Benue 2023: Party Consensus versus Voice of the People

It has emerged that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue has concluded arrangements to choose it’s governorship candidate in the Benue 2023 general elections. The candidate is Engr Titus Uba who is the current Speaker of the State House of Assembly. Uba emerged after many weeks of back and forth meetings midwifed by the party leadership in the state. The consensus arrangement began with the party zoning its governorship ticket to Vandeikya local government area, a decision which unsettled all aspirants from other parts of the state.

As expected, mixed reactions have trailed the PDP decision both within the party and outside it. In the PDP itself, at least one aspirant is said to have refused to append his signature to the consensus agreement. By the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022, unless all the aspirants give written consent and support to the consensus candidate, the party will have to revert to direct or indirect primaries.

Outside the PDP, Benue indigenes have received the decision with little excitement. They are not particularly impressed by the outcome. Some have questioned the criteria used in arriving at Uba’s candidature. Others have lamented how the Benue PDP can settle for Uba, someone who is an integral part of the current administration and who is believed to be a cardinal contributor to its perceived failure. This, they find especially inexcusable given the impressive array of more qualified and promising candidates that sought the party’s ticket.

While the other candidates and their supporters are nursing their grief and strategizing on the way forward, some Benue indigenes have shifted their search for a competent governor away from the PDP. They are now looking at the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) where the Reverend Father, Dr Hycient Alia, is sweeping the landscape with his popularity. They are urging the APC to give Benue people a credible alternative to enable them elect a governor in who can change the fortunes of the state.

By making provision for political parties to arrive at the their candidates through consensus, the Electoral Act 2022 gives the parties some leeway in setting their internal criteria for doing this. Notwithstanding, it is expected that political parties will be responsive to the aspirations of the general public and be transparent in arriving at consensus candidates. In Benue, sadly, the overriding goal of the consensus arrangement has been to rotate the governorship among the geopolitical blocs in the state, rather than produce the most competent candidate.

Supporters of the PDP’s arrangement are quick to shut others out by arguing that it is an internal party affair. However, this argument has no value except the party also intends to keep the candidate to itself and not present him to the Benue people. More thinking must go into a party’s choice of a candidate for the general election than one for a mere party leadership position. Any ill-advised party that fails to resonate with the pulse of the people in this choice should, where credible alternatives exist, expect consequences at the polls. This is the fate that now awaits the PDP in Benue 2023.

Ahead of Benue 2023, like elsewhere in Nigeria, the patience of the people is fast wearing thin. Any political party that fails to respond to their yearning for credible leadership, because it wants to stay loyal to an archaic and retrogressive arrangement called zoning, may be in for a shock. Political parties must never forget that they exist to serve the interests of the general population and not merely party interest. Whenever they fail to uphold this, the people have the right to reject them.

The Benue PDP ought to have taken a cue from the national body and thrown the governorship ticket open. The era of sharing political offices to people based on their villages of origin has long passed, and if the PDP fails to let zoning go, the party will go with it, because this generation wants to make progress and no party can hold it down.