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Political party and democracy failure in Nigeria 04 Feb 2025

On 30 January 2025, I had the honour to review a book on 100 years of political parties in Nigeria. The book is published by the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) Nigeria. The book, authored by select academics from Nigerian universities, traces the evolution of Nigerian political parties, their configurations, and contributions to shaping the country’s democracy.

For those who do not know, the first political party in Nigeria, Nigerian National Democracy Party (NNDP), was established in 1923. 1922 was the year that the colonial Governor General, Hugh Clifford, signed a new constitution for the country. This constitution was remarkable for introducing the ‘elective principle’. Elections were to be held in Lagos for three seats and in Calabar for a seat for the new Nigerian legislative council. This was a limited franchise for those referred to as British citizens. NNDP was hurriedly formed to contest that election. Political parties in Nigeria have since become a matter of electoral exigency.

Between 1946 and 1951, Nigeria evolved into a federal and regional system. This meant new elections into regional legislature. Cultural associations transformed into regional parties to contest for those seats. This is the second phase of party evolution in Nigeria and the beginning of parties as ethnic platforms. Regional parties became ethnic parties as the three major ethnic groups dominated the three main parties. Another aspect of the Nigerian state that affected the evolution of political parties is the agitation for justice and equality by ethnic minorities in the north and south of Nigeria. As the major ethnic groups dominated the main parties, some of the minorities began agitation for recognition and creation of more regions and states. Political parties arose to champion this agitation. This birthed minority ethnic parties like the United Middle Belt Congress.

By 1960 when Nigeria gained independence, its political parties were regionally and ethnically constituted. The only possible exception was the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) that later became National Convention of Nigerian Citizens. Notwithstanding its national ideology and commitments, the NCNC continued to wear the toga of Igbo party because of the dominance of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, a foremost Nigerian nationalist who was an Igbo.

After the civil war, the military administration worked to disrupt the ethnicisation of Nigerian politics by demanding national parties. The electoral guidelines for the 1979 general election mandated political parties to have offices across regions, ethnicities, and geopolitical zones in Nigeria. No political party with ethnic or religious affiliations or ideology or symbols would be registered. The military deliberately wanted to reshape Nigerian politics away from ethnicity and religion towards a national ideology. But this was fruitless. The height of the construction of a new politics was under General Ibrahim Babangida, when he decreed two ideological parties, Social Democratic Party, a left of the centre party, and National Republican Convention, a right of the centre party. The government funded both parties and made everyone an equal joiner, equal owner. Babangida mandated all presidential candidates to show their popularity and acceptability by winning their ward congress before emerging at the state and national levels. It was part of his guided democracy model. It is pleasantly surprising that a military transition in 1993 resulted in the most credible elections in Nigeria’s history, which saw a Muslim-Muslim ticket win overwhelmingly across religious and ethnic zones. Could it be that Babangida’s forceful suppression of ethnicity and religious sentiments by the mode of formation of the two parties changed the political dynamics such that politics shifted from personalism and ethnocentricity to nationalism?

Unfortunately, Babangida annulled the freest and fairest election and threw Nigeria into chaos and another military dictatorship. Abacha succeeded Babangida and tried to turn himself into a civilian president through becoming the presidential candidate of all the parties, which Nigeria’s respected politician, Bola Ige, called five fingers of a leprous hand. General Abdulsalam Abubakar succeeded Abacha and hurriedly transited to democracy with a multiparty system. Abubakar parties were national parties without ideological difference and coherence. They are a kind of ‘catch-all’ parties that recruited without regard to ideological similarity or policy alignment.

The point of this brief history of the evolution of Nigerian political parties is to underline three basic facts about political parties and democracy in Nigeria. First, Nigerian political parties are products of political exigency of winning elections, regional or national. Political party formation may be 100 years old in Nigeria, but the functions of a political party as outlined by Robert Dahl are not a day old in the country. Parties have not become social mobilisation platforms except in the isolated period of anticolonial struggle. Second, Nigerian political parties have been ideologically vacuous or incoherent. Efforts to displace ethnocentric and religious politics have failed because governments have failed to scale up national values and norms that can displace ethnic sentiments. This is a failure of nation-building. As Yasheng Huang argues in his latest book, The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline, China’s success relates to its ability to homogenise ideology. Nigerian political parties are ethnic and personalised because Nigerian ruling elites are unable to homogenise a national ideology that replaces tribalism and religious sentiments. Third, coalition politics in Nigeria has not been about national interest; it has always been about personal or group interests.

In 2015, a coalition of desperate politicians removed the PDP from power, just to be in power. They delivered terrible governance. In 2027, another coalition of desperate politicians may remove the APC to institute another reign of bad governance. Politics in Nigeria has not been a competition of national ideologies. It has always been a competition of ethnic interests, or personal interests or the aggregate interest of aggrieved politicians. The problem of Nigerian politics is in the origin of the political parties.

Sam Amadi, PhD, a former Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, is the Director of Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts.