It is the elite who provide direction for a country, not the masses. So, as the 2027 General Election draws even closer, it is clear that the opposition political parties will be unable to put up a good outing against the ruling APC. Despite reservations by many Nigerians, the country’s ruling class is saying something different. In what looks like a deliberate dismantling of the opposition, PDP, the former ruling party, has completely diminished and now only a monument reflecting its past glory. Its National Convention tells this story more profoundly. The ADC, with all the potentials, has been unable to mobilize as the major opposition political party in Nigeria in less than one year before Nigeria’s general election. One thing is obvious: Nigeria has defeated opposition, and there are many reasons this deserves attention.
Democracy is a system of government designed to recycle itself through proposition and opposition in a form of dialectics. Political parties make a case for their relevance based on their role in the system, as they provide platform to the citizenry and also shape their choices in an election. Without this variety of choice component, democracy would fail at its duty to provide the people with the options they need to be able to offer their mandate. But in Nigeria, politicians and the country’s ruling class are no longer interested in opposition. Many live on the mantra that opposition no longer pays. Therefore, the mask has been removed, and so many no longer pretend that they are aligned to a political party on the basis of ideology or values. Nigerian politicians align with political parties on the basis of proximity to political power. It is all about politics of comfort and power-grabbing, neither of conviction nor of contribution to the polity.
Interestingly, nearly two dozen Nigerian serving governors have left their former parties, and not even one joined the ADC, which now looks like the closest main opposition party in Nigeria. It is equally interesting that in many states across Nigeria, politicians line up in accordance with the party that offers the easiest route to their desired destination. Serious aspirants ahead of 2027 in Anambra State, for instance, are divided between those in the APGA and those in ADC. In Enugu, it is between those in the APC and a few in the ADC. This pattern is seen across the federation and signals a deliberate positioning to grab power, rather than offer an alternative to the voters. This posturing, though realistic, mirrors a much deeper challenge that has now become a national spectacle that conditions the behaviour of political actors who are disinterested in mounting a firm opposition on its merit because it is now largely conceived of as a waste of time and resources. No matter what anyone might wish to hope for next year, in a country operating a multiparty system where 31 out of the 36 state governors are members of the ruling party, the opposition has collapsed in that country, and democracy will pay for it.
As Nigerian politicians continue to embrace the convenient route to the acquisition of political power, which is realistically through a tried and proven path, it is unclear how any opposition can successfully challenge the ruling party at the polls at the national level.
The APC gained impetus in 2015 through several political events that it quickly took advantage of as an alternative platform. The Nigerian Governors’ Forum was polarized from 2013, and the APC gave its platform to serving governors opposing the PDP from within. This was a major leverage that prepared the way for APC in 2015. The party leveraged the support of serving state governors across the federation. Any hope of such repeating itself was already cleaned out by Nyesom Wike, the FCT Minister, who is now the leader of the PDP, as he was referred to, during the party’s National Convention. Except Governors Seyi Makinde and Bala Mohammed, no other governor elected on the party’s platform is still a member of the PDP. All others except the Osun State Governor, Senator Ademola Adeleke, have decamped to the ruling APC. Although many foundation members of the APC have moved to the ADC, the fact is that they no longer control the machinery of their states and are thereby not significantly positioned to mainstream their opposition. Political power matters in opposition and in a country like Nigeria, where proximity to power comes with enormous privileges, most people and politicians have learnt not to exchange their access to power in pursuit of uncertainty.
Irrespective of what anyone might say, the fact is that, as far as the eyes can see, opposition has been defeated in Nigeria until the next election cycle. Whatever happens to opposition politics in Nigeria after 2027 will depend on how opposition is embraced within the ruling APC.