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
This post was originally published on this site.
