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"Imperfect instruments of representations-as oligarchic, opportunistic, and sectionalistic as ever before-these parties do, at least , 'organise the chaotic public will' of a great society. For all their faults, there are no substitutes for voluntary political parties in constitutional democracies"---Richard L. Sklar in his monumental work, Nigerian Political Parties: Power In An Emergent African Nation.

The applause that has greeted the registration of 22 more parties last week is justified on many grounds whatever cynics may say to the contrary. By complying with the ruling of the Supreme Court on the matter, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has done a good service to the rule of law. The commission has taken a significant step to deepen the democratic contents of this civil order.

Incidentally, INEC's spokesman Mr. Okpo Sam Okpo further explained on Monday what informed the commission's change of attitude on party registration :

"The court voided our guidelines and some Nigerians accused us of being draconian in the way we registered only three parties during the initial exercise. So we were compelled to broaden the scope.

"... Allow the Nigerian people to determine the fate of these parties. Let the electorate vote them in, or vote them out in the elections. there is no point preempting the outcome of the contest."

It is a great relief to learn that the mood within INEC has since changed. That is a departure from the days when INEC's chairman Dr. Abel Guobadia was talking of "mushroom" and "unserious " parties as if it was his business to determine the political weight of any party in the first place. The principle is now clearly established that INEC or any other institution for that matter cannot substitute itself for the electorate. We are here referring to the principle of political participation. The electoral fortunes of any party should now be determined by the electorate if there is free and fair election. That was the point being by those who resisted the unconstitutional guidelines which INEC put unfairly on the way of the aspiring associations to scale before they could be given certificates of registration. Those guidelines only had the consequences of shrinking the democratic space. And that could not be the aim of those forces that fought to enthrone this order as imperfect as it may seem. So, as several observers have duly acknowledged , the registration is first a victory for democracy. It shows that the system can at least correct some of its aberrations and not be totally deaf to cries for justice.

To a large extent, it is also a vindication to Chief Gani Fawehinmi's conviction that the battles to rectify some of the anomalies of the system can be fought and won in the court room. The dogged resistance to INEC's unconstitutional conditions for registration could rightly be said to be personified by the resolve of Fawehinmi to pursue the matter to its logical conclusion. This is an important contribution to the evolution of the emergent political culture. It helps the consolidation of liberal democracy for political actors to have the faith in the triumph of the rule of law. Perhaps unknown to some members of the political establishment who could be irritated by Fawehinmi's tenacity of purpose, the lawyer's victory in court has done much to give legitimacy to the present order.

As the counsel to five of the 22 newly registered parties, Fawehinmi has done much to bolster confidence of the people in the capacity of the system to self-correct. Way back on October 1, 1994 Fawehinmi's National Conscience Party (NCP) had been launched even when politics was placed under ban by the military government of General Sani Abacha. Since then the NCP has been making a democratic statement with its defiance. It has consistently asserted its right to free political participation. Besides NCP, it is important to salute the courage of the other four parties that also used the instrumentality of the court to establish the principle of political participation. They are the Movement for Democracy and Justice(MDJ) led by Alhaji Mohammed Dikko Yussufu, Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) led by Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Nigerian Peoples Congress (CPN) led By Alhaji Adamu Attah and the Community Party of Nigeria(CPN).The pertinent issue is not about the fortunes of these parties or otherwise. It is left for the people to embrace or reject them. But they have taught a basic lesson that parties are supposed to be organisations for fighting political battles. To be focussed in such a battle the fight should be anchoredon some principles. On that basis it can well be said that they have won the first battle.

Those who were skeptical about the correctness of the principle these parties were fighting for had probably ignored the emerging political culture which the military truncated in 1966. Since then the military culture regarding the question of power had been super-imposed on the polity. It is now little remembered that the idea of "the fewer the parties, the better" is actually part of the military legacy on our political culture. The design of all the Republics that have sprung up since 1966 have had the telling signature of the military approach to politics. Unfortunately, this has gone so deep into the collective psyche that any suggestion to the contrary is now perceived as abnormal.

If critics of multiple parties say 28 parties constitute a glut, shouldn't they be reminded that at the time the military struck 36 years ago, the government had to ban 81 political parties and 20 ethnic associations while prohibiting the formation of new ones. As a matter of fact the list of 81 political parties was gazetted and backed by the controversial Decree 34 of 1966 issued by the government of General Johnson Thomas Umunakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi. That is to emphasise the fact that apart from the big ones such as the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), Northern Peoples Congress(NPC), Action Group (AG) which controlled governments there were other parties as well. They had relevance at various levels. Even the bigger parties knew that they had to do business with them by way of coalitions and alliances during elections. Some of these parties were Afemai Peoples Congress, Bornu Youth Movement, Habe Peoples Party, Ibadan Crusaders for Freedom, Movement for Colonial Freedom, Niger Delta Congress, Nigerian Communist Party, Communist Party of Nigeria, Moslems Peoples Party and United Middle Belt Congress. The banned parties also included Northern Elements Progressive Union, United Working Peoples' Party Calabar Emancipation and Ijumu Progressive Union

From their nomenclatures, one point could be easily be deciphered: The atmosphere in those was relatively more liberal than today when specifications have to be met before persons can associate bsed on political interests. It would also be noticed that some of the parties listed above could only have operated in an era when registering a party was no more registering a company with the Corporate Affairs Commission or even registering a church or a mosque.

It is now time for the new parties to go beyond the justification of their registration to prove that more parties actually means more choices in the polity. The distinction of any party should go beyond the name or the acronym. All the parties in the crowd must be distinguishable by their fresh ideas and clear-cut programmes. In the process, the political space could be voluntarily streamlined when parties with similar ideologies work closer or possibly merge. The important thing is that this would be freely done and not that circumstances force incompatible personalities to work together. It is only when more parties imply alternative viewpoints on issues of development that the system would really benefit from the party registration.

To cope with the logistical implication of the registration, INEC should be well funded. The commission should brace up to the challenge of the right step it took last week. That would require a change in the orientation of the commission of not seeing more parties as a nuisance but as a celebration of democracy for which it should be prepared.

As the American scholar, Professor Richard L. Sklar quoted above discovered in his voluminous study of Nigerian parties in the final decade of colonial rule, parties are vital institutions to give content to democracy. Despite their limitations those parties were crucial to the process of decolonisation by providing the organised basis for political action.

In our age, well structured and disciplined parties are needed to complete the task of democratisation.

PoliticalNote
Is this Part of the 'Nascent Democracy'?

Some of the press statements coming from the civil society organisations of recent are, doubtless, reminiscent of those they issued in the days of military dictatorship. The story they have to tell are not those expected to come out of a polity that is said to be grappling even with a "nascent democracy".

A sampler is the one issued last Friday by Coordinator of Centre for Democracy and development (CDD) Otive Igbuzor.

Igbuzor alerted the nation on the arrest of one of his colleagues, a pro-democracy activist in a statement which said inter-alia:

"The Chairperson of the International Governing Council of the Centre for Democracy & Development (CDD), Dr. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem was arrested at the Murtala Mohammed Airport on his way to London on Tuesday 3rd December 2002. CDD is an independent research, information and training institution dedicated to policy-oriented scholarship on questions of democratic development and peace building in the West African sub-region. Dr. Abdul Raheem, a Nigerian was in Nigeria to attend the 5th Anniversary Celebrations and Endowment Fund Launch of the CDD.

"Although he was released on Wednesday 4th December 2002, his international passport was seized. According to the State Security Service (SSS) officials, he was arrested and his passport seized because his name is on their security watch list. Up till today (Friday), Dr. Abdul Raheem has not been able to travel out of the country. The State Security Service has asked him to be reporting to their office.

"It would be recalled that Dr. Abdul Raheem was arrested in the same airport in November 1993 on account of his involvement in the pro-democracy movement in exile. However, in the last two weeks, he has passed through the same airport six times on trips from Uganda, Ethiopia and the United Kingdom. We are therefore at a loss as to the reasons for this latest arrest and seizure of passport."

What is worrisome is that what happened to Abdul Raheem is the in the pattern of the fate of that has befallen some human rights activists in the hands of security agents of recent. The same security agents have also seized copies of a publication printed abroad that is critical of how government handled the crisis in Odi, Bayelsa State and Zaki Biam in Benue State.

Even in democracy that is only "nascent" this is not acceptable. People did not fight for the enthronement of this order (whatever it is called) only to be saddled with the sordid experience of the old order.