Abstract
Intra-party conflicts in All Progressive Congress has been an issue for a long time and thus, has been a major issue to deal with during the Fourth Republic due in part to the lack of internal democracy in the party. Internal democracy describes a wide range of methods for including party members in intra-party deliberation and decision-making. Some advocate of internal democracy argued that parties using internally democratic procedures are likely to select more capable and appealing leaders, to have more policies, and as result, to enjoy rancour free, peace and greater electoral success. However, the nature and patterns of party politics especially in the fourth republic have caused a lot of crises and conflicts that have gone beyond the shore of the political party and thus, escalated to the elections. Thus, this study probed questions of what is the nature of intra-party conflicts in APC? What are the factors contributing to intra-party conflicts in APC? And importantly, what are the effects of intra-party conflicts on elections in Nigeria? These issues were interrogated against the backdrop of prebendalism, weakness, corruption, lack of internal democracy, lack of ideology, festering crises and overwhelming nuances that detract political parties from fulfilling their sublime function of deepening good governance.
The study adopted mixed research design, consisting primary and secondary data. It is a research design that combined the strength of the methods to investigate and dig beyond the surface. It provided an in-depth discussion with nine (9) stakeholders drawn from major APC as (2), representative of INEC (2), some members of election tribunals (3) and some community-based organisations (2). It also relied on relevant similar studies from academic journals, books, archival documents, newspapers, news magazines, and other secondary sources. While descriptive was used to analyse the interview, content analysis was used for most secondary data. Findings showed that intra-party conflicts have heightened and affected election administration in Nigeria.
The APC is unable to manage the difference and contour among the members and various groups of the party which has snowballed to the elections. It also identified major contributing factors causing intra-party conflicts in APC as issues of leadership recruitments, the selection of candidates for general elections, the rising magnitude of political vagrancy on the basis of selfish and parochial interests, the high level of party indiscipline and intolerance, lack of transparency in the party financial administration, lack of clear ideologies, money bag politics, use of unguarded and foul languages, etc. The study recommended among others strengthening of the political parties informed with clear ideology, transparency, principles of internal democracy and strong and reliable mechanism to manage its crises effectively. While the study concludes that intra-party conflicts accords a bad image to a political party which weakens party’s capacity to win an election, it also underscores that conflicts cannot be absolutely avoided in a political party with multitudes, for such party is prone to experiencing divergent opinions and interests towards a political cause.
Chapter One Summary
This research work is an examination of the effect of intra-party conflicts in Nigeria. Using All Progressive Congress as a case study, considering the necessity to emphasise major factors that propel and aggravate such conflicts and the possible mechanisms to adopt in order to address the causative agents of the conflicts to give room for democracy in All Progressive Congress.
The study is conducted on the 2019 general election in Nigeria with particular focus on All Progressive Congress (APC) in order to unleash the effects of intra-party conflicts in Nigeria. The All Progressive Congress is picked because it is the major political party in Nigeria. The study equally delves into the feasibility of the internal conflicts to affect the masses’ volitions in the process of general electioneering, beyond the circumference of political parties
Chapter Two Summary
This chapter entailed the review of literature as they related to the current study on the intra-party conflicts and the effects they have on election in Nigeria as a country. The chapter justifies the contributions of many scholars towards the major issue being discussed in this study, and also expatiates on the conceptualization of intra-party politics and conflicts and how they affect election. In lieu of this, we explored and reviewed the trajectory and vicissitudes of intra-party politics in Nigeria, complexities of intra-party conflicts in Nigeria, promoting democratic stability and the impacts of political parties, intra-party conflicts and democratization in Nigeria, intra-party struggle and the challenges of good governance, causes of intra-party conflicts in Nigeria, and lastly the theoretical framework of the study. However, this chapter was divided into three (3) major parts: Conceptual Literature Review, Empirical and Theoretical framework.
Chapter Three summary
For the sake of analysing data collected from the in-depth interview, the study adopts content analysis. According to Moore & McCabe (2005), this is the type of research whereby data gathered is categorized in themes and sub-themes, so as to be able to be comparable. One of the advantages of content analysis is that it helps to simplify any seeming complex data collected. Similarly, content analysis avails researchers the ability to structure the qualitative data gathered in a manner that facilitates the satisfaction of the objectives of the research.
Chapter Four Summary
Intra-party conflicts jeopardize the party’s image, and this makes the citizens have negative inferences of such political party. As a result of this, citizens find it rather misleading to encourage people to join or support a political party where conflicts are hardly resolved, because when you support such party, you are only trying to prompt corruption, dictatorship, nepotism, disintegration and backwardness into the developmental trajectory of the country.
Chapter Five summary
Basically, intra-party conflicts in All Progressive Congress are bedecked with clashes of interests; situations where party members become absolutely contradictory in the pursuit of political goals, while they try to influence the process of making decision in order to curry favour and advantage to their sides. In most instances, party members tend to create their factions to further amplify their voices and grievances in consonance with their political goals. Lack of internal democracy breeds intra-party conflicts. This is evincing in situations where party leaders and elites boycotts the party’s constitution which heightens democracy, for the purpose of gratifying themselves.
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