What A Political Party Should Stand For

It’s the ‘conference season’ in the United Kingdom. This is the season when British political parties have their annual conferences.

The Liberal Democrats had theirs last week, Labour’s conference is ongoing and the conservatives will be having theirs next week.

A lot of prominent members of the parties speak during this season but the highlight usually is the speech given by the leader of the party. Most of the attention is usually given to the three main parties, conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats but the other fringe parties usually have their meetings as well because parliament would not be in session during the period.

A lot of journalists look forward to the speeches given by the present Prime Minister and his opposite  number, leader of the opposition most of which would have been given to them in advance.

At the 2013 Labour conference, Labour leader, Ed Milliband made an hour long speech without referring to any notes only taking sips of water occasionally. It was almost the highpoint of the conference season in 2013 when he made the ‘one nation’ speech last year without referring to his notes and gave a wonderful memorable speech. The content of the speech was as impressive as the format of the delivery.  

At the 2013 conference he made several electoral promises if Labour controlled government after the next general elections. He made a promise that when elected energy bills would remain frozen for about 20 months. He also made a promise, jokingly, that he would not allow himself to be pictured without his top.

That is how political party conferences should be. An opportunity where leaders of various political parties would be able to present their manifestos to the electorate.

That is not the case in Nigeria. Parties are not known for what they intend to do for the masses but who is joining whose faction. There was a PDP convention recently and the highlight of the convention was that seven governors declared a new party and we now have two factions of the ruling party.

Nobody remembers who said what or what promises were made. It’s only about personalities and in some cases violent intra party clashes.

The reason why party conferences in Nigeria are different is not difficult to figure out. The politicians are not interested in what is beneficial for the people only what’s good for them.