Just a little story. In 2013, when discussions began about the possibility of opposition parties coming together in a merger to confront the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2015 general election, a section of civil society, mainly based in Abuja, became involved in the conversations that eventually produced what became the All Progressives Congress. Meetings were held across Abuja with the familiar optimism that accompanies political projects before the hard realities of power begin to intrude. Civil society activists saw in the proposed merger an opportunity to inject ideas of coalition, internal democracy, accountability, and popular participation into a political formation being assembled principally by politicians who understood, perhaps better than anyone else, the practical mechanics of winning and exercising political power. 

After the merger took shape, some of the dominant political power centres that negotiated the merger party made a concession to the civil society component of the process. The concession was modest but symbolically important: civil society would have a platform to present the ideals of democratisation to the governors of the merger party, which constituted one of its principal power centres. The expectation was not that politicians would suddenly surrender their political instincts to a seminar on democracy, but that an organised space could be created within the new party where questions about internal democracy, participation and institutional accountability could at least be raised and debated.

No sooner had the concession been made than one of its principal beneficiaries, who now goes about making all sorts of arguments about coalition politics, democratisation, and internal party democracy, hijacked it. He moved his private staff into what everyone involved understood as a collective platform for civil society engagement, and an arrangement conceived as a modest experiment in democratising the internal life of the new political formation became, in short order, another instrument of individual opportunism and greed. The episode was revealing because the contradiction did not come from outside the democratic project; it came from within it. The language was democracy, the opportunity was democratisation, but the instinct was possession.

I remember the episode because it says something uncomfortable about Nigerian politics which remains relevant today. Democratisation is often most passionately demanded by those who are outside the room where power is distributed, while the same people can become remarkably protective of privilege once they acquire a chair at the table. 

The struggle for a more democratic political order can therefore become less a struggle over principles than a struggle over access, with democratisation functioning as a vocabulary of opposition until opposition gives way to influence and influence gives way to crass opportunism. Harold Lasswell, the preeminent American political scientist, famously reduced politics to the question of “who gets what, when, how”. The formulation has survived because it captures something elemental about political life which constitutional language can sometimes conceal. Politics, above everything else, is about the distribution of power and resources, and institutions are never entirely separate from the interests of those who occupy them. Democratisation becomes attractive to those excluded from the distribution of political power. 

The real test comes later, when exclusion ends, and the previously excluded acquire the opportunity to determine who else gets access.

Nigeria’s political history is littered with examples of this transformation. Politicians denounce the monopolisation of power when they are outside the loci of power and defend monopolisation when they become beneficiaries of it. Politicians demand a voice in nominations when they are shut out of the process and demand obedience when they control it. 

Civil society activists campaign for transparency until they acquire influence over the distribution of opportunities, at which point the language of public interest can become remarkably elastic. The problem is not that people change. Politicians and activists are entitled to pursue their interests, and no serious student of politics should be surprised by ambition. 

The deeper problem arises when private ambition continues to disguise itself as public principle long after circumstances have changed. A person who campaigns for democratisation while outside the room may be acting from conviction, calculation, or some combination of both. Once inside the room, however, the credibility of that person’s democratic commitment can only be measured by what happens to those who remain outside it.

This test matters because democratisation has once again become a prominent theme in discussions about Nigerian political parties. The demand is not objectionable. Nigerian parties require stronger institutions, more credible internal processes and greater participation by their members. Candidate selection should not be reduced to the private preferences of a handful of political patrons, while party constitutions should mean more than documents produced for registration and forgotten until the next leadership crisis. 

But the demand for democratisation becomes intellectually hollow when those making it are principally seeking to replace one set of gatekeepers with another. The real question, therefore, is not whether political parties should be democratised. Of course, they should. The harder question is whether those demanding democratisation are prepared to accept democratic competition after they have gained influence within the party. A democratic political culture cannot be built merely by changing the people who occupy the offices of control; it requires accepting rules which may produce outcomes contrary to one’s immediate interests.

The little story from 2013 is useful precisely because it illustrates the danger before us. A platform created in the name of civil society was quickly transformed into a private instrument because a devious activist saw an opportunity where others had seen an institutional concession. The incident was small in itself, but political culture often reveals itself in small incidents long before it becomes visible in constitutional crises. 

Perhaps, the most important lesson is that democratisation cannot be treated as a ladder whose usefulness ends once one reaches the top. Anyone can sound democratic while seeking entry into a political establishment. The harder task is to remain democratic after entry, when the privileges once criticised have become available for personal use.

Nigeria does not need politicians who speak the language of internal democracy. It needs politicians who understand that democracy imposes obligations upon those who win as much as it protects those who lose. The measure of a democratic politician is therefore not how vigorously he demands a place at the table, but what he does with the table once he has secured a seat. 

The story from 2013 is small, but perhaps small stories are sometimes more instructive than grand declarations. The person who once benefited from a concession made in the name of democratisation now stands at the forefront of the campaign for coalition politics in Nigeria. The journey carries an irony, but it also carries a warning. 

Political memory should not be used to settle old scores; it should help us distinguish between democratisation as a principle and democratisation as a strategy for acquiring power. Making this distinction is essential; otherwise, every new campaign for internal democracy risks becoming another contest over who gets what, when and how, with democracy serving less as the destination than as the language used on the journey to the next seat at the table.

Abdul Mahmud, a human rights attorney in Abuja, writes weekly for The Gazette