Dickson: Why We Adopted Doctrine of First Refusal for Jonathan

 President Goodluck Jonathan

• Akpabio: Sole presidential candidacy rattled opposition

By Chuks Okocha in Abuja and Segun James In Yenagoa

Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State yesterday explained why the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) adopted the doctrine of “first refusal” in the selection of President Goodluck Jonathan as the presidential candidate for 2015 general election instead of resorting to unnecessary primaries.

The governor said the decision was taken to avoid the acrimony that follows such primaries in the past.

Dickson’s explanation came in as the chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, described the decision of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party to adopt President Jonathan as the sole presidential candidate as a well calculated exercise in democracy that rattled the opposition.

Akpabio, who made the declaration yesterday in Akwa Ibom State during the PDP performance publicity tour led by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, said: “The opposition is rattled  because of the ability of the governors and leaders of the PDP to sacrifice their individual ambitions and rally behind the president who has performed exceedingly well.”

However, according to Dickson, such practices are common places in other democracies like the United States of America, where incumbent presidents are spared the humiliation of unnecessary primaries by the doctrine of first refusal.
He insisted that the action by the PDP governors and party leadership was to institutionalise the right of first refusal for an incumbent president and reduces cases of huge cost and in-fighting within existing political parties.

The governor lamented that this doctrine was misconstrued as “sole candidacy” by the media and the opposition groups, a situation, which he said had generated hiatus within the polity.

“It is not a declaration of sole candidacy. The term sole candidacy connotes a far cry from what we have done. What we have done is to stabilise the political system.

“What we have done is to say that we don’t want to subject our members to the costly and stressful experiences. What we have said is that once you are a president from a political party, you have a right of first refusal. It will reduce in-fighting and cost of lobbying and campaigns.

“What we have said is that if the head (President) has failed, the party looses elections. Whoever comes after Jonathan, will no longer have issues of intra-party conflicts, but will have the right to first refusal.

“In the first term of an administration, there is much in-fighting. If the right of first refusal had been institutionalised in the past, former President Olusegun Obasanjo wouldn’t have been subjected to such issues that came up before his re-election,” he said.

Dickson noted that democracy should not be about conflicts and unnecessary intrigue but by “institutionalising the right of First Refusal. If a candidate does not perform, the party is at risk losing election. It should not be termed a declaration of Sole Candidature.

“If President Jonathan refuses, the elective convention will be conducted. But what we are going to have in PDP now is a non-elective convention due to the acceptance of the right of first refusal by the president. This decision is provided for by the electoral law,” he stressed.

According to Akpabio, “The adoption by PDP’s NEC is democracy in action. In US that we are copying, the incumbent president does not go through primaries. We are not saying that the president will not face the general elections. So the idea of him spending presidential time instead of facing insurgency, food insufficiency and other things that may affect the country and begin to campaign for the party ticket when he is already the incumbent president is what we want to avoid. I think this is a very fantastic model of internal democracy.”

He said: “What we only said and did is, let’s sacrifice our individual ambition so that the president will have a second term. We are not saying that other people should not contest election, but that as PDP governors, we want to join hands and support him to win the second term. It does not mean that any person who wants to contest should not contest. We are indeed deepening democracy by sacrificing our own ambition,” he emphasised

The governor added that the PDP governors, by that decision, also resolved to stabilise the party and avoid the unfortunate situation that leaves the party fractured after primary elections.

“Instead of fracturing the party at the end of the convention, we want to move as one family to elect the presidential candidate at the convention. And that is democracy in action. So I don’t think anybody should criticise it, rather we should be commended for not behaving like past governors who by now, nine or 15 of them would have declared for presidency and then there would be confusion in the party.
“So the people who sacrificed their ambition to support the president should they be castigated or commended?  I must therefore thank the PDP NEC for adopting the position of the PDP governors. It is left for the national convention to ratify.  This is evidence that Nigeria is changing.

“ I think the opposition is rattled. Any time  the PDP makes a move and the opposition is criticising it, then you know that decision is biting them and if they praise you, you should be worried,” Akpabio stated.