Opinion

A laughing stock called party primaries…

Published

2 months ago

June 3, 2026

Chigozin Obinna

APC Internal Democracy comes under scrutiny as a commentary questions party primaries and electoral credibility in Nigeria

By Bola BOLAWOLE

A friend and an avid reader of my columns, who is also a professor in one of the country’s first-generation universities, asked if I could publish what you are about to read. I promised him I would take a look at it.

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Titled “APC political yoyo” and authored by one Haruna Badamasi writing from Ile-Ife in Osun state, it is a sarcastic commentary on the recently-concluded party primaries of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Judging from the authorship, my friend might not have been the writer, except he had chosen to use a pen name, but reading through the piece, I saw that it spoke to our present situation and, therefore, I decided to publish it.

The views expressed therein are not entirely mine and the “Bola” mentioned there is also not my own “Bola”. When we return, I will make parting comments as usual. Enjoy it:

“The rain had just stopped when two friends, Tunde and Bola, settled into their usual corner at Mama Sade’s makeshift canteen. The television hanging above the drinks’ refrigerator was loud enough to compete with the noisy generators outside. Every station carried the same breaking news: The APC party primary election had produced unexpected winners across the country.

Unexpected because, according to nearly everyone who (had) followed the process, the announced winners appeared to have lost magnificently. Imagine someone who scored 10,000 votes losing to another with 1000 votes!

Tunde stared at the screen with the confusion of a man trying to solve advanced calculus without numbers.

“My brother, how can someone understand what happened? Yesterday at the collation venue, a candidate was leading with enough votes that stood him out as the winner. This morning the candidate trailing him has become the flag bearer of the party. Were there other votes from elsewhere that were added after we slept?”

Bola nearly spilled his beer laughing. “You still believe elections end when votes are counted? You are naive.”

“But they showed the delegates queuing behind their candidates on television!”

“Yes.”

“They announced the figures!”

“Yes.”

“They even interviewed the candidate that had the highest number of votes as the winner!”

“Yes.”

Tunde spread his hands dramatically. “Then, how did the candidate trailing become the chosen?”

Bola leaned forward like a lecturer about to explain a complicated theory in political science.

“You are looking at politics with ordinary eyes. What happened is what experts now call APC Political Yoyo.”

“Political what?”

“Yoyo. It is like playing with a toy that has no capacity to determine its stability in the sky. It goes up, it comes down, then, suddenly, it flies sideways and hits somebody that was not involved.”

Tunde burst into laughter!

“No, seriously,” Bola continued. “In normal democracy, whoever gets the highest votes wins. But in our own advanced political technology, winning is only the first stage. After that comes consultation, reconciliation, alignment, realignment, strategic harmonization, and, finally, supernatural arithmetic.”

Tunde nodded slowly. “Ah! So votes are just opening ceremonies.”

“Exactly.”

The television presenter interrupted with a dramatic tone. ‘Party stakeholders have reaffirmed their commitment to transparency and internal democracy…’

Both men laughed so hard that nearby customers turned to look at them!

“Transparency?” Tunde said between laughs. “This transparency is powerful. The real winner became invisible immediately.”

“My friend,” Bola replied, “it is the kind of transparency where everybody sees what happened but nobody is allowed to say it.”

Tunde lowered his voice. “What pains me most is that the winning candidate (has) already celebrated. I saw supporters dancing. They even printed congratulatory posters overnight.”

“Very dangerous mistake,” Bola said solemnly. “In Nigerian politics, never celebrate too early. Before morning, your victory can develop technical issues.”

“Technical issues?”

“Yes. Missing documents. Signature mismatch. Party supremacy. Consensus agreement. Invisible committee recommendations, inconclusive (election). There are many diseases that attack victory in this country.”

Tunde laughed again.

“And look at the delegates,” he added. “Yesterday they were singing one man’s praises. Today they are carrying another man on their shoulders.”

Bola shrugged. “Delegates are loyal professionals. Their loyalty follows the direction of survival.”

The canteen owner increased the television volume as another analyst appeared on screen: ‘The outcome reflects the maturity of the party’s democratic institutions,’ the analyst declared confidently.

Tunde almost choked on his drink.

“Maturity? If this democracy matures any further, it may retire completely!”

Bola smiled. “You must admire the creativity, though. In other countries, politicians rig quietly. In Nigeria, they rig with motivational speeches.”

For a moment the two men watched silently as clips from the primary election (were) played on screen: Delegates cheering, party officials waving documents, security officers pushing crowds aside.

Then Tunde sighed!

“You know what amazes me? Ordinary Nigerians still queue under the sun believing votes matter!”

“My friend,” Bola replied, “votes matter very much. They matter especially during press conferences.”

“So what really determines the winner?”

Bola counted on his fingers.

“Powerful godfathers. Close-door meetings. Emergency consultations. Last-minute alliances. Political debts. Fear. Ambition. Deep pockets. And, occasionally, if there is enough time left, votes.”

A nearby customer burst into laughter after overhearing the conversation.

Tunde shook his head again.

“At this point,” he said, “politics in this country is like football where the referee announces the final score two days later from his living room!”

“Wrong,” Bola corrected him. “Football is more organized. At least players know when the match has ended.”

The television now showed the victorious candidate addressing supporters: ‘This victory belongs to all party members,’ the politician declared.

“Yes,” Bola muttered sarcastically. “Especially the members who voted against him!”

The canteen erupted in scattered laughter.

Tunde looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Do you realize,” he said slowly, “that (during) every election season, we hear the same grammar? Internal democracy. Level playing field. Unity. Due process.”

“Those are ceremonial words,” Bola replied. “Like decoration on a wedding cake. Beautiful to look at, but not the actual food.”

Another news alert flashed across the screen: ‘Party leadership urges aggrieved aspirants to accept the outcome in the interest of peace.’

“There!” Bola exclaimed, pointing at the television. “That sentence always comes after somebody has been politically kidnapped.”

Tunde nodded knowingly.

“And the funniest part is that, tomorrow, everybody will gather again, smiling for photographs.”

“Of course,” Bola said. “Politics has no permanent enemies, only temporary microphones.”

Evening traffic thickened outside. Horns blared endlessly while the generator coughed like an old smoker.

Tunde finished the last of his drinks and leaned back.

“So tell me honestly,” he asked quietly. “Who actually won this primary?”

Bola smiled with the calm wisdom of a man who had watched too many election cycles.

“The usual winners.”

“The politicians?”

“No,” Bola replied. “The people who never appeared on the ballot, who never campaigned, and who never stood under the sun asking for votes.”

Tunde frowned. “Then what was the point of the primary election?”

Bola stood up, dropped money on the table and adjusted his shirt.

“My friend,” he said with a grin, “in this country, elections are sometimes like cinema trailers. The real movie happens behind closed doors.”

As both men walked away from the canteen, the television continued celebrating the triumph of democracy – in the Nigerian style…

Bola shook his head “I hope the APC is not demonstrating the symptoms of Egbekegbe in the words of Fela Anikulapo!”.

And the two friends disappeared into the dark night!”

Welcome back! What the writer is saying is that there is no internal democracy in the political parties. Although he zeroed-in on APC, the same malaise plagues the other political parties.

Like we have said over and over again, the political parties are the different fingers of the same leprous hand and birds of a feather.

The difference between them is like that between six and half-a-dozen; between half-full and half-empty.

The inference from this is that political parties that do not allow free and fair elections within their own political parties cannot be expected to subscribe to credible elections between political parties.

So, elections will always be rigged because politicians that rig elections within their own parties will also rig elections against political party opponents.

Therefore, there is nothing INEC can do to stop election rigging by rogue politicians. All INEC efforts – BIVAS, BIMODAL, ELECTRONIC OR WHAT-HAVE-YOU – will always amount to nothing and all the resources committed to the conduct of elections will end up a waste.

Again, party members that do not see anything wrong in the subversion of internal democracy within their own parties; who cannot stand for, and defend credible elections within their own parties cannot be expected to do so in national elections.

The credibility of elections is compromised right from the moment internal democracy is compromised within the political parties. And this cuts across the board. Pray, are there any party primaries that have not been dogged by allegations of imposition and rigging?

Both the leadership and followership of the political parties are ideologically barren, morally decadent, and intellectually deficient and obtuse – a malaise much of the entire populace has been infected with wily-nily.

For, as Marx and Engel posit, “The ideas of the ruling class are, in every epoch, the ruling ideas; meaning that the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in “The German Ideology”, 1845).

Contrary to arguments or expectations about who is president and who is not, the rot is systemic.

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Every corrupt, inept, decadent, compromised, and morally depraved ruling class must be done away with before the society as a whole can heave a sigh of relief and the people begin to enjoy the dividends of democracy.

(Published in the TREASURES column on the back page of the New Telegraph newspaper edition of Wednesday 3 June, 2026).

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Opinion

Tributes to Dr. Segun Osoba and Abosede Oluwayemisi

Published

1 day ago

August 5, 2026

Mariam Balogun

By Bola BOLAWOLE,

Dr. Segun Osoba, Marxist scholar and historian, was one of my mentors and role models. Our paths crossed long before I came face-to-face with the enigma at the then University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, where he not only taught me courses in the History department, but was also our staff adviser and comrade.

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Cerebral and unflinchingly principled, Osoba snubbed the usual hussle, if I may call it that, of many academics to attain to the professoral status, preferring to remain “Dr.” even though everyone knew he was not the mate of many a professor!

For me, Osoba’s fame travelled far ahead of him. Appointed by the Murtala Muhammed regime into the Constitution Drafting Committee in October 1975, Osoba, together with his ideological soulmate, Dr. Bala Usman of the History department of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, broke ranks with the other members of the CDC to author a people-oriented draft Constitution that made the Nigerian people’s interests, aspirations and well-being its focal point. It was termed the Minority Report.

Expectedly, the conservative Olusegun Obasanjo regime that succeeded Murtala Muhammed rejected the Osoba/Bala Usman report while accepting the report of the majority members of the CDC on September 14, 1976. The CDC was chaired by Chief FRA Williams.

The majority/minority report divide apart, the CDC was not without its controversies: The sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, had declined to serve on the committee, thereby reducing its members from 50 to 49. There was also the debate as to what would have been the choice of a much more radical Murtala Muhammed had he not been assassinated on February 13, 1976.

Specifically because of Osoba and Bala Usman, I chose to study History in the university! And I was fortunate to drink from the fountain of knowledge at the feet of Dr. Osoba on and off the classroom. As comrades, our relationship did not end at Ife; usually, comradeship is a life-long endeavour.

In late December 2023, after a spell of ‘long-time-no-see’, four of us old students/comrades of Comrade Osoba decided to visit him at his Ijebu-Ode residence – Femi Falana, SAN; Ambassador Ayo Olukanni; Kayode Komolafe (K.K.) and my humble self.

Comrade was still his very sharp and humorous self. Despite his health challenges, he still “recognised” each and everyone of us by our voice. We discussed for hours and it was amazing that ill-health spared his intellect. He was his familiar self – analytical, even if caustic, going down memory lane and recalling facts and figures as if he was reading them from a book spread out before him.

We promised to return. Unfortunately, we procrastinated, despite Olukanni’s repeated prodding. But as individuals, we attended his 90th birthday celebration held at Ijebu-Ode on 9th January, 2025. His book, “Critical and Contentious Issues in the Modern and Contemporary History of Nigeria: Collected Writings of Samuel Olusegun Osoba”, which was unveiled at the occasion, adorns my Library. See also my “Tributes to Comrade (Dr.) Segun Osoba at 90”, published in this column in the Wednesday, 15 January, 2025 edition of the New Telegraph newspaper.

Dr. Osoba passed away peacefully at home in Ijebu-Ode on 14 May, 2026. A flurry of activities by comrades from all the nooks and crannies of this country as well as abroad celebrated his life, extolled his virtues, pledged to continue the struggle from where he stopped, and bid him farewell from this earthly plane. In this were the words of Che Guevara fulfilled: “Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons (Message to the Tricontinental, 1967).”

I was unable to participate fully in some of the activities because of the tragedy that fell at my doorsteps at about the same time.

First, my elder sister’s husband, Gabriel Alani Olusola Omiyale, died on June 11, 2026 at the age of 89 years. He was a mentor. Then came the bombshell: His daughter – and my sister’s second child, Abosede Oluwayemisi – died the same month on June 29th at the age of 54!

That was massive! To say we were devastated is an understatement. If the pains that attended Bose’s death remain indescribable, the ways and manners of her husband and his family immediately before and after her death remain a puzzle. They rubbed insults on our injury.

They desecrated our Yoruba customs and traditions. Bose had heroically battled the scourge of breast cancer; after undergoing an operation, we were all optimistic she was on the path to full recovery until tests showed she needed more medical attention.

Naturally, she was devastated but, gradually, she built up the confidence and strength required to see her through. No stone was left unturned by her extended family who did not leave the load for the husband and his family to carry. All hands were on deck.

The extended family had always been there for Bose. Her siblings had been wonderful; never allowing her husband’s unstable job situation to show or affect Bose’s treatment and other needs, including her children’s education and welfare. I also played my part. I am grateful to everyone who responded to our clarion call in many ways.

We were hopeful we would all pull through it and that Bose’s case would be another testimony that cancer can be beaten. All she needed – as much as medicare – were words of encouragement and support. That, however, became the weakest link!

Act one: Against the best advice of her mother, my niece was made to consume a concoction that turned the tide. According to her husband, the concoction was procured by his own brother in Akure, Ondo state, taken to a church for prayers after which it was dispatched through a motorpark! Bose drank this concoction and started vomiting. In his own testimonies, Bose’s husband took her to a hospital where she was given drips, which gave her some strength, but because the doctor was late in coming, he took her back home despite the fact that the test they ran indicated that she had a blood infection! That night at home, she started vomiting again and, according to the husband’s testimony, he took her again to the hospital by 1.30am. She was left unattended until late afternoon when she fell into a coma! Bose’s blood infection was never treated until she passed away!

Act Two: Our standard practice had been to always double-check whatever a doctor said or prescribed, but on this fatal day, Bose’s husband kept all of us in the dark. We were not told of the blood infection. We were not alerted when she started vomiting again in the night. We were not informed when he took her again to the hospital. According to him, Bose walked with her own legs into the hospital, climbing the row of stairs all by herself.

Act Three: At the hospital, the husband took Bose’s phone and locked it in the car parked downstairs. So she had no access to her phone – to call out or receive in-coming calls. She was held incommunicado. And there was no one else there with the husband and wife. He called noone; he also snubbed repeated incoming calls into his own phone, including from my elder sister, who is Bose’s mother.

Act four: Later that afternoon, the husband called me to say Bose was not responding to treatment and that I should start interceding for her. I was aghast! I had been waiting all day for them to link up with me for a scheduled appointment. Later, a female voice using the husband’s phone called me to quickly come to the hospital. I was on my way there when Bose’s second child, a girl writing exams at the Obafemi Awolowo University, called me, sobbing! “Daddy, what is happening to my Mom? My Daddy called me and said my Mummy is in coma” Coma! “Yes, sir”, the girl replied, “and my Daddy said my Mummy is dead!” I almost lost control of the wheel because I was driving.

Act Five: On getting to the hospital, they had already started embalming Bose! I screamed at the husband, but the hospital staff restrained me. Why the haste? Without any of her family members present! A thousand thoughts ran riot in my head. At 6.28 pm, Bose’s mortal remains were deposited in the morgue and we left.

Act Six: While we were agonizing about how to break the sad news to Bose’s mother, her husband and his family had posted Bose’s death on every conceivable social media platform, breaking the news to her young children, the oldest of whom is just a little over 20 years while the youngest is 14!

Act seven: We the siblings of Bose’s mother wanted a decent burial for her. We wanted her dreams and visions for her children respected. Bose’s husband and his family spurned all of that! They weaponized Bose’s young children against us. They threw their so-called customs and traditions in our face at every turn – as if the Yoruba have no customs and traditions. They employed deceit and subterfuge and hurriedly committed Bose to mother earth without any of her family members present! We warned! They ignored and played games!

Google says Edema is a name answered by both the Urhobo and Itsekiri people of Delta state. Does their culture permit the trumping of Yoruba customs and traditions? Should a husband boast to his children – while their mother was still battling cancer – that, if she dies, he will remarry? So, expect his wedding invitation!

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Had Bose died of cancer, our pains would have been less insufferable; but she did not! Were they tired of the stress and wanted closure so they could move on with their own life? Hastened to her death! Hurried to the grave! This is to put the records straight. Our immediate attention, however, is the good health of Bose’s mother – and Daddy Omiyale’s burial slated for 29th and 30th of October this year.

Let Dr. Segun Osoba rest in power! And eternal rest grant Abosede Oluwayemisi Edema (nee Omiyale), O Lord!

(Published in the TREASURES column on the back page of the Wednesday, 5 August, 2026 edition of the New Telegraph newspaper).