WIKE AND PROLIFERATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES

Aaron Ossai argues that until our laws are amended, the upsurge in party registration will continue unabated

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently raised the alarm that the number of registered political parties in Nigeria had ballooned to 68. Its concerns bordered on the inherent challenges of such surge, which include complicated and expensive logistics. Newspaper editorials and Radio/TV flagship shows have subsequently followed suit, highlighting the implications of the proliferation and thus confirming INEC’s concerns. Indeed, the aggregate of opinions points to the same direction: the party system implosion would put a heavy strain on our already diminished public pulse and electoral process.

But last week, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State took a reverse lane on the matter, alleging that the “mass registration of new political parties is a deliberate plan by INEC to manipulate elections in three states”, his state inclusive. The allegation, in my view, flies straight in the face of both fact and logic. My fear is, if unproven and deuced allegations like this are allowed to fester ahead of the next general election, the outcome may be very sad. The political temperature is already getting high. We don’t need politicians to invoke a volcano, in the interest of us all.

For starters, I will take a historical look at the implosion in our party system since the beginning of the Fourth Republic. In 1999, there were only three parties during the general election. It wasn’t that there were no agitations for more parties, but INEC refused to register them. Human rights activist and legal icon, late Gani Fawehinmi, had dragged the electoral body to the court for his party to be registered. On November 8, 2002, the Supreme Court finally granted his prayers and voided INEC’s guideline which had prevented the registration of more parties.

The Supreme Court agreed with Fawehinmi that “INEC had no power to make guidelines on how an association can become a political party in so far as the Constitution has covered the field in section 222”, stating that “to restrict the formation of political parties weakens the democratic culture”. This judgment gave birth to the surge in political parties ever since.

Few months after the court ruling, INEC was forced to register 27 additional parties, bringing the number to 30 during the 2003 general election. In the next general poll in 2007, 20 more parties were registered, and by 2011, the number of political parties in Nigeria surged to 63! In an apparent bid to curb this galloping increase, the federal lawmakers empowered the electoral umpire to de-register political parties. Thus, on August 17, 2011, the election body delisted seven parties and on December 6, 2012, it ceased to recognise 28 more parties. This trimmed the number of parties in the country to 28. The action provoked reactions from the affected parties, some of them accusing then INEC boss, Prof Attahiru Jega, “of exploiting the deregistration exercise to settle personal vendetta with his foes”. Some of them actually challenged this action in court and defeated INEC. Ever since, the surge has rebooted.

The registration of two new parties on August 16, 2013 brought the number to 30, ahead of the 2015 general elections. On October 21, 2016, INEC registered 10 parties. The latest registration of 21 parties, which increased the number to 68, understandably sparked debates about the challenges it portends for INEC in the next general election. Unfortunately, some politicians, such as Governor Wike, have feasted on this and included it in their ‘battle strategy’, should they lose.

The reality is that the proliferation of parties will not abate unless an amendment is effected on section 222 of the constitution. The requirements for party registration as contained in the section are so simple that nothing stops a family from registering their own party. According to section 222 of the constitution, all that a would-be party need to do is to ensure that, “(one) the names and addresses of its national officers are registered with the Independent National Electoral Commission; (two) the membership of the association is open to every citizen of Nigeria irrespective of his place of origin, circumstance of birth, sex, religion or ethnic grouping; (three) a copy of its constitution is registered in the principal office of the Independent National Electoral Commission in such form as may be prescribed by the Independent National Electoral Commission; (four) any alteration in its registered constitution is also registered in the principal office of the Independent National Electoral Commission within 30 days of the making of such alteration(five) the name of the association, its symbol or logo does not contain any ethnic or religious connotation or give the appearance that the activities of the association are confined to a part only of the geographical area of Nigeria; and(six) the headquarters of the association is situated in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.” Those are the six requirements needed to compel INEC to register a political party.

After the Supreme Court ruling in 2002, INEC can’t refuse to register any political association for any other reasons beyond the ones stated above. It is sad that our lawmakers did not deem it fit to amend section 222 during the recent constitution amendment. Instead, they preferred to smuggle in the ‘order of elections’ for obvious self-interest, even though it was never discussed at the public hearing as specified by the constitution.

In the United States, for example, for a party to be included on the ballot, it must meet specific requirements in the affected state. A requirement in some states is that you must have 10,000 registered members that are verifiable. So for you to have your logo in a presidential ballot, you must prove that you have 10,000 registered members from each state of the federation. That is why only the Democratic and Republican parties contest in presidential elections. Just imagine amendment to our constitution in the semblance of this proviso. How many of these mushroom parties in Nigeria do you think can show that they have at least 360,000 registered members, with 10,000 from each state? Until our laws are amended, the upsurge in party registration will continue unabated.