with a wider geographical spread, teamed up with the largely Igbo Nigerian Peoples’ Party to form the Federal Government. The NPN’s acceptance in the South-South zone was no more than a peace offering to avoid a repeat of their near thralldom under the Igbo hegemony in the First Republic. (The Peoples’ Democratic Party of the present dispensation is almost cast in the same mould.) The largely Yoruba Unity Party of Nigeria, teamed up with Borno’s Great Nigerian Peoples’ Party and Kano domicilled Peoples’ Redemption Party, two northern minority parties. While political parties of the Second Republic were still ethnic and sectional, it is only fair to report that the UPN, like its predecessor AG, had a clearly stated political ideology and coherent manifesto. That positively affected its performance. The AG preached democratic socialism, and the UPN sold a four-cardinal point programme of free education, free health care, agriculture and integrated rural development.
But the Third Republic political parastatals, the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention, decreed into existence by the Ibrahim Babangida military administration, moved political parties a little away from ethnic lines. The result is the June 12, 1992 Presidential Election that was criminally annulled by the military. Still, they had no political ideologies beyond Babangida’s suggestion that “one would be a little to the left, and the other a little to the right.” Political theoreticians argued that these two political parties were moderates. That explains why their presidential candidates were both ultra conservatives. This lack of ideology or corpus of manifesto is evident in the current democratic dispensation, even though political party membership now cuts across ethnic and regional lines.
The somewhat blurred ethnic or sectional politics looms in the surreptitious demand for power shift, the boju boju, or astute promotion of ethnic agenda. Anyone who thought that the “New PDP” had any grand ideological or political agenda different from the “Old PDP”, must be naive indeed. The only difference in their six and half-a-dozen is that the “New PDP” is rooting for a Northern presidential candidate for the 2015 General Election, and the “Old PDP” wants to retain President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner. The All Progressives Congress is patiently waiting for the ethnic chips to fall when the battle between the two PDPs has been won and lost. Have you noticed that Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) is no longer high-strung on the presidency bid as hitherto? He has gone sempe, stand-by. One wonders who, of the APC dudes, brewed the omi suuru, or dew of patience, that made him so gentle.
Like many before them, most of Nigeria’s 63 political parties lack clearly articulated political ideologies or manifestoes. If you observe the recent acrimonious governorship election in Anambra State, the contending political parties merely peddled a testimony of their past performances, engaged in subterfuges, set thugs against one another and generally accused the Independent National Electoral Commission of incompetence. None presented clear and concrete programmes that the electorate can hold them to when they assume power. These political parties appear to be loose collectives of individuals who seek political power to gain greater access to the commonwealth. You must take it with a pinch of salt, when political parties such as the Alliance for Democracy, the Action Congress of Nigeria and its successor, the APC, claim to be ideological successors of the AG, and some of their more prominent leaders claim to be Awoists.
None of these political parties is galvanising the citizens for a mass movement or mass action. As musician Lagbaja might have insinuated in his “200 Million Mumu” album, there is hardly any difference in a motley crowd. Even with the welfarist policy of its Ekiti State Government that reportedly pays a monthly stipend to old citizens, and the Osun State that provides free lunch, uniforms and books, for its school pupils, the APC rejects an ideological label. Someone says the Western powers would hold their Foreign Direct Investment purse strings if any political party identifies itself as socialist, or welfarist. But Nigerian politicians seem to abhor mass movements. The AG and the UPN, that had some coherent ideology, were condemned for being too regimented. Their leader, Obafemi Awolowo, was regarded as too rigid because he insisted that party stalwarts must toe party lines. But still, a modern political party that seeks to influence, or control government policy, through electoral campaigns, outreaches and protest actions, should have an ideology, vision and specific goals. When compared against these parameters, most Nigerian political parties are no more than tea parties. If you confuse this metaphor with America’s ultra-conservative Tea Party, you’ll miss the point that Nigerian political parties have no focus.
Copyright PUNCH.
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