Benue State University, Makurdi

Internal Democracy and All Progressive Party (APC) Election Losses in the 2019 Governorship Elections

Olowu Olagunju Folorunso & Abdulsalam Nasir Naeem

Abstract

Since return of democracy in 1999, Party politics in Nigeria has been characterized by incessant and unabated occurrence of intra-party politics with candidate’s recruitment process lacking in merit, fairplay, and credibility. It is against this backdrop that the study made a review of internal democracy and All Progressive Party (APC) election losses in 2019 governorship elections in Nigeria. The study was a descriptive survey which sourced data through primary and secondary sources. Purposive sampling technique was adopted to help streamline the voting population in Rivers and Zamfara while Research Advisor Table was used to empirically validate sample size. Karl Marx dialectical materialism and internal democracy and policy formulation theories were used as theoretical framework of the study. The study findings showed that intra-party conflict as well as recruitment and selection process of All Progressive Congress contributed immensely to the losses of APC in Rivers and Zamfara. Incessant constitutional breaches and uncontrollable decamping of members of APC also contributed to the losses. The study recommended among others that party stalwarts need to urgently settle all conflicting issues through dialogue and the need to amend the party constitution for more strict laws to guide primary elections and making sure that violators are heavily sanctioned by the party to serve as deterrence.

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