Section 77 Of the Electoral Act: A democratic safeguard or a political prison for aspirants?
I think you should read my previous article where I analysed Section 77 of the Electoral Act before you delve into this, because there are some interventions there from which I decided to do a follow up piece on the same Section 77.
Section 77 of the Electoral Act appears, on the surface, to be a provision about party membership registers and internal party discipline.
But beneath the bureaucratic language lies a deeper political objective: the attempt to lock aspirants into political parties and frustrate the age-long practice of decamping after disputed primaries.
It is a provision carefully designed to strengthen the grip of political parties over aspirants, even where those parties themselves have become instruments of imposition, exclusion and political manipulation.
The section provides that only members whose names are contained in the register submitted to INEC can vote or be voted for during party primaries. It further mandates parties to submit that register at least 21 days before primaries and forbids the use of any other register.
READ ALSO: Can An Aspirant Decamp To Become A Candidate In Another Party After Losing Primaries? BY F. BABA ISA
The implication is obvious. Once a party has submitted its register to INEC, an aspirant who loses a primary and seeks refuge in another political party may find himself trapped by timelines and technicalities. The receiving party may already have submitted its register. If his name is not contained there, Section 77(5) becomes a weapon against his eligibility. This objective is not accidental.
The lawmakers clearly sought to discourage the culture of “political migration” immediately after primaries. They intended to compel aspirants to remain loyal to their parties, accept defeat, and abandon the possibility of pursuing their ambitions elsewhere.
In theory, supporters of this provision may argue that it promotes party discipline, ideological consistency and institutional stability. But in the Nigerian political reality, this provision does not strengthen democracy. It weakens it.
I have shown in my previous article, referenced above, that Section 77, despite its ambitious wording, ultimately fails to fully achieve this objective because constitutional rights, judicial interpretation and practical political realities still create pathways for decamping aspirants. Yet even if the section were perfectly effective, it would still represent a dangerous anti-democratic impulse.
What surprises me most is that many people genuinely imagine this attempt to prevent post-primary decamping somehow serves the interests of the masses. It does not. This provision is not a shield for democracy. It is a shield for political oligarchs.
It is a narcissistic safeguard erected by political parties to monopolise control over who eventually appears before the electorate as candidates. It empowers party establishments, often dominated by governors, godfathers and entrenched interests, to determine the destiny of millions behind closed doors.
In many states today, party primaries are not genuine democratic exercises. The governor simply decides who gets the ticket. Delegates become ceremonial spectators. Consensus arrangements are weaponised. Popular aspirants are schemed out long before any vote is cast. Internal democracy becomes a myth recited only in party constitutions and court filings.
Then comes the emotional blackmail. The cheated aspirant is expected to swallow the injustice quietly and begin chanting, “the party is supreme.” But supreme over who? Certainly not over the people.
Democracy was never designed to worship political parties. Political parties are merely vehicles through which the people exercise sovereign choice. The moment parties become prisons from which aspirants cannot escape after manipulated primaries, democracy begins to suffocate.
The masses benefit when credible and popular aspirants have multiple platforms through which they can seek electoral legitimacy. If a competent aspirant is denied a ticket through imposition, intimidation or political conspiracy, it is actually in the public interest for that aspirant to move elsewhere and test his popularity before the electorate during the general election. That is democracy. Let the people decide.
If the aspirant truly lacks support, he will lose at the polls. But if the people genuinely prefer him to the imposed candidate of the dominant or ruling party, why should the law deny voters that choice simply because a political emperor somewhere insists that “party decisions” are final?
The attempt to stop pre-election decamping is therefore fundamentally different from the question of post-election defections.
The decamping that should genuinely concern democrats is the one that happens after elections; after citizens have voted based on a particular party platform and political identity. That type of defection arguably undermines the electoral mandate because it disregards the political choice made by voters during the general election. But pre-election decamping is different.
Before the election, sovereignty still belongs fully to the electorate. The ballot has not yet been cast. Preventing aspirants from seeking alternative platforms before voters make their decision only narrows democratic options and strengthens political monopolies.
Section 77, in this sense, reflects a troubling philosophy: that political parties own political ambitions and can ration democratic participation according to internal calculations. That philosophy is dangerous.
A healthy democracy should prioritise the freedom of the electorate to choose among the widest possible pool of credible candidates. It should not empower governors and party elites to eliminate viable challengers internally and then use technical provisions of the Electoral Act to prevent those challengers from seeking the judgment of the people elsewhere.
Political parties are not the owners of democracy. The people are. In any case, it is my considered opinion that Section 77 has failed to prevent that which it was designed to prevent, unless of course those who were schemed out lack the political balls to take their destinies in their own hands.
First Baba Isa, Esq., LLB, BL, LLM, MBA, FIMC, CMC, is a PhD candidate researching the topic: “Evaluating the use of technology and its legal implications to elections in Nigeria.” He writes in from Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
NB: Opinions expressed in this sponsored article are strictly attributable to the author, F. Baba Isa, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch.
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