A potentially defining development on our political scene today is the emergence of an opposition coalition which aim is to oust President Bola Tinubu in 2027. This alliance had been in the making for months and had even attempted to register a political party before finally finding a ready-made home in the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
The fact that all attention has shifted to this coalition underlines the reality that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which once prided itself as the largest political party in Africa, is no longer trusted as a credible opposition bloc, formidable enough to wrest power from the APC. This is unfortunate given that it offers a strong proof to the belief that political parties in Nigeria only survive on patronage of government; once anyone of them loses power, it runs out of gas – simply because abi initio it had never in reality been a strongly entrenched institution sustained by group loyalty that is based on conviction and commitment to a common ideology. Simply put, the parties are just vehicles to power and tools for accessing state patronage. Hence, without power and state patronage, the parties are nothing. This is why in our country, a political party literally becomes a personal property of any member who becomes fortunate to attain the highest level of political office (as president or governor), as the person, now the custodian of state power and money, becomes the ultimate source of the state patronage that sustains the party.
So, I am absolutely convinced that the fate of the present coalition miserably lies in its ability to secure power come 2027. If it fails, the coalition is as good as dead. The Labour Party, for instance, is now only a dying version of its vivacious 2023 self, as its failure to secure power that year has progressively depleted its ranks – and by 2027 (unless Peter Obi runs on its ticket), it would have been too decimated to put up any meaningful fight in the general elections.
Honestly, much as no one can dispute the fact that we urgently need a fundamental change in the trajectory our nation has been on for many years, I am not so sure I understand what the coalition wants exactly to do. For now, it is still speaking in the same amorphous and wooly language of “rescuing” Nigerians, “fighting corruption,” etc. The credibility of its avowals is not helped by the antecedents of its protagonists which, perhaps irredeemably, cast doubts on the coalition’s ability to do any of the things it is boasting about doing. From el-Rufai to Aregbesola, and from Atiku Abubakar to Rotimi Amaechi, there is nothing to cheer about, if history and past roles are anything to go by.
To be sure, the coalition that has now found a home in ADC is a gathering of disgruntled fellows. They are motivated, not by conviction, but by personal grouse, not by patriotic fervour, but by individual ambitions. The lopsidedness of the project’s point of departure is a great threat to the desirability of its destination. It is as simple as that.
The task of rescuing Nigeria is not a sprint but a marathon; it is a titanic job. But the coalition project is obviously not conceived as a long term one; it is a one-off attempt to leap into the corridors of power come 2027. Little wonder its architects see nothing wrong with its hasty and clumsy approach; a rough-and-ready method that involves indiscriminate scouting for every willing collaborator from all nooks and crannies irrespective of whom they are and what they believe in. It is exactly through this process that the hero of the 2023 presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi, has been brought into the fold. Many who nurse optimism about the coalition do this mainly due to his involvement.
While I am definitely ambivalent about this coalition project, I am desirous of seeing Peter Obi become the flag bearer of the platform. This is because I feel he is the only one, among those gunning for that ticket, that has something to prove. He has over the years worn the garb of a reformer poised to lead Nigeria away from its ruinous trajectory and position it on the path of a stable present and a glorious future. His becoming the president will give all of us the opportunity of trying out what looks like a real alternative. His public communication has been mainly dedicated to engaging salient issues of nation building especially as they relate to accountability. The bane of our progress as a nation is poor culture of accountability. An Obi presidency would give us something to hope for in this regard – given his pledges.
On the contrary, his rivals in the coalition are not known to have been as exact and lucid in discussing the way forward for our beleaguered nation. They have not been as affirmative as Obi in presenting their roadmap such that everyone is sure of the sort of journey the one asking for our votes is promising to lead us on. So, there is practically nothing to hold them on. Apparently, the only commitment they have made is mere repetitions of the usual phrases employed by opposition groups to demonise the incumbent and present themselves as the messiah. In the light of our experience as a people, this is not enough to trust anyone with our votes.
However, no matter who eventually gets the ADC ticket, the question of what manner of leader they will become if they win is very salient given the very configuration of the coalition itself. Make no mistake about it; among the factors that make a leader effective or ineffective is crucially the structure that produced them. This is more so in a democracy where a winner of an election goes into power accompanied by a baggage of partisan political structure comprising both the collective interest of the victorious party and the personal interests of its individual chieftains. Hence, compromises are unavoidable in politics, meaning that no leader is entirely solely in control of decisions made including as they relate to appointments, policymaking and policy implementation, as the leader battle to reconcile competing intetests within their political base. They must do this successfully in order to keep this base healthy and intact; it is their means of retaining power.
Thus, it is quite discouraging that many supporters of the coalition are adamantly resisting any attempt to challenge it to clarify itself – in terms of what it represents given largely that it is composed mainly of the same persons who contributed in midwifing the present system and whose antecedents do not align with the quest for a fundamental shift in the way the nation has been going. What new are they bringing to the table? This is a must-answered question.
Of course, my observation tells me that the most fanatical here are those trusting Peter Obi to be the Messiah president – irrespective of those who gave him power and the structure he would govern with. There is some strong evidence of naivety here. Good intentions and good character alone are not enough to make impact in a clime where evil has grown so collosal and assumed so much systemic complexity as it has been with us. Those who have headed government offices or committees can testify to how attempts at doing the right thing seem an endless dance of chairs. One either decides to play the ostrich or seek some compromise – or at best, be ready to engage in endless battles that lead to nowhere. President Obasanjo, for instance, in his memoir, MY WATCH, gave a touching account of how he was repeatedly confronted with the prospect of budget stalemates as the National Assembly would usually insist on inserting certain sums of money for its members as a condition for passing the annual budget. From the way he sounded, the ex-president repeatedly struck a compromise.
The above is just one out of many possibilities. Even where the leader has been liberal with making compromises, experience tells us that still not everyone among the governing political structure would be satisfied. That accounts for the recurring cases of intra-party and intra-camp dissents we keep on seeing in our corridors of power, including the current ADC coalition that emanated from dissents within the APC and Tinubu’s camp.
The above is the reason I am becoming more and more convinced by the thesis of Bishop Matthew Kukah that what Nigeria ultimately requires to be rescued is not a new president or a new governor, but a new power elite. In other words, we need a new political class, a new set of leaders in the civil service, the police, the military – in fact, in all facets of our public service. But we can start with a new set of political leaders. In this respect, the ADC coalition has nothing new about it. A leader it would produce is likely going to be so much encumbered to be able to break from the past – because the leader’s platform and structure is an integral part of the past.
Pat Utomi, one of the leaders of the Obidient movement, shortly after the 2023 elections, agreed that the sort of movement that will rescue Nigeria should be one that aims at not just having a new president, but raising an “army” of change. He stated that the Obidient movement was an interim kind of arrangement, hastily put together to replace a bad regime. He reasoned that an ideal movement should not be focused on elections first, but on building ideological clarity and ideological momentum. Otherwise, we will continue on our vicious circle of always returning every four years to watch another “election circuit” in a fruitless search for a saviour. His views align totally with mine.
Nonetheless, whatever be the case, I am still convinced that giving Obi the ticket will, if anything, make the entire idea of a coalition more meaningful. It will, at least on the face of it, be presenting a real alternative to Nigerian voters. If you ask Nigerians to vote out Tinubu, you should not present to them, in the name of an alternative, Tinubu’s men (or ex-men). Upon winning election, Obi would have the burden of making do his many promises in the face of a power structure that appears to represent the opposite of those.
But then, if you ask me, I do not see anything other than a Tinubu second term come 2027. Take it to the bank, the coalition or any other opposition will not be able to oust him unless the unexpected happens. And I feel Nigeria needs that unexpected. This is because even if whoever replaced Tinubu (in the event of his unlikely loss) would not do better than him, the fact that an incumbent president can lose an election may represent a glimmer of hope that we are getting closer to reaping the dividends of real democracy where elections become a potent tool in the hands of the masses, and with which they can ultimately force through a culture where leaders lead with accountability to avoid being sacked by the electorate.
Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.
