Nnadiebube Journal of Religion, Culture and Society

The uneasiness between the prediction of a politician and the code of appropriate political conducts lies at the roots of political tensions in Nigeria’s nascent democracy. This refers specifically to the dissonance between the ambitions of socially, economically and politically strong men, women and weak institutional basis of political engagement. The autocratic character of intra-party relations has tended over time to underscore the ferocious character of politics, particularly since the onset of Nigeria’s post-military democratic experiment in 1999. For instance, about one third of the people elected at different levels in the recently concluded National Elections are politicians who had crossed over to opposition political parties on account of alleged unfair and undemocratic treatments by their original parties. This category of disgruntled party men only enlarged a pre-existing category constituted mainly by five governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and their teeming followers, who had defected from their party, formed the New PDP and subsequently merged with the emerging opposition party, All Progressives Congress (APC). Yet even within the latter, there had been wide spread allegations of intra-party autocracy and high handedness on the part of those gladiators who claimed to own the party. Accordingly, this paper sought answers to the following questions: is there appositive relationship between intra-party autocracy and electoral tensions in Nigeria? In what ways does the undemocratic process of choosing party candidates affect the power and choice of the electorate? Are political’ rules and regulations deliberately designed to grant undue advantage to their leading elites? Has the resumption of party politics expanded or circumscribed the democratic spaces available to the Nigeria electorate? Both documentary and survey research data were deployed to provide the bulk of the data which supported our analytical conclusions.

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