A large number of Nigerians living in the United States participated fully in the run-up to the last party primaries held in Nigeria. Whether as candidates or financial supporters of candidates, a lot of effort and time was committed to the exercise.
Yet, by the end of the exercise early this month, only about five percent of those who contested from the States managed to win their party primaries. The story of inadequacy and failure cuts across all the contestants, be they for the presidential, governorship or local government offices.
“A lot of the candidates failed to take into consideration the peculiar nature of Nigerian politics,” said Habib Aruna, a politics reporter with Daily Independent in Lagos. “I noticed that a lot of the candidates from abroad believed they could outspend the local contestants, but this is not true. A lot of home-based candidates saw it as their duty to defeat the foreign-based ones and they go to several lengths to make sure this is so.”
The reality that the primaries are going to be bitterly fought was evident early enough. The first battle that was fought was over whether Nigerians with other passports could contest for elective positions in Nigeria. After the initial hiccups in the national assembly, this was resolved in favor of the foreign-based Nigerians.
Some political commentators felt the time lost waiting for the resolution of the citizenship row to be resolved affected the chances of foreign-based candidates as several did not start their campaign until much later.
Mr. Lasun Ladipo-Bada, public relations officer for the Debola Aina campaign organization said the failure of many American-based campaigns was due to distance and time.
“Most of our people, frankly speaking, were not ready for the challenge,” he said. “You cannot run for an office if you do not have structure on the ground. You cannot just go home to contest if nobody knows you. We believe in big things and we don’t plan for it. I think a lot of others lost because they fail to plan.”
He said his candidate, Debola Aina, PDP candidate for the House of Assembly (Lagos Mainland) started his campaign about two years ago. This is confirmed by Aina.
“Running for office from here puts one in a disadvantaged position,” he said. “Basically, things depend on how you run your campaign. In the course of the past two years, I go home every three months and I have an organization in both Nigeria and the United States who are constantly working together.”
But even more than an organization, Aina said, a candidate has to be close to both the grassroots and the power of the establishment. “You have to be mindful of that because even if you have the support of the grassroots and the establishment does not trust you, you will still lose.”
This is surely an important point, for many of the candidates lost because they could not sway the tide of establishment opinion. This is more evident in the presidential primaries where both Dr. Adeniyi Bello and Chief Harry Akande (a multi-millionaire businessman based in Chicago) were schemed out by their party, the All Nigeria People’s Party. Despite the financial and infrastructural commitments of the candidates, the party finally settled for General Mohammadu Buhari as its presidential candidate.
“Parties look at a candidate’s finance and reach before making their choice,” said Otunba Tai Balofin, publisher of the African Eye, whose race for the Ondo State governor’s office on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was unsuccessful. “In my case, we sat down and decided to pick another person. This is a joint decision and not a one-man show. You know politics is a hard and involving thing. You have to hang in there.”
He, however, also added that it is often more difficult for those who live abroad to win elective offices. “Those who had been abroad for a long while need to know more about grassroots and their community. You could not just go home after spending about 20 years abroad and expect to win the trust of the people. Those at home know who to see and what to sat better than those living abroad.”
To be sure, the issues of who won or lost has nothing to do with the ability of the candidates. Matter of fact, a majority of the contestants from the United States were highly trained professionals whose main motivation was to contribute to the development of Nigeria by applying their skills and experience to the problems of the country.
To hear most Nigerians in the United States talk about their mother country leaves one in no doubt about their patriotism and desire to help the country in its development efforts. Most already contribute a lot through periodic remittance of dollars home.
Yet others are determined to influence things by seeking elective positions. Nobody could accuse them of not being committed to this, either.
People like Dr. J. Kpaduwa, a California-based physician, would risk limb and life in this quest. He was badly shot while campaigning for the governorship of Imo State, but his wounds did not stop him. The only obstacle he could not overcome was the decision of the party to back the second term bid of its governors. The three main political parties in Nigeria are representing almost all their incumbent governors for re-election. This made nonsense of the calculations of those who had hoped to challenge them.
Another unvoiced problem, according to Aruna, was the performance—or lack of it—of office holders who came from the United States to contest in the 1998 elections. People like Governors Chinwoke Mbadinuju of Anambra State and Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State are detested by a lot of people in their state and their selling point in 1998 was that they were tested professionals in the United States. And there are a lot of others like them on the national and state assemblies.
“These people are not different from the home-based ones and, in some cases are even worse. So it would be hard to get Nigerians to believe foreign-based politicians are likely to perform better than the local ones and deserve special support,” Aruna said.
