POLITICAL GODFATHERISM AND THE DANGER OF NIGERIA GROWTH OF DEMOCRATIZATION

BY

UDOH, UKEME VICTOR
STUDENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, DEVELOPMENT FIGHTER AND A REVOLUTIONALIST FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE,
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
EMAIL:udohukeme25@gmail.com or ukemeudoh2016@gmail.com
Tele: +2348181725127


A political representative that is impose on the people by an authoritarian political Godfather is a threat to democratic development; but he that cometh from the choice, mind and conscience of the masses is of a truth a just and a true political representative that is constitutional and abide by the principle of democracy and such would promotes the concept and provides the ultimate dividend of democracy to the people.
- Udoh, Ukeme V.
So many Governors and president in Nigeria have taken a negative steps to undermine the principles and concept of Nigerian democracy, as well as shout its growth and development through their political activities and position of political Godfatherism in different political representatives formations in the country.
For instance, some Governors who regards and proclaim themselves as political octopus and godfather of their respective state politics, would be in a good position to influence their state politics absolutely on “WHO GET WHAT, WHEN, AND HOW”i.e they place or impose unconstitutional representatives on positions of authorities contrary to the principles of democracy concepts. They use their will, rather than the will of the people to choose their representative of their own choice. You see they would use state resources to sponsor such candidates and influence the elections same to their own success. You then see that the preferred candidates to different position of authorities by the mass political societies, would not win, while because they do not have what its takes to influence the elections to their own success or because they do not have political godfather or octopus.
Therefore, when this godfatherism-elected representative take up political affair of their represented political formation, they cannot meet the demands of the political mass society, they cannot show any little dividend of democracy, while because their plans is to meets the demands of their godfathers and themselves at the detriment of the people. When this is done, you would experience that this country would not moves forward and it will keep on stepping backward drastically on the ladder of democratic development as well as political and economic development year in year out. That is while Nigerian state would still continues to remain underdeveloped: yesterday, today and even tomorrow, if development fighters does not wake up from their slumber and sleep to put appropriate and good measures and political and economic plans on grounds to avert political and economic underdevelopment in Nigeria. If highly spirited development fighter wake up and fight for Nigeria development, Nigeria would surely develop in the nearest future and if people chosen representative manned positions of political authority, this country would surely developed and lastly, if we seek God’s intervention and holy advice to our political and economic structures the country would not fail to become a developed nation.
Political godfather in our different state politics have kill our political and economic development in our respective states. They are in the place to produce their wives to senate house, sisters to State Houses of Assembly, daughter to house of representative, in-laws to Federal House of Representatives, when this is done, do they respect the principle of Democracy? Would Nigeria Democracy survives in this type of situation? This has become a family politics such like an absolute monarchical dynasty hereditary politics in the face and platform of Democracy.
You see political power, authority and state wealth continues to recycled in these families, and they continue to control and influence Nigeria’s politics. Surely, this is what is happening in Nigeria. When this happen, that is while 80percent of Nigerian political population remains in total poverty and generally the country remains underdeveloped and the commonwealth of Nigeria which could have been used for state development, have been acquired by few individuals who called themselves political leaders. I promise that these group of leaders would not go scot-free, but they would give total accounts of their stewardship either by themselves or by their children and children-children and punishment would be meted on them and their generation seen and unseen, I said.
Therefore, the term political godfatherism negates the success and development of a country’s democracy and the country’s total political and economic development.
Godfatherism is a political phenomenon that denote the activities of few political leaders choosing and imposing new politicalleaders in their respective political formations outside the concerns of the mass political societies. They control and influence the country’s economic affairs and structures by their authoritarian political attitude outside the concerns of the masses and the constitutional and democratic principles and concepts.
In Nigeria, as things goes, godfather phenomenon would never cease, while because, Godfather is like the intermediary between so-called politician and God. Most of them played the role of a demi-god in politics. You see their associates would loved and enjoyed them, but their opponents would feared them. Politicians have seen the gains of bequeathing political power to their relatives and close associates so that they can continue to be relevant.
The manipulations by godfathers in the political process reflects a lack of internal and true democracy in the political parties. It is not limited to any of the parties. There are complains of imposition of candidates, zero conduct of party primaries, and where they are held at all, the winning aspirant often gets supplanted by an anointed candidates who either did not have a good showing at the exercise or may not even have contested in the first instance.
By virtue of the people Democratic Party PDP, guidelines under whose platform the political exercise took place; PDP state primaries were patently illegal. By virtue of the PDP guidelines for the nomination of candidates for public offices, specifically stated that the national electoral officer shall be appointed for each state by the national Executive committee, NEC and that whosoever shall supervise the conduct of party’s elections in the state, compiled primary reports and submit same to state Executive Committee, SEC, and the NEC, which has the power to announce the outcome of all nomination exercises supervised. Contrary to the terms of the guideline, the state chapters of the PDP hijacked the functions of the national officers, by conducting the elections, collating and announcing results. This assertion is predicated on the fact that the PDP states primaries across the country was conducted under the supervision of their state party chairmen across the country for the past 16 years of political mass dominant party politics in Nigeria, instead of the accredited persons been led the delegation of national officers to the respective states.
Political godfathers in Nigeria are pushing their luck too far, by practicing nepotism during the recent primaries of their party at the expense of the teeming members of the party who had stuck with it through thick and thin. Indeed, this is godfathers democracy in action in Nigeria politics. I enjoin Nigerians to resist always from the self-acclaimed custodian of democracy.
This development is, however, not limited to the PDP. After almost 16 years of uninterrupted democracy, indications are that most of the country’s political parties especially in Africa are yet to imbibe the culture of internal democracy. Almost all the parties, without exception, are recently embroiled with internal agitations resulting from the recently concluded primaries. And also series of electoral malpractices cases have been filed across the country against some political parties and some political godfather who influence elections to their own success, to the electoral tribunal. There is no difference between the APC and PDP in this situation.
You could see in many states, there were gross foul play masterminded by the top state government official. When this is done, you see that the affected persons would mobilise their supporters and they would go on a march protests with placard, demanding for the cancellation of the results, and the holding of fresh primaries or elections. You see, the delegates would votes for the rightful candidates, but some forces in the party would rigged the election in favour of their preferred aspirants. The government officials would go to voting points directing delegates on where to thumb print, threatening to punish them if they don’t obey them. You see they would use huge amount of monies to buy the delegates, as well as using security agents to victimise the political legal right of the delegates.
In Nigerian politics and our so-called democracy, we lack absolutely, internal democracy. Therefore, internal democracy implies the presence, of transparent conducts of elections and the freedom of party members to choose those who will constitutionally and democratically stands for elections.
But under the present challenges in the country, the words and desire of party leaders represent the law. A political party in a democratic setting ought to be a place, where people converge and aggregates their political and economics ideas, interests and plans to moves the party and as well as the country forward and stepup its development. If one person believes that through his whims and caprices, he can decide who gets what in a party, it is no longer a democracy.
The issue of lack of internal democracy, affects the level of transparency and the faith as well as the constitutional and democratic rights of the ordinary person in the country that proclaimed to be the largest Democratic Networks in Africa. The import of these development is that candidates are not allowed to sell themselves to the electorate, and thereby democracy is undermined. Where aspirants cannot get justice they have to dump one political party to another political party. The implication is that in the elections, parties and candidates will once again demonstrates the desperation to win at all cost thereby encouraging or perpetrating sharp practices at the polls. The question here is wouldthebe guaranteed free and fair elections? It is the political right of the electorate to insists that their votes count and so reject the candidates imposed on them by political godfather. They can as well reject the party and reject the candidates equally. By so doing, the party will lose from where they do not expects to lose.
Currently in Nigeria, we do not have political parties, rather what we have here is political platforms. Can a political party in a democratic setting in a contemporary period, have this type of political believes that they cannot share the fears of those who decry imposition of candidates. That party leadership is at liberty to pick anyone it deems fit to contest any elective position, and that any member who is not comfortable with that should go and contest in another political party. That the know the efforts they made before the party became what it is today, and where were they when the make the efforts? It is when they saw that the party is popular that they are attracted to it and they do not expect them to come and hijack the party. Is this a true political party in a democratic setting? Therefore, it is high time political parties to adopts full internal democracy and equally abolish any party ideologies that goes contrary to the fruition and development of democratization in Nigeria.
It is worthy of note in Nigeria for the rising problems of internal democracy in Nigeria is built behind the way and manner in which the country’s political parties are formed. Most political parties in the country are developed from social clubs or organisations, which are usually built around individuals, particularly moneybags. These political juggernauts spend huge amount of money building the political parties from the stage of minute associations so, it is not surprising that many of them want their interest protected, so they impose candidates and they will impose themselves as Mr and Mrs know-it-All, and decide for the generality of the people. Since Nigeria’s political parties do not have clear ideological basis on which their actions and plans are predicated, anything is possible to happen. The agitations over primaries is likely to affect the fortune of the parties during elections. This is surely, a possibility, as it would likely lead to protests votes in some of the affected states. The increasing spate of decamping, particularly of politicians who are fell dissatisfied by the overreaching influence of the political godfathers and Octopus in their states, may help to alter the balance of forces in such states. Such politicians will likely moves their supporters with them. They would switched their allegiance to another party, to rekindle hope for their ambition.
Therefore, the political decamping within the political party circle do not augur well for the country. It therefore, means that there is no question of ideology. What the individual are trying to do, is to improve their personal chances of participating in the political process, and therefore has nothing to do with service to the people.
The imposition of candidates apart, the issue of lack of internal democracy has also manifested over the years in Nigeria in different forms. Rather than imbibing the basic democratic tenets of pluralism and democratic tolerance, a culture of impurity seems to prevails everywhere. Unless politicians exercise restraint and ensure that their members respect the laws of their associations and the constitution of the country, this development will ruin the current democratic experiment some politicians see it as a do-or-die affairs, and so are prepared to do all sorts of dastardly acts to get to power.
In conclusion, democracy is a concepts that promotes the culture and believes of give and take, it is an endurance, patience, consensus building and dialogue. Those seeking for power by all means do not have the interest of the people at heart, there are only after their personal aggrandisement, because if they are interested in service, they would not want it all costs. I therefore enjoin and call on political and party leaders to shun and abstain from the practice and culture of godfatherism, which is a serious threat to the country democracy and its growth and development.

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