23 June 2019
As a Primary school pupil at St. Brigid’s Primary School, Asata, Enugu (now O’Connor street Primary School) I attended a political rally in 1952 or 1953 at the then Eastern House of Assembly, Enugu. It was in connection with a meeting of the NCNC to decide the fate of the “Sit Tight Ministers “. These were politicians sponsored by the Party to become Ministers at the Center( Federal Government) but who refused a few years later to resign their positions at the request of the Party.
It was hilarious to see Jaja Nwachukwu shouting “No be me Nwapa. No be me Nwapa” while scampering away from his car on arrival under a heavy rain of stone missiles. The crowd was not happy with his lukewarm support of the Party on the matter. I wondered what would have happened to the four ” Sit Tighters” if they had come. In the end, the Ministers were consigned to the remotest and loneliest part of the Nigerian political wilderness. This was the first notorious case of Party indiscipline in Nigerian political history.
Today, notorious Party indiscipline by serial defectors is eulogized under the subterfuge of war against imposition. Politicians now feel so emboldened as to negotiate inter-Party alliances above the heads of their Parties, a political abomination.
Modern democracy is not possible without a robust role by the political party. It’s the engine that drives the democratic process, the cement that binds the people and their government, as well as binds the Executive and Legislature. It identifies relevant interests in society, organizes them into policy programs, presents them to the electorate at elections and if victorious, organizes the Executive and Legislature to implement them. An individual politician can only articulate her/his interests. He/she must rely on the Party for the other functions.
Thus, the Party is in the best position to decide which of its members would best implement its policy programs. Hence its political recruitment function of putting persons into governmental positions at all levels of government. If it does not have the necessary electoral majority, it enters into an alliance with one or more political parties to agree on the recruitment and policy programs to implement.
This Party supremacy is underlined by proportional representative democracy, especially the List type. Here, the Party decides not only who runs for office but also who is elected. For example, if it wins 40% of the votes, it chooses the first 40% of the candidates on a ranked list it submitted before the election. Many regard this system as the most democratic. Of course, in carrying out its functions the Party must accord with democratic norms and traditions, as well as the laws of the land.
Without Party discipline in Nigeria, we would never reach our goal of a true democracy based on policy programs rather than personality, ethnicity, religion, gender and age. In that case, the revolution that will end the rule of the petty bourgeoisie and usher in real development will be unduly delayed.
Albert Nnoli is a professor at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka
