By Emmanuel Aziken

The fascinating report of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP national delegate from Kaduna State, Mr. Tanko Rossi Sabo, who returned home to share the bounty he obtained from last weekend’s national convention of the party has amazed many.

A tableful of money was displayed with the news reports to authenticate the fact that what transpired in Abuja last week was more of a bazaar than any other thing.

Expectedly, the PDP has been mum on the reports that the election of its presidential candidate was an obscene bazaar.

The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC which ordinarily should have come out with a statement to denounce the trading of the PDP ticket has also not been forthcoming. Not out of dereliction of duty, but out of the fact of its complicity.

Your correspondent understands that like the PDP aspirants, that the APC aspirants have also been bribing their way into the hearts of their national delegates in a process that has turned democratic representation into a bribery scheme.

Of course, there have been few exceptions to the bribery regime. Mr Dele Momodu who said he would not offer money to anyone, expectedly got zero votes. What he offered was of course what he reaped. Zero!

There was an exception, however, in the Kaduna State PDP governorship primary. Senator Shehu Sani who pledged that he would also not offer any money to his surprise got two votes from the 730 votes cast.

In effect, Sani’s ideas without money earned him 0.3% of the total votes cast in that election. It was far better than the 0% Momodu got from the bazaar. Shehu Sani had in a tweet sought to know the identity of the two voters on the strength of their moral fiber.

Entering into the PDP convention last weekend, one of the largest issues that reverberated was the agitation for a president from the Southeast. In demonstration of that quest, at least three Igbo aspirants put themselves forward. However, at the end, the 95 national delegates from the Southeast only contributed 15 votes to the three Southeast presidential aspirants.

14 of the 15 votes went to Anyim Pius Anyim who had marketed what many supposed was an impressive blueprint to govern the country. Mazi Sam Ohabunwa, who had also prepared no less a proposal got one vote.

What this means is that only a maximum of 16% of the Igbo delegates, (that is supposing that all the 15 votes came from Igbo delegates) believed in the quest for a president of the Southeast.

The implication is that the other 80 national delegates, representing 84% of the delegates from the Southeast did not believe in the chorus of a president from the Southeast. They followed the likes of Senator Uzor Orji Kalu and others who have been campaigning for a president from other regions.

While some have implied that Senator Kalu’s campaign for Senator Ahmad Lawan was built on his selfish desire of enthroning his friend, the 80 delegates who refused to vote for their people were also minded by their selfish considerations.

That selfish consideration was certainly money. They simply traded away their opportunity for the dollars that came their way.

In the light of the evidence from the Kaduna national delegate, his colleagues from the Southeast will do themselves the favour of declaring what they did with the booty that they received from the Abuja bazaar of votes.

It is shocking that some national officers of the parties have not just acquiesced to the bribery regime, but even justified it on the claim that it is provision to take care of the delegates’ expenses in Abuja.

However, it is a known fact that during this election season that the bribery that was in the past only done during the convention was even taken to the states as the aspirants lobbied (bribed) them during the visits.

It is still shocking that all these have happened in the course of a regime that promised to wipe away corruption from the body politic.

The tame response of the administration was to deploy operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to the venue of the PDP national convention. But just as we are seeing from the case of the suspended Accountant General of the Federation, AGF, Ahmed Idris, under whose watch about N200 billion disappeared, Muhammadu Buhari’s body language means almost nothing these days.

The antidote to the corruption in the political system is to do away with the delegate system that encourages bribery. A direct primary under which all registered voters are made to vote electronically is an alternative that should be encouraged.

You can imagine the way that the dollar has been abused in this election season by politicians who mopped up the money to help them in their devious plans. If this system is not changed, the memory of the massive cash display by Delegate Sabo to his people would otherwise act as an incentive that would in the next round spur many others to stand as delegates for the filthy lucre that comes from the process.

And many of them will like the majority of the lawmakers in the National Assembly not be truthful in declaring what they got from Abuja.