The emerging conundrum in Kogi State over the replacement of the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate in the recently conducted inconclusive election in the state, late Prince Abubakar Audu, has again brought to fore the renewed debates on the age-long mechanism of party supremacy in Nigeria’s political system. Party supremacy is widely believed as a principle where the interests of a political party is placed ahead of interests of individual members, sectional interests or the interference of another political party.
The coinage is not strange to Nigeria’s political history. In 1981, the Kaduna State Governor, Balarabe Musa, and his Kano State counterpart, late Abubakar Rimi, were caught in the web of party disloyalty to the People’s Redemption Party by romancing the ruling National Party of Nigeria-led Federal Government.
In June, the decisions of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, to defy the outcome of APC’s unconstitutional mock election and subsequently contest for their present offices drew the irk of party leaders. Saraki and Dogara were accused of party disloyalty and disregard for party supremacy. The mock election had thrown up Senator Ahmed Lawan and Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila as APC’s preferred choices for the offices of Senate President and Speaker of House of Representatives. Anyway, the mock election, which was unknown to the APC constitution, turned out to a mockery of the party’s primary election.
What is however comical and which likewise reek of hypocrisy is that the exponents of party supremacy during the National Assembly brouhaha are the same individuals caught in the web of glaring contempt for party supremacy in the fierce political battle to replace Audu with another candidate for the scheduled supplementary election.
With the decision of the leadership of the APC to nominate the first runner-up in its primary election, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, as its new governorship candidate and likewise retain Hon. James Faleke as the deputy governorship candidate for the Kogi State governorship supplementary election, the protest by Faleke is clearly a protest against party supremacy. Faleke is a political godson of a National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. And the godfather cannot claim to be indifferent on this raging issue. In fact, the godfather has been reported to have assembled a team of legal giants for Faleke to sue the party and the electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Should Faleke eventually sue the APC, the whole hypocrisy about party supremacy would have been blown off. For Tinubu and Faleke: is the party no longer supreme?
. Balogun writes from newparrort@gmail.com.
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