It’s not healthy for head of critical state institutions to be in campaign councils
In line with the timetable released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), major political parties are already rolling out their 2027 campaign councils. Understandably, these organizations are sprawling assemblies of influential party people, technocrats, and political jobbers. But in a few cases, especially in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the choice of personnel has breached public decency. Even when no constitutional breaches can be imputed, questions are being raised about propriety.
Ordinarily, a party is free to summon its most influential members to serve on its campaign committee to ensure victory and continuity in power. In this regard, governors, ministers, board members, special assistants and influential party faithful are good quarry. However, there is a clear difference between normal political appointees and strategic technocrats on whom every government depends to maintain the integrity of the state and non-partisan common interest. These are usually heads of agencies who often owe positions held to their credentials as experts, even if they are members of the party in power.
Therefore, in coming up with the list of campaign council members, the ruling APC may have breached this code by accommodating heads of security/economic agencies for clearly partisan roles. For instance, institutions like the National Revenue Service (NRS) responsible for assessing, collecting, accounting for, and enforcing federal taxes and National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) that enroll, manage and access the National Identification Number (NIN) of citizens ought to be insulated from campaign assignments. And so should officials that are responsible for national defence/security, especially at a period like this. While the sympathy of such officials for the party that controls the government they serve may be assumed, their obligation to the state as a non-partisan entity must remain supreme and without doubt.
Considering that the campaign season in Nigeria is usually riddled with unwholesome practices, a government financial or security manager who also has to serve the ruling party in the same capacity may be tempted to mix his/her obligations to both entities. Even if such a person doesn’t compromise their office, there should be no room for suspicion. The issue here may be more moral than legal, but it is nonetheless important for the preservation of critical state institutions.
We understand that most of these so-called councils hardly meet and may just be to project the ‘strength’ of a political party during campaigns. But even at that, there are certain sensitivities that should not be breached. When a ruling party begins to feel entitled to enlist and commandeer key state officials to do its partisan biddings, it may be clearing the way to a situation in which the ruler, the party and the state fuse into one indistinguishable mass of power abuse. For these institutions to be seen as credible by the public they serve, coopting their heads into partisan campaign roles is unhealthy. Since there are reports that President Bola Tinubu has asked for a reconstitution of the council, we hope that anything that suggests a conflict of interest would be avoided in the new list.
Meanwhile, as we inch towards the 2027 general election, our political campaign culture is in urgent need of enlightenment. If our democracy is to make any meaning, campaigns for public offices should be about ideas and programmes, not about sabre rattling. A fact-based knowledge of national issues should inform the policies that political combatants advance to help their cause. While we wish all parties luck and success in this campaign season, it is in the interest of the public and our democracy that the party in power, both at the national level and in the states, respect the boundaries that guard the public interest and protect it from partisan trespasses.