Direct primaries is the answer

MY THOUGHTS ON THE TRENDING ANNOUNCEMENT BY APC NATIONAL LEADERSHIP REGARDING THE ADOPTION OF DIRECT PRIMARIES OPTION IN THE ELECTION OF THE PARTY CANDIDATES FOR GENERAL ELECTIONS

Quite a brilliant stroke and most welcome development it is! Comrade Oshiomole - APC National Chairman has indeed started proving his mettle and brinkmanship as a standard-bearer of participatory democracy.

The decision will surely ginger a desirable bottom-up inclusive and participatory democracy in which the true wishes and decisions of all party members truly matter. The Party has by this highly commendable decision provided the inspiration for a new sense of shared responsibility, increased commitment and wider appeal that will sure steamroll serial electoral victories for it into the foreseeable future.

This model popularised the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) to which I had belonged in the 1990s. I was there at the February 1993 SDP Jos Convention from which late MKO Abiola emerged Presidential Flag-bearer and voted in the General Elections of June 12, 1993.

The common misunderstanding that a lot of people have about the so-called 'Option A4' is believing that voters have to physically queue behind the candidates of their choice or on their images in direct primaries. That was the very first system experimented called 'Open-Ballot System' and used in the 1991 Parties Primaries elections.

The 'Modified Open-Ballot System' was later to be used for all elections including the June 12, 1993 Elections. This option involves voting for a candidate of one's choice from a secret enclosure which is in plain sight and in the same perimetre of the designated Polling Unit.

After voting is concluded the votes are counted in plain sight and results announced on the spot for each Polling Unit with signed copies by all Party agents, representative of security forces and INEC distributed there and then. A copy of the result is also post on the Polling Unit for the General Public to see and similar copies are distributed to all signatories on the result. .

This is what has evolved with some modifications into what we have today in our electoral system. So, direct primaries would not necessarily involve the physical queuing of voters behind candidates as is being imagined in some quarters.

Quite apart from the APC leadership's stated reason of obviating corruption and 'god-fatherism' in the electoral and electioneering processes, the Party also stands to benefit the following immediate gains from direct primaries:

*The Most popular candidates representing the true wishes of the majority will be selected with the high likelihood of their easily winning the General Elections.

* The campaigns and competition for party tickets with the direct primaries option will not only widen the appeal and acceptability of the Party but will also minimize cases of post-primary election disaffection, acrimony and possible defections.

* Very importantly, the APC would have solved the existing problem or difficulty of having to choose delegates from multiple EXCOs across several States without offending the law and different interest groups, which could generate both internal and external strife and litigation in the process. Etc.

I therefore give very big kudos to the Comrade Adams Oshiomole led National EXCO and NWC for this masterstroke!

Cijeyu Ojong 
(Participated in PDP Primaries and contested as ACN House of Representatives Candidate - Ikom/Boki Federal Constituency in the 2011 General Elections; February 2014 registered and card-carrying APC Member, Ikom Urban Ward 1, Cross River State).