The morning foretells the day. Early signs can indicate how a day will unfold. In that sense, the recent presidential, gubernatorial and legislative primaries foretell a very messy general election next year. Over the past two weeks, the media have been awash with endless stories about deeply flawed party primaries. The primaries betray a political culture at the heart of Nigerian broken politics, which could hugely erode the credibility of next year’s elections.
The ruling party, All Progressives Congress, APC, kicked off the charade with a comical presidential primary in which one Stanley Osifo, a politically unknown quantity, “ran” against President Bola Tinubu, the magisterial and all-powerful incumbent. So important, and so competitive, was the primary that 10,999,967 APC members across Nigeria’s 36 states “voted”. In the end, Osifo, a lilliputian, polled 16,504 votes. But what really caught everyone’s attention was the purported number of voters. What message was APC sending with the patently over-inflated figure of 11mn voters in its presidential primary? Was the party trying to bounce Nigerians into accepting the “inevitability” of President Tinubu’s victory next year by suggesting that the party, with its 31 governors, would garner over 11mn votes in 2027, beating its 8.7mn votes in 2023? APC insulted Nigerians with the 10,999,967 almost-certainly-fictitious votes! The vote inflation is a bad omen for 2027!
