CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of the Study

Political parties are traditionally the most significant intermediary organization in democratic societies. Students of political parties have commonly associated them with democracy itself. Political parties, as “makers” of democracy, have been so romanticized that scholars claim that neither democracy nor democratic societies are thinkable without them. In other words, the existence of vibrant political parties is a sine qua non for democratic consolidation in any polity. It is patently ironic that political parties in Nigeria largely pursue (and profess) democracy outside the gates and resist it within the gates (Orji, 2013; Ibeanu, 2013).

Democratic governance with its ideal of elective representation, freedom of choice of leaders, rule of law, freedom of expression, accountability among others, has become the acceptable system of government all over the world. It is a form of government in which the supreme power of a political community rests on popular sovereignty. According to Oyovbaire (1987) democracy as a system of government seeks to realize a generally recognized common good through a collective initiation and discussion of policy questions concerning public affairs and which delegates authority to agents to implement the broad decisions made by the people through majority vote.

Accordingly, Osabiya (2015) further asserted that in modern societies, political parties are very essential to political process. They have become veritable instrument or adjunct of democracy in any democratic system. Political parties are not only instrument for capturing political power, but they are also vehicles for the aggregation of interests and ultimate satisfaction of such interests through the control of government. Obviously political parties are crucial to the sustenance of democratic governance.

Towards the end of the last century, Africa like the rest of the world witnessed the “third wave of democratization” when authoritarian regime and one party governments were replaced or supplanted by elected civilian governments or administrations. Nigeria described by Ette (2013) as one of the strongholds of dictatorship in the continent was caught in the snowballing effect of the wave after twenty-nine years of military dictatorship. After several years of failure attempt by the past military regimes of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Sani Abacha, democracy formally gained root in the country on 29 May, 1999.

Nigerians were full of hopes and expectations that hard earned democracy will usher in improvements in standards of living, good governance, improvement in security and what Mohammed (2013:573 described as freeing of natural resources from the iron fist and jaw of greedy officials to that of enterprising and efficient social services delivery in health, education, sports and prevention of modern day slavery such as human trafficking as well as rehabilitation of infrastructural facilities, poverty alleviation and reduction in unemployment, inequality and improvement in general socio-economic development.

Disturbingly, eighteen years after the inception of the present democratic dispensation, the political landscape is yet to show clear evidence of good governance. Elections and electoral processes are subverted; there have been wide scale of political violence and killing in many parts of the country; upsurge in ethnic militia groups who make life unbearable for the citizenry; general insecurity and high profile terrorism in the northern part of the country as well as kidnapping and bunkering of the petroleum pipelines in the southern part of the country which obviously have become a major threat to her democratic process and consolidation (Adeosun, 2014:1).

The rudiments of a true democracy are good governance, fair and legitimate elections, justice, equity, accountability, transparency, responsible leadership, political education of the masses, respect for the rule of law and importantly corporation among the different branches of government. Regrettably, the practice of the so-called democracy in the 21st Century Nigeria is intrinsically characterized by electoral frauds orchestrated by political parties (Obidimma andObidimma, 2015:43).

Moreover, mainstream rhetoric in Nigeria media and popular discourses of the polity is often centred on the claim that Nigeria is “consolidating its democracy”. The evidence on the ground, however, contradicts this claim (Momoh, 2013:1). It is perhaps most appropriate to liken the relationship between political parties and the sustenance of democratic rule in a particular society to that which exists between the umbilical cord and the foetus (Yagboyaju, 2012:54).

Political parties are at the heart of examining the health of any form of democracy. Orji (2013:1) argues that ‘to talk, today, about consolidating democracy, is to talk about a system of competitive political parties’. Therefore this research study seeks to examine the role of political parties in consolidation of democracy in Nigeria with particular references to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Congress (APC).