Effects of Money Politics on Party Primaries in Nigerian 2019 General Election: Reflections on All Progressives Congress (APC) and People's Democratic Party (PDP) Partai Nigeria 2019: Refleksi pada All Progressives Congress (APC) dan People's Democratic Party (PDP)

Money politics has become an acceptable norm and a part of Nigerian political culture before and after the conduct of general elections since the resurgence of the democratic rule in the Fourth Republic (1999). The nature and dimension of money politics have taken a new picture in Nigerian politics during the party primaries in preparation for the 2019 General Election, particularly between the two major contending parties; the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who were involved in excessive use of money unprecedented in the history of Nigerian politics during the party primaries in September and October 2018. This work investigated the role of money in determining the outcome of party primaries in Nigeria in the ruling APC and the major opposition PDP and how it will affect the General Election in 2019. The research used a quantitative method of data collection and analysis. Both the primary and secondary sources were used during the conduct of the research. The data obtained were grouped in a thematic form where a simple tabular percentage was used for interpretations and results. The research discovered that there was an extraordinary deployment of money from the state-owned resources by politicians to arrest their campaign expenses and political ambition. In the process, vote-buying and excessive spending violated the electoral process and deprived the electorates of getting credible candidates in the parties' primaries. The research recommends that there is a need for a more aggressive and severe sanction on all politicians that are found in this evil act. The work also realized the serious need for massive public enlightenment on the evil of money politics.


INTRODUCTION
An election is a legitimate process of choosing desired leaders by the electorates in a credible way. Democracy can survive only if there is an election because there is no better alternative to change of government and transfer of power except through a peaceful, credible and acceptable election (Sule et al., 2018b). One of the necessary conditions for election is for the political parties competing for power to conduct party primaries or internal democracy to determine, based on votes or consensus, who will represent the party platform in the general election (Mohammed, 2017). Nigeria is presently a democratic state operating simultaneously a presidential and federal system of government. The experience of Nigeria with democracy and elections historically is bland and leaves much to be desired. However, the emergence of the Fourth Republic (1999-present) restored the rays of hope in the Nigerian populace that democracy could work in the country again (Odeyemi, 2014). From 1999 to date, six (6) general elections took place, heralded by party primaries and other political imbroglios that usually accompanied elections in developing democracies.
Party primaries are the best practice for piloting the best candidate by all parties to represent their respective parties in the competition and struggles for power. However, in Nigerian politics, party primaries always turned out to be bastardized, subverted, abused and made a mockery of democracy and internal politics. Party primaries are accompanied by imposition, money politics, bribery, vote-buying, corruption and an exorbitant price tag for nomination forms. This led to selfish and corrupt leaders' deliberate blockage of credible and quality leaders (Ibrahim & Abubakar, 2015). One annoying issue in the party primaries and, indeed, in the entire Nigerian politics is money politics. The whole political process has been transformed into an avenue for Clientelism, nepotism and the overt use of national wealth by the power holders to continue to secure power control at all costs. Money politics has affected Nigeria's elections since the Fourth Republic's inception in 1999. Money is used in the process of nomination, party primaries, vote-buying in the general election and bribery of judges after the election in the Election Petition Tribunal to deny any judgement against the alleged stolen mandate in various elective offices across the country (Sule et al., 2018a).
The 2019 General Election took place in March 2019, but before the election proper, party primaries involved the major parties that competed for the election. The two major parties: the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) POLITICON : Jurnal Ilmu Politik Vol.4 No.2 ; and the major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), conducted their party primaries to nominate who will represent them in the Presidential, Gubernatorial, Senatorial, Federal House of Representatives and State House of Assembly Election. There were allegations of massive corruption and the influence of money politics in the whole party primaries of these two giant parties involving buying the delegates' votes, bribing party executives and other misconducts against the law. This study examined the process of party primaries in the two major parties of the APC and PDP, how money politics influence the process, and the implications on the general election.

RESEARCH METHOD
The research used both primary and secondary sources of data collection and analysis. The primary source involved choosing respondents from across the country with geographical consideration. One state was chosen in each of the six geopolitical zones, and FCT Abuja, where 100 respondents were interviewed randomly on the subject matter. In the Northeast, Gombe State was chosen. In the Northwest, Zamfara State was selected, and in the Northcentral, Plateau State was chosen. In the Southwest, Osun State was chosen, in the Southsouth Rivers was selected, and in the Southeast, Abia State was selected and the FCT Abuja. The criteria for choosing these states were three. The first criterion was to give fair and equal representation to the country in the study. The second criterion was that three states were PDP-dominated, and three were APC dominated for a balanced analysis. Gombe, Rivers and Abia are under the PDP, while Zamfara, Osun and Plateau are under APC, with the FCT Abuja under their representatives in the National Assembly. The third criterion is the accessibility of the research assistants because the researcher used assistants to collect the data. He identified states where he has reliable aids for the jobs because of the scarcity of resources to employ assistants across the country.

Result
This section reviewed some relevant issues critically under study in this work using the thematic approach. The essence is to clearly identify the research gap and contribute to knowledge in the field of study. The literature was reviewed under the following themes: party primaries, party primaries in Nigeria's Fourth Republic and money politics in Nigeria.

Party Primaries
Parties remain vital to democratic operations in various perspectives, such as political recruitment and representation. Thus, the success or failure of democracy can be correlated with the ability of the parties to organize themselves and pursue the desired democratic principles, including internal democracy and party primaries. Parties help in democracy by fostering the opportunity for the choice of leaders, especially in developed democracies.
Parties are observed to have been less pivotal in promoting democracy in emerging democracies because of many issues. It is expected that party engagement and internal competition rules will be bright shortly in developing democracies (Webb & White, 2007). The above submission by Webb & White (2007) indicates that parties are the most important nerve engine of democracy, and their effective functioning will facilitate democratic rule while its malfunctioning will affect the performance of democracy. The study established that advanced democracies have more ground and solid parties helping in democratic consolidation while weaker parties are associated with the newly emerging democracies. The glad tiding here is that the developing democracies are improving and will continue to improve through having improved parties with a better internal democracy in the party primaries and the principles of choice.
Party primaries are a private affair of political parties. It is mainly an unregulated exercise that is an intra-party selection process that is not constitutionally legal but a legal procedure within parties for identifying and choosing those who will secure their platform for representation in the final election. Party primaries are non-standardized and unregimented party principles and activities for party preparation towards fielding candidates that can face competition from other parties. Party primaries differ from one party to another in a particular country and maybe the same in legal procedures, processes and patterns (Hazan & Gideon, 2012 (Hazan & Gideon, 2012). Religion is another factor affecting the party primaries process in Nigeria.

Party Primaries in Nigeria
Tickets are offered based on whether a particular candidate in a given elective office in a specific area is a Muslim and his deputy a Christian, or he is a and low-income earners are perceived as unprivileged and are not given priority in party selection (Babalola & Abba, 2017).
Party primaries in Nigeria are the organization of the polls internally by political parties before the major election to ensure internal democracy.
Unfortunately  politicians used thugs and intimidation to get their candidates to sail through the party nomination (Corentin, 2016). The period studied by the research mentioned above was when the PDP was the ruling party. The APC is taking a significant toll on its share of the violence during its primaries in preparation for the 2019 General Election. Violent clashes in Ogun, Rivers, Zamfara, Imo, Oyo, Ondo and other states to the extent that the ruling APC contested the election without candidates in some states like Rivers totally, while in Zamfara, the candidates for the party were smuggled into the race two days before the election day by the tribunal after the process of the primaries was disrupted severally by the warring parties.

Money Politics
For many decades, money politics has been a major decisive, influential and determining factor in Nigerian politics. There is a conglomerate bloc of money bag sponsors called "Godfathers" who play the politics of "Godfatherism" regarding shouldering the campaign expenditures of the politicians aspiring for elective political offices. Money politics is the streamline that presents who acquires political office in Nigeria. Political processes are subverted through vote-buying, bribing the electoral body officials, security personnel and all stakeholders involved. After securing power, money politics prevails and deny the public the common good through favouritism, paybacks, kickbacks and buybacks (Nwagwu et al., 2022).  Additionally, the long-standing neglect of infrastructural development coupled with the menace of the myriads of socioeconomic challenges in terms of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, insecurity and other social malaise exposed the voters to the vulnerability of vote-selling. It allowed for vote-buying from selfish, unpatriotic, evil politicians (Dauda et al., 2019).
Money politics has many implications for Nigerian democracy and the country's general well-being. One of these implications is that it leads to vote-  conducted. It is one of the case studies adopted in this study.

The PDP
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was established in August 1998 by people of diverse interests from across the divide of the country after the declaration by the military regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar for a democratic transition to hand over power to the civilian government in 1999.
The critical members that spearheaded its formation were the G-14 and G-34, seen as the national elders who opposed the Abacha military regime. When Abacha died in 1998, they consolidated their political movement by registering the party to participate in the announced democratic transition. Alex Ekwueme was adopted as the party chairman, while Jerry Gana was appointed as the secretary at its inception (Udeze, 2017 (Ibrahim & Abubakar, 2015).
The party was sharply affected by intra-party conflicts since its inception. It has been able to manage the internal conflicts for many years until 2015, when the clash between contending interests among members led to the mass exodus of its members, especially in the Northern part of the country, into the opposition newly formed APC, including five (5) serving Governors, ten (10) Senators and twenty-two (22)  the process owing to the foundation of the system that the leaders emerged from itself, which was corrupt (Stokes, 2013).
Clientelism has five basic assumptions. The first is that the relationship is dyadic in that it involves two persons and processes between the patron and client. The patron controls money, material benefits and appointments while the client controls votes, but there are brokers sometimes. The second assumption is the relationship is always asymmetrical, either vertical or horizontal, where the two actors are not equal in terms of the reward and benefits of the outcome. The third assumption is that the relationship is personal because it is not an official dealing but a personal affair clandestinely and covertly. The fourth assumption is that the relationship is reciprocal because both the patron and client stand to gain personally from the deal. The fifth assumption is that the relationship is voluntary because it is not being coerced in most cases but by personal will. These assumptions are presented in figures 1, figure 2 and figure 3 below for easier illustration.

Rules of Conduct for Party Primaries in APC and PDP
The two major parties of APC and PDP in Nigeria have their separate laws for party primaries. PDP is the oldest party and, in most cases, conducted its primaries with controversy. In the case of the APC, there are three laid-Client Patron Patron POLITICON : Jurnal Ilmu Politik Vol.4 No.2 ;Hal 261-293 Website : http://journal.uinsgd.ac.id/index.php/politicon ISSN : 2685-6670 ( Online ) Copyright ( "APC has adopted three measures for the conduct of party primaries in its preparation towards the 2019 General Election. It used direct primaries where all bonafide registered party members can queue and elect those who will represent the party in the final election. This has been the situation in the Presidential primaries; even though there were no opponents yet, they decided to conduct the direct primaries, where Muhammadu Buhari earned 13.6 million votes. In other seats such as the senatorial, house of representatives, gubernatorial and state house of assemblies, indirect primaries and consensus occurred separately according to the nature of the contest" (Personal in-depth interview with an informant in category 1 on 5 January 2019). In another view, the PDP was believed to have conducted its party primaries during its preparation for the 2019 General Election through two methods which are: "The PDP used the indirect primaries and consensus in selecting its party flagbearers for the 2019 General Election. Virtually, in the Presidential primaries, indirect party delegates were used, but in some positions of national assembly, state governorships and state house of assemblies, consensus candidates emerged, which did not augur well for some aggrieved members who defected to the ruling APC after the aftermath of the primaries" (Personal in-depth interview with an informant in category 1 on 29 December 2019). The party primaries created many problems for both the ruling APC and the opposition PDP after the primaries. For instance, one of the reasons was expressed by Oparah (2018), who believed that only direct primaries could avoid internal schism in the outcome of the party primaries. He further recommended the introduction of direct primaries by the APC party chairman Adams Oshiomhole. However, Oparah (2018) was unaware that the same Oshiomhole would later violate the direct primaries principles in many places, leading to mass defection of APC members and anti-party in the General Election.
It is observed that the direct and indirect primaries post a dilemma for the parties, especially the ruling APC, which provided the opportunity for that. In its preparation for party primaries, the APC debated and argued whether to impose direct or indirect primaries on its members, but it later agreed to allow for flexibility. The issue is that corruption abounds in all two through vote buying of delegates and party members during the party primaries (Hardball, 2018). Party primaries have become an albatross on the neck of Nigerian political parties, as observed by one of the informants below: "Party primaries in Nigeria are bedevilled with internal crises, imposition, corruption, dictatorship, grievances, make or mar politics due to lack of party ideologies and political principles by the politicians. You can see that immediately after the primaries, the disgruntled and aggrieved members tend to decamp to opposing parties in search of an alternative" (Personal in-depth interview with an informant in category 2 on 2 February 2019). The above statement proved true when Chioma (2019) reported that fresh crises in February 2019 heralded the party primaries of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the two major leading `parties of APC and PDP as well. In a report by one of the `newspapers columnist, the Punch, he described the party primaries in Nigeria in general in preparation for the 2019 General Election as characterized with: "Instead of a free and fair democratic ritual, the exercise became an ominous sign-post as thuggery, gunshots, snatching of electoral materials, parallel contests, and vote-buying took centre stage" (Ojo, 2018). Thus, it can be inferred from the above diverse views that the party primaries in APC and PDP were full of imposition, money politics in votebuying and corruption, internal crises, political turmoil and undemocratic practices. The processes were abused, violated and bastardized by politicians and the party executives for their ambition. This is tilting towards establishing the assumption of this research that money politics has discredited the party primaries of the APC and PDP. Additionally, Clientelism explains that elections in democracies are sometimes conducted under the patron-client benefits where the patrons seek political offices for their gain and use rewards to the voters to secure their support and loyalty. At the same time, the clients vote POLITICON : Jurnal Ilmu Politik Vol.4 No.2 ; for the candidates based on the anticipated rewards in terms of appointments, contracts and allocation of developmental projects that they will incur from the transaction.  "The APC Presidential primaries were conducted unopposed with President Muhammadu Buhari as the sole contestant through direct primaries. The process was fair without recording the usual money politics, vote-buying, bribery and corruption process except in the aftermath when the state governors were speculated to have donated a sum of N50 million each for the formal declaration of the President as the APC flagbearer in the Eagle Square in Abuja on October. This was corruption because the money might have been siphoned from the state treasuries. Even if the money was not from the public treasury, then the disclosure principle was violated. Because of the above phenomenon, I cannot exonerate the APC Presidential primaries from corruption in the real sense of it" (Personal in-depth interview with an informant in category 2 on 2 January 2019). Diagram 2 shows that out of the 559 respondents in the six geopolitical zones, about 94% of the total agreed that there was vote-buying in the PDP primaries, which took place on 6 October 2018 in Port Harcourt while only about 6% of them disagreed based on their perception. In the geopolitical zones, 81 agreed that vote-buying took place in the Northeast, while 10 of them disagreed. In the Northcentral, 73 of them agreed that there was vote buying in the PDP's Presidential primaries, while four disagreed. In the Northwest, 83 agreed, while four disagreed that vote-buying took place in the PDP's POLITICON : Jurnal Ilmu Politik Vol.4 No.2 ; because he was the highest bidder paying as much as $5000 for each delegate. The PDP Presidential primaries was another milestone in bribery, corruption, vote-buying and imposition of candidates in Nigerian politics" (Personal in-depth interview with an informant in category 3 on 11 January 2019). In another view, another informant submitted that:

Money Politics and Party Primaries in APC and PDP
"The PDP Presidential primaries in its preparation for the 2019 General Election was bedevilled with vote-buying, bribery, corruption, imposition and violence leading to the emergence of the candidate who paid better. It was alleged that one of the contestants bought delegates as much as $5000 each, which means that he spent nearly N5 billion Naira on the delegates alone. What about the party excos and other stakeholders? Indeed, the process was rubbished, and it has ridiculed democracy in Nigeria, where the people's representatives that are expected to vote for candidates that are credible and can give good representation, decided to vote for their stomachs by collecting bribes and voting for the contestants that pay higher" (Personal in-depth interview with an informant in category 4 on 29 December 2018). "The party primaries of the APC and PDP were just mere shambles and pretensions of political diversion and subversion, which can rightly be perceived as an abrupt declaration of the raping of democracy and the reiteration of the relevance and importance of money politics. In all the states where the primaries took place, vote-buying, bribery, corruption, imposition, and violence occupied the procedures. The volatility in the primaries compelled some states like Rivers and Zamfara to lose APC vacancies in the fielding of candidates due to a zero-sum game" (Personal in-depth interview with an informant in category 4 on 23 December 2019). Another informant narrated that: "What transpired during the APC and PDP primaries, especially at the state and National Assembly levels, was undemocratic and a Clientelistic process of political bargain using money nakedly to woo voters by the corrupt politicians to select them to represent their parties' platform. PDP begets APC, and APC is begotten APC in return which will make a vicious circle of recycling the same nonideological and unprincipled politicians who are buying votes and bribing stakeholders during party primaries and in the general election by extension" (Personal in-depth interview with an informant in category 5 on 11 January 2019). In another version, an informant called in a live radio programme broadcast on Progress 97.3 FM in which the researcher was involved in the programme is a political analyst in the radio station called "Viewpoints" from category five and confessed that: "As party delegates, we were all bribed, and our votes are bought by the politicians. I belong to PDP, but I swear the APC in Gombe State during the primaries bought votes and was involved in bribery and corruption more than the accused PDP. For instance, we were given N350, 000 ($953. 68) each during the PDP primaries. Still, the APC offered around N800, 000 ($2179. 84). The two parties are all corrupt and to me, from what I saw visibly, the APC in Gombe is more corrupt than the PDP in terms of party primaries" (Personal in-depth interview with an informant in category 6 on 8 December 2019).

Discussion
In this section, the data obtained were presented, analyzed, discussed and interpreted for the major findings. The discussions were made based on thematic forms where sub-themes were established for convenience and clarity of expression.

The Consequences of Money Politics in the Party Primaries of the APC and PDP on the 2019 General Election and Nigerian Politics
There are many consequences of the money politics from the primaries of the APC and PDP in their preparation for the 2019 General Election. The effects are spillover to the post-election, which will continue to obstruct good governance and performance in the political office. Some of these consequences are discussed below. Intra-Party Conflict: one of the negative consequences of the money politics and vote-buying during the party primaries of the APC and PDP was the escalation of intra-party conflict, which has been already hitting the two major parties harder even after the primaries. Many disgruntled and aggrieved party members expressed their anger with the primaries where moneybags subverted it from those who paid higher to secure the tickets. This led to antiparty activities in many areas and conflicts of representation where some states ended up without representatives, as in the case of APC in Rivers, where it has no contestants because of internal crises and Zamfara too. Election indicates that because of the use of money to secure tickets for party representation, many credible leaders were weed out in the process, leaving This, by implication, means that people will not get good governance and responsive, credible representation as anticipated in democratic rule.

CONCLUSION
The study concluded that the process of party primaries of the two major contending political parties in Nigeria; the APC and PDP, is heavily influenced and sharply affected by money politics, bribery and corruption through vote-buying of the delegates, bribing the party officials and corruption in terms of imposition, violence and violation of due process in the conduct.
The study concludes that the process of the party primaries affected the 2019 General Election with money politics leading to vote-buying, bribery and corruption, violence, politics of decamping, weak and poor leaders and a sharp intra-party conflict. The study concludes that the party primaries of APC and PDP, especially at the Senatorial, House of Representatives, Gubernatorial and State House of Assembly, were not appreciable and are not recommendable.
They denote a retrogression in Nigerian politics and the inability of the polity to steer ahead for a required development.
The above conclusion indicates that there is an urgent need to address these issues of money politics, vote-buying, bribery and corruption in the electoral process. One of the recommendations is for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to devise measures that will financially monitor the party primaries process to ensure compliance with legal spending.
Secondly, there is the need for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to be involved in the entire electoral process, from the party primaries to the general elections, to monitor and curb money politics. Since there are existing rules on violation of financial spending during campaign and money politics in the country, an investigation should be carried out to identify the perpetrators and punished accordingly. The work also recommends that there is a need for massive public enlightenment campaigns to awaken the public from the dangers and evil of money politics, especially vote-buying.