Internal Party Democracy and Electoral Legislation in Nigeria: Issues and Prospects

Abstract

Internal party democracy in Nigeria is quite worrisome in recent times and this backdrop has affected the effectiveness of political parties, internal democracy attainment here in Nigeria is a very big task owing to the incessant anti- party behaviours of both the leaders and the followers. A party structure ought to be patterned with ideas for effective mobilization and managements of members within a political party, unfortunately it is not so in most political parties in Nigeria. Without any iota of doubt, Internal democracy is a human right for party members, and it plays vital roles in achieving internal party harmony. Good leadership is the crux to effective leadership in political parties in Nigeria. The laws in Nigeria are sufficient to guarantee internal party democracy if discipline and will-power are articulated in the right direction by political actors when necessary.  Democracy can strive effectively if the principles of managements are properly annexed to a political system. Internal democracy entails representation, participation, institutionalization of the whole process of management at the grassroot level of a party formation. involving the division of tasks to experts on their areas of specialization. Henry Fayol, a French management expert believes that an organization must run with the ease of ‘Top to Down’ system where experts handles an area of specialization with minimal interference by leaders. This work is of the opinion that, in achieving internal democracy, every member of a political party must be included in major tasks in their special areas.  This work also advocates for decisions making, transparency and accountability to be the major hallmark to the success of internal democracy. This paper adopts the socio-legal model of research, which is largely based on works done by lawyers and other researchers in other fields of the social sciences and humanities in form of books, journals and literature review and field work. The paper further recommends that the problems confronting political parties in Nigeria can be mitigated if the judiciary woke up to their responsibility by accelerated dispensation of justice and at a low cost. By doing so, political parties' activities and modes of operation will be more people-friendly, which will be helpful for the Nigerian election process.