FIDELITY is not an attribute of Nigerian politicians. The ease with which they jump from one political party to the other removes all doubts that the politician believes only in himself and causes that foster his expansive interests.

The political processes are at the critical stages of parties electing their candidates for the 2015 elections. Complaints about the primaries are plenteous across parties. Only aspirants who benefitted from the confusion are singing the praises of party democracy.

Many aspirants were cheated out of the race. The main reason being that the rules change depending on who is applying them. Neither party constitutions, nor the Electoral Act are used faithfully in these matters. Primaries are the internal affairs of parties though they are expected to manage them transparently, or at least democratically.

The disaster parties have made of the simple matter is evident. The only parties where there is peace are ones that have no chances of winning in the elections. Their tickets are not attractive. They are spared the rumbles that are tearing the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the All Progressives Congress, APC, into shreds. Both parties have deployed a combination of exclusion and “party supremacy” to selecting their candidates.

Aspirants, on their parts, are using muscle and money to secure tickets. Hardly any of the primaries was concluded to the satisfaction of the participants. Words like “sham”, “kangaroo” have been used in describing the primaries of both parties, often by aggrieved members who were denied participation. Many have left for other parties.

In some States, there were as many primaries as there were aspirants. Each aspirant had delegates, organised primaries, where the organiser emerged winner. There are cases where four aspirants have declared themselves winners of the same ticket. These situations call for more concerted efforts at getting the parties to take charge of their affairs. Primaries are supposed to be conducted by appointed party officials, who have the delegates list. Officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, are meant to be observers. The multiple primaries could not be possible without the connivance of party officials, who for a fee, take sides with aspirants, manipulate the delegates’ lists and erect more collection points for the money the confusion would generate.

Infractions of the electoral processes continue because offenders are never punished. The forgeries, thuggery and manipulations that support multiple primaries are criminal offences that should be punished. The lethargy of the parties in punishing offenders rests on the fact that the political elite has created these platforms for the sustenance of their ambitions. Democracy, for them, means being in power, by all means, at all costs, including lives, except their lives.