Brexit, Theresa May And Lessons For Our Party System -By Bright Ogundare

Brexit, Theresa May and lessons for our 
After months of holding on and surviving no-confidence votes, the British Prime Minister Theresa May has finally announced her resignation from 10, Downing Street. Mrs. May (who became the leader of the conservative party and Prime Minister after the result of the June 2016 Brexit vote which made the then Prime Minister David Cameron resign from the office) will be remembered as the Brexit Prime Minister who failed to deliver.

Her exit was forced after so many political intrigues and ideological division and debates even in her own party and this where we need to draw lessons for our political system especially the way our political parties are run. In advanced democracies, the party is the first base of criticism and opposition to anybody in power. At every election cycle, the battle for the soul of the party is fought via ideological debates and if the party gets to power, the other ideology in the party would be one of the first to condemn the one in power, this was what played out in the UK as those opposed to Theresa May’s policies in her conservative party were her undoing as they shot barrage of criticism at her. Also, the Obama administration was constantly criticized by Bernie Sanders and the socialist wing of the Democratic Party.
However, this is not the case in Nigeria. In Nigeria, the political party is organized around the one in power. The president or governor is effectively the emperor of the party and no dissent must be tolerated.

Any attempt at dissent is described as an anti-party and it would be fought not just by using the party organs but also by the state apparatus at the disposal of the one in power. These have effectively turned the political party into a conglomerate of sycophants, bootlickers and patronage seekers.

A political party should be a base of ideological debates for anybody in power but it has become an empire for those in power. Our parliamentary system is crumbling under this as to speak against the president or governor as a parliamentarian of the ruling party becomes a crime, such a lawmaker would be ostracized from the party and would be hunted down by the EFCC, DSS and other state apparatus all in a bid to cow such an individual into silence. Our state house of assembly members has been turned to glorified zombies and the only thing separating them from primary school students is the fact that they don’t wear uniforms, our state house of assemblies has so much degenerated that they no longer debate motions, they just accept everything the governor passes to them and any lawmaker that raises objection would be suspended from the house for gross misconduct (a term now synonymous to political victimization). These have created a shortage of ideas in our political system and it must be resolved as a matter of emergency.

We must overhaul the way our party is being run to make way for political parties where the opinion of party members really matter. Theresa May never hunted Boris Johnson with EFCC or DSS, Michael Gove was not victimized by the police for opposing the PM, now the British people would benefit from fresh ideas. Obama never victimized Sanders for opposing him and the American government is becoming more welfarist. However, Nigeria and her citizens would not get fresh ideas in governance if everyone who opposes the government doing it because he is corrupt and must be hunted down by the police, EFCC, and DSS.

Bright Ogundare is a social commentator and can be contacted via brightogundare@gmail.com