The Nigerian Senate on October 12, 2021 approved direct primary — a process whereby every party member votes for the candidate of their choice to represent the party in an election. The approval is for all elective positions in political parties, which is in contrast to the commonly used indirect primary where delegates elect who becomes the candidate of the party.
This generated mixed reactions from politicians and, in fact, led to the major political parties, the All Progressives Congress and Peoples Democratic Party, having factional executives as they conducted parallel congresses across a number of states.
These divisions and factions mean that there will again be controversy over who is the rightful candidate as each faction will produce their delegates afterward their candidates. All these occurrences have shown that, in reality, Nigerian democracy cannot continue to rely on indirect primary and the crises that entail. Thus, direct primary is the answer for a lot of positive reasons….
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