FRUSTRATION and exasperation oozed from every pore in their bodies. The six of them looked despondent, deflated and dejected, like children whose balloons had been burst by a bully. As they addressed journalists at the Press Centre, Iyaganku, Ibadan, that Friday, they were visibly agitated, and if not for their level of exposure and training, they probably would have gone violent, unleashing terror on everything on their path.

They were governorship aspirants on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Oyo State. Their grouse was the manner in which the party’s flag bearer in the gubernatorial election, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, was selected by the party leadership. They all; Professor Wale Oyemakinde, Chief Olufemi Lanlehin, Dr. Adebayo Adewusi, Professor Wole Akinboade, Honourable Soji Akanbi and Honourable Kazeem Adedeji, lamented the absence of transparency in the process. They complained that the party leadership, rather than following the respectable process of having a primary election which would afford party delegates to decide who their choice would be, decided to pick just one of the aspirants as the consensus candidate without recourse to the rest of them.

As pointed out by one of them, “How can we have a consensus candidate without at least a discussion? It was not a consensus, it was an imposition and we shall resist it with everything at our disposal.”

The aspirants whose hopes were wickedly dashed groaned that if the party leaders knew that they would not allow a level playing ground for all the contestants, they should have refrained from collecting money from the aspirants.

One of them complained that the most worrying part of their ordeal was that the leaders were not even saying anything, “just as if what has happened is normal, just as if my feeling does not matter.”

He stated, “Up till I am talking to you now, nobody has told us the criteria used to choose the party’s candidate. If we had had a contest and I had lost, I might have felt disappointed but I would not have felt bad. It will mean to me that I need to improve on my politics. But now that I paid for a contest and I was not allowed to contest and I was given a result, how do they expect me to feel? How do they expect me to remain loyal to the party? What all that has happened means to me is that the party leaders are just out to fleece the people. They are not democrats, they are merely impostors.”

A grossly disappointed Professor Akinboade, in an interview with unday Tribune said, “what the national leaders of the party have done is not right; it is not just and justice is the slogan of our party. We are appealing to them to let justice prevail and nullify that decision which has no support and justification.”

Perhaps the most worrying case of imposition in Ogun State remains the announcement of Senator Ibikunle Amosun as its gubernatorial candidate. While the aspirants had been preparing themselves for a primary election and selling their programmes to the delegates, the leadership of the party went behind their back to announce a flag bearer. The announcement of Amosun has united all the other aspirants against him.

“Is this democracy?” One of the enraged aspirants asked. “Then what is the purpose of having delegates if at the end of the day the delegates will not be allowed to do their work? Amosun is not the choice of the members of the party, he is the choice of just a few leaders and we shall see if the votes of the leaders will be enough to install him as the governor of the state. If this decision is not reversed, ACN will lose in Ogun State. You can take a bet on that.”

The worst hit state by the insistence of ACN leaders on imposition of candidates is Lagos because it was really a contest between the governor, Raji Fashola; and the one called governor emeritus, Bola Tinubu. All the supporters of Fashola that contested one seat or the other lost. All members of his cabinet that sought the ticket to contest elective posts lost.

The Speaker of Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, the champion of ‘Fashola Must Go’ campaign, is from Epe and has run two terms. His constituents in Epe are fed up with him and want a fresh representative in the state legislature. Seeing this, the leadership of the party, bent on having him back in the House, ostensibly to continue as Speaker, arranged for him to pick the Osodi-Isolo Constituency 2 ticket but found out that the incumbent, Omowunmi Olatunji-Edet, was uncompromising, so they forced Babatunde Ogala of Ikeja Constituency 1 out of the contest to enable the Speaker pick the ticket for that constituency. So, Ikuforiji will be seeking re-election to the House, not from Epe, as was the case in 2003 and 2007, but from Ikeja Constituency 1.

Ikuforiji’s case is similar to that of Wahab Alawiye King. King represents Lagos Island Constituency 1 in the state legislature but because his constituency rejected his bid for another term, the party leaders dropped his colleague in the House representing Lagos Island Constituency 2, Ayoola Shakiru Ahmed, and imposed King on the constituency. Again, the leaders swapped constituencies for their preferred candidate, for him to continue in office without any regard for the preference of the constituents. All the complaints and threats by the people of Lagos Island Constituency 2 that they will vote against the party if the imposition is not reversed have fallen on deaf ears.

Deputy Minority Leader in the Senate and one of the most versatile and productive members of the upper chamber of the National Assembly, Olorunnimbe Mamora, was forced to withdraw from seeking re-election to pave way for the preference of the party leadership for the Lagos East Senatorial District, Gbenga Ashafa.

While announcing his withdrawal from the race at a press conference, Mamora, who described his withdrawal as a sacrifice, said he was withdrawing from the race to avoid confrontation with the party leaders.

He added, “My decision was informed by the need to respect the party supremacy,  If from all indications you are getting feelings that you are not favoured in the race why would you want to go ahead against the will of the party?”

But compared with the experience of his colleague, Senator Muniru Muse representing Lagos Central District, Mamora had a better deal. Muse was said to have been told in plain terms that he would have to forfeit his re-election ambition for the aspiration of Tinubu’s wife, Oluremi, to seek election to the Senate.

When Muse wanted to raise a dust, he was reminded of the withdrawal clause in his nomination form. With that, the man was cowed and he agreed that the wife of the governor emeritus should take his place.

But Oluremi is not the only member of Tinubu’s family foisted on the hapless party members in Lagos State. There is also his daughter, Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, to whom was donated the Agege Federal Constituency ticket. [/b]Mrs Tinubu-Ojo, who holds a Master of Business Administration degree, is currently the Deputy Chiarman, Lagos State Market Development Board, while Tinubu’s mother, Alhaja Abibat Mogaji, is the chairman.

Also, [b]Tinubu’s son-in-law, Oyetunde Ojo, got the ticket for the Agege State Constituency. Ojo, an erstwhile aspirant for the Ijero-Efon-Ekiti West Federal Constituency in Ekiti State, was compensated with the ticket to the Lagos State House of Assembly, when he lost out on his bid to represent his home state at the National Assembly.

Another member of the Tinubu household who benefitted from the situation in the ACN is Lola Akande, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu’s elder sister. Honourable Akande, who is a current member of the state House of Assembly, was endorsed to continue for another term.

In Ekiti State, though the party conducted a primary election for the Ekiti Central Senatorial District, for whatever reason, the party never announced the result. This has left room for insinuations that the party leadership is bent on circumventing the will of the people by imposing unpopular aspirants as candidates.

This has resulted in violent reactions from party members with several people maimed.

In one of the protests, members of the party converged on Fajuyi Park and marched round Ado-Ekiti streets, chanting war songs and raining curses on those who were determined to rob the people of their chosen representatives. The protest forced the state party chairman, Chief Jide Awe, into hiding for several hours as he was afraid that the irate protesters would not hesitate to lynch him.

Alhaji Jimoh Ibrahim, an Ado-Ekiti Central Federal Constituency aspirant, while addressing a press conference on the issue of imposition of candidates by the party leadership lamented the decision of party leaders to withhold the result of the primaries.

According to him, he won the election in the constituency and the ticket was allegedly given to the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele, who he claimed won the primary in Ekiti Central Senatorial District.

Ibrahim, therefore, called on the party leaders to give Bamidele the ticket to the Senate, since he won the primary, and give him his own ticket to the House of Representatives since he won the primary.

He added that though the party had refused to make public the list of its candidates, he had confirmed from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that the name of Babafemi Ojudu was sent as candidate for Ekiti Central Senatorial District while Bamidele was sent as the candidate for Ado-Ekiti Federal Constituency 1.

Ibrahim claimed that that was injustice since Bamidele never obtained the form for the House of Representatives primaries.

In Edo State, the aftermath of the alleged imposition of candidates and rigging of the primary election by the leadership of the ACN was bloody with at least four people killed in subsequent protests. Since the conclusion of the primaries, the party’s secretaiat has remained locked for fear of attack by discontent members of the party. Many party members have accused the governor, Adams Oshiomhole; his deputy and the party leadership  of being the brains behind the wave of imposition of candidates and rigging of the party primaries.

According to Matthew Urhokhide, an Edo South Senatorial District aspirant, “The list of our candidates in the party including the one for Edo South Senatorial District was already sent to the party headquarters in Abuja before the primaries results were announced at about 8pm in which case the pre-condition to my mind was already determined. There are no figures to us to check as to how the decision about the choice was made.”

Another aggrieved aspirant, Dr. Mrs Inumidun Idehen, alleged that the leadership of the party in her constituency subverted the will of the people.

According to her, “l did so many things some of them could not do and at the end of everything they want to impose somebody on me after I won. My people gave me the support; they said let the people lead and my people voted for me. If my mandate is not given to me I will go to court.”

In Owan Federal constituency, there was a clash between two members of Governor Oshiomhole’s cabinet. The Commissioner for Arts and Culture, Honourable Oroh Abdul, who aspired to represent Owan Federal Constituency, alleged that the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Hon. Pally Iriase, used the instrument of government to thwart his ambition, despite his victory at the primaries.

The situation in Osun State was not a departure from the pattern as aspirants whose ambitions were truncated by the leaders of the party through imposition have been complaining over the development.

While addressing a press conference at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Press Centre, Osogbo, recently, the aspirants expressed consternation at the decision of the party leadership to pick some people as the candidates without allowing them to go through the primaries despite being subjected to a rigorous screening.

The spokesperson of the aspirants, Hon. Femi Kehinde, a senatorial aspirant on the platform of the ACN in Osun-West, said that the imposition of candidates by the party leaders without allowing the aspirants to go through primaries was undemocratic and was contrary to article 5 (11) of the party’s constitution and section 87 of the Electoral Act 2010

The aspirants stated that “Chief Bola Ige, Chief Michael Ajasin, Master Oluwole Awolowo were selected through primary election in 1979, while Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu emerged through a primary election in Lagos State in 1999.

“We are, therefore, surprised, bewildered and deeply consternated that our party, that claims justice as its motto could be rooting for something that is repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience,” they said.

The aspirants however urged the party to immediately release the result of the screening committee led by Mr. S.O. Ojo conducted for the aspirants while primary election should be conducted for the aspirants before 31st of January 2011 as stipulated in the INEC time table.

But the national chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande, does not see anything out of place with the decision of the party leadership to impose candidates, saying “imposition is our style.”

In a well-publicised interview during the celebration of his birthday, Akande said, “We are in a democracy. So, what do you mean by imposition,  This is not a matter of an individual but the party. Nobody should accuse ACN of imposition because that is our style. Anyone that is not comfortable with that should go and contest in another political party. So if you see anyone carrying placard around, he is wasting his time. We know the efforts we made before the party became what it is today and where are(sic) they when we were making the efforts.

“It is when they see that the party is popular that they were attracted to it and we don’t expect them to come and hijack the party because of their dirty money. We won’t allow anyone to hijack our party and that is why we take decisions in the interest of the party.”

Sound as the ACN national chairman’s argument may appear, the former governor missed out on a very vital issue and that is that democracy is not just about the leaders; it is, much more importantly, about the people. Really, it is a process that allows the people to have a say in who leads them. But the way the ACN went  about arriving at its own candidates, had stifled the voice of the people. The conduct of its leaders shows that the party has scant respect for democracy. How can a political party demonstrate uncommon contempt for something as basic as election? If the ACN lacks democracy can it give democracy? If the ACN is undemocratic, is it really a party?

The question the party has to answer as the general election draws close is; can a party that is not fair to its members be fair to the public? Can a party which finds it difficult to ensure justice among its members ensure same for the general public? What manner of party will not care about the feelings of its members and ask them to take a dive into the nearest lake rather than assuaging their feelings? Can such a party really fight the cause of the poor?
http://www.tribune.com.ng/sun/index.php/the-polity/3049-acn-sinking-under-the-weight-of-imposition

A beautiful piece - Let us not forget the fact that the practice of democracy 13 years after Military Rule and 50 years after the benefit and experience of Independence - Our People and her leaders know diddly-squat about DEMOCRACY. It is either ACN imposing incompetent candidates against the wishes of the voters or PDP bribing impoverished masses with cheap biscuits and rice in exchange for 4-yrs of guaranteed incompetence and corruption.

A Nation where educated Nigerians (especially on NL) swell the ranks of Political Pr0stitues who murder their own people by the use of willful ignorance, supporting Evil in the face of Good.

A Nation where a protest is seen as a dramatic means for the disgruntled to shout their throats hoarse and vent their spleen on the invisible opposition carrying nothing but their card-board placards and their frustrated hopes.

A Nation where the sustenance of governance is built on the waves of Injustice, Corruption, Poverty and gratuitous Violence - 50 years on.

A Nation that deliberately undermines her own efforts at reforming fundamental national institutions such Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, Health etc by appointing incompetent political office holders who embezzle funds year-in and year-out.

No wonder we are the 3rd largest Christian Nation in the World and the 5th Largest Muslim Nation - a bunch of 150+ million Nigerians who cannot lift a finger to wipe the sweat of their brow - waiting for divine intervention

Without internal democracy, there is no chance in hell of ACN or indeed any party for that matter becoming a truly national party. Disgruntled members will always work against such party.