The primaries were largely choreographed chaos, reckons BRUCE MALOGO
We just watched Nigeria’s political parties rehearse for power. Most, actually. In the course of it, they conveniently forgot to include the people. The primaries are now done. The announcements are out. But calling what happened “primaries” insults the word; it insults the process, and it insults everyone who spent valuable time watching and monitoring. It was choreographed chaos, a performance of democracy without its substance.
Everyone acquainted with the theatre understands that farce is harmless when it stays on stage. This one doesn’t. It decides who gets access to power either at the center or at the provincial level; it decides who manages public funds and our future. That turns a bad play into something worse: a tragedy written at the country’s expense. Not surprisingly, most Nigerians are not particularly shocked by all of this, because it falls into a pattern long established in a maniacal quest to capture, hold and use power. It mitigates the effects of the tragedy. Nigerians have learned to manage their expectations when it has to do with such matters as politics and political processes.
As we can now see, primaries in Nigeria are scarcely contests of ideas, like every contest in our political landscape. They are auctions. Delegates have a price list, aspirants have a budget, and the highest bidder wins. Some others win simply because they are darlings of national or provincial tin-gods. Policy doesn’t enter the room and competence is often thrown out of the window.
