Internal democracy in Nigeria is fraught with many shenanigans and has not prevented and cannot prevent imposition of candidates. It is the reason why only the worst people get to leadership.
Shenanigans has always been in the dictionary but its use became widespread when the nation returned to democracy in 1999. Nigerian politicians, ever so fascinated with jaw breaking words throw it at one another. In this piece we are going to throw it at them collectively. According to Meta AI, shenanigans means sneaky, mischievous or dishonest behaviours, usually playful or causing trouble. Nigeria’s politicians of the current time have given shenanigans a political colouration.
But an early philosopher, Socrates, hated democracy, which he saw as unfit system of government that would ultimately destroy itself. Socrates denounced democracy as a means of recruiting leadership. He felt democracy would help thieves find leadership if they wanted it. He thinks when a man needs medical help he doesn’t go to the crowd but to the specialists. He asked, therefore, why people should consign the most important task of constituting a government to the crowd.
In Nigeria, democracy has destroyed itself and the earlier it is tinkered with by serious domestic thinking the better for the nation. An aspect that is seriously affected is what the politicians call ‘internal party democracy’. By that they mean recruitment by political parties into leadership by democratic means. This they say will not allow anybody or group of persons to hold sway over the party by imposing candidates. They clamour for it with every shred of fiber in their muscles, and you would think they meant it. But they don’t, and it works perfectly well for them to impose candidates. It allows bad candidates to emerge to continue the pillage of the nation’s resources.
I write as one who just had the opportunity to witness the party primary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in my local area in Ibadan. It was a rare privilege as I have never witnessed any in my whole life. I live in the inner city. All politics is local, as they say. This is where the real politicking takes place. This is an area inhabited by the poorest of the poor, many of whom live and die there. This is the area where you have a thick population. Because poverty is massive there and the population is huge the politicians don’t joke with them especially in times of election.
The ruling party APC prides itself as democratic. President Bola Tinubu projects himself as a democrat. He shows it so much that you wonder what democracy is and you say to yourself that if what Bola Tinubu does is democracy, then it is not worth the effort of the nation or that of any nation. Bola Tinubu is not a democrat, neither is democracy in the way it is copied from the West good for emerging African countries.
Democracy on Tinubu’s terms means taking 1 trillion naira from the people to contest the presidential election. As reported in some of the nation’s media, the 31 governors of the APC, many of them conscripted into the party from other parties by offers of largesse, allegedly contributed 26 billion naira each to the Renewed Hope Ambassador account which is the account that will fund the election of the president. Since the report was published by the media only the Southeast has denied it, saying it was not true. But it is possible because all the subsidies Tinubu removed from the oil are paid to the state governments, swelling the state’s coffers controlled by the governors. With one hand the president gives them this money and with another he takes some of it back into his electioneering war chest.
The president also reportedly hopes to collect another 1 trillion naira from the private sector which will together give him a 2 trillion electoral war chest. In a nation where people are so poor and need money for food especially, not even the big spender Atiku Abubakar will be able to match Tinubu naira for naira. With that huge war chest, Tinubu will buy all the emirs in the north, all the Alfas, Sheiks and Imams whose instruction the north obey without questioning. Those who think Tinubu will not win a second term are living in a dream world.
In my area, I have a colleague that has been in politics since the nation returned to democracy in 1999 and has worked with all the high and mighty. He had been a local government chairman and held office as Special Adviser to a governor. He has also been a kingmaker in one Southwest state. When I tell him he doesn’t tell me lies he tells me he doesn’t tell lies generally. I found out that he is different from other politicians. But he hardly talks; there is nothing you can do to get him to talk. By staying around him I get some truthful information about what is going on in politics. There is nothing like internal democracy. All elections are pre-arranged. My friend termed it “arrangee,” a local parlance for forgery. Election results, especially for these primaries are pre-written. He was in PDP, he was instrumental to the election of the sitting governor. There was a disagreement that made the governor ditch him and he crossed to APC. He was at all the elections of delegates to the primaries and each time they went to the election he would tell me, —”We have the results already.” When Tinubu decreed that the election of party candidates must be by direct primary, the pre-writing of results continued.
I have a cousin that contested to return to the House of Representatives. Because this cousin would not distribute her constituency project fund freely among the leaders in her constituency, she was hated. At the first consensus meeting they had, she was chosen despite the anger of the majority against her. The members protested demanding for a direct primary. In the direct primary, according to my friend, my cousin placed fifth, but the pre-written result placed her first. The real votes were announced to me on the day of the election but by the second day it had changed to favour my cousin.
The Oyo governorship contest followed the same pattern. The candidate backed by Bola Tinubu was unlikely to lose, since the local leadership generally deferred to him. They know the consequences of not being in the good books of the president. Even though the second candidate put in a very determined effort, the tide was against him. The results, I was again told, had been pre-written. Even at the time of writing, the APC Oyo governorship primary result has not been released, even though it was held a day before the presidential primaries, was released Sunday, 23rd May, 2026, yet the governorship result has not been released. Despite that, the first man Tinubu endorsed I was told will win. Even his supporters have taken their congratulatory message to the radio, even though the results have not been released. As to why they did that, I was told they were so sure of what was pre-written. Tinubu too was deliberately pitted against an unknown Hon. Stanley Osifo from Edo State to make it look like a freely contested position. I am sure somebody gave little known Hon. Osifo the 100 million naira for nomination form and perhaps another huge sum for his efforts and obedience. In an obviously contrived result, Tinubu was assigned over ten million votes with the hapless Osifo having only a little over 16, 000.00 votes. Who is fooling who?
Internal democracy in Nigeria is fraught with many shenanigans and has not prevented and cannot prevent imposition of candidates. It is the reason why only the worst people get to leadership. The best thing is to allow each party to choose its candidates by its own methods and live or die by it. How did Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe do it? How did Obafemi Awolowo do it? How did Ahmadu Bello do it? They did not use internal democracy. They were kingmakers. They knew good and credible people in the society. They knew good and committed teachers. They selected one and asked them to run. It was when Obafemi Awolowo began to practice internal democracy that the house of Oduduwa began to fall apart until the military returned again.
First Published in METRO
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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
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