The build-up to the 2027 general elections is evolving in quite an exciting way. The atmosphere has become very charged as major opposition players converge and strategise on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in an attempt to wrest power from the APC and President Bola Tinubu.
Evidently, many people are eagerly expectant, believing – or maybe merely hoping – that the emerging alliance will be able to take over government and steer the ship of the nation differently and address our familiar woes that have worsened under the present administration. But when one withdraws from the big noise and reflects deeply and soberly, doubts inevitably creep in simply because we have been here before.
The whole excitement about the ADC is hinged on the historical role of the opposition in providing a governing alternative – if a party currently in power is failing, then it’s time to see what the opposition has got to offer. However, such optimism, in our own case, has to be cautiously viewed for the exact reason that what we call opposition politics in Nigeria has always been suspect.
In recent years, it has become an election cycle thing wherein those whose electoral interests are in opposition to those of the incumbent quickly put together what would ultimately prove to be an interim power-chasing vehicle – as against an enduring opposition bloc. This is so given that once the coalition fails to win the very election for which it was formed, it will, predictably, not survive the four years before the next election. This is exactly why we have consistently failed to enjoy the benefit of opposition politics which democracy offers.
In the case of ADC, its emergence stems from dissatisfaction within the ruling APC, and this dissatisfaction arose from events before and after its 2023 electoral victory. Most visibly disgruntled is Nasir El-Rufai who is understandably hurt following his abortive nomination as a minister by President Tinubu. Other architects of the new order include Rotimi Amaechi whose romance with the APC turned sour after he lost the presidential ticket of the party to Tinubu in the last election and Rauf Aregbesola, another prodigal son of the APC and former mentee of Tinubu. These persons have since recruited other opposition figures into their fold to strengthen the ADC alliance. Among these is the formidable Peter Obi who has emerged as a top contender to fly the party’s flag in 2027.
The greatest baggage undermining the standing of ADC as a credible ideological alternative to the ruling party is that it is founded on disgruntlement rather than any real ideology – the architects were motivated by a personal sense of loss and the quest to remedy same and not by any disillusionment with policy and governance. After all, both El-Rufai and Amaechi as well as Aregbesola had been part and parcel of the APC party machinery and government under which the nation experienced so much worsening of living conditions. I am not exactly clear as to the basis on which they are criticizing the present government.
The lack of any ideological rallying point is evident in the communication of the ADC itself. The party is yet to clearly and definitively articulate its governance roadmap. What does it intend to do differently? How does it want to deal with the intractable twin diseases of corruption and weak institutions? How does it plan to strengthen the judiciary as the fulcrum of accountability and justice in the nation? How exactly does it intend to deepen democracy including by making the electoral process more transparent and efficient, strengthen the mechanism of checks and balances between arms of government, and protect civil rights? Or is it seeking power just for power sake which will inevitably see it continue in exactly the same fashion as the APC it is demonizing? For example, both ACN and ANPP criticised PDP so much for its alleged anti-democratic, winner-takes-it-all approach that threatened the existence of other political parties such that by 2007 the PDP controlled a whopping 31 states. Fast-forward to 19 years later, in 2026, the APC, formed mainly by the alliance of the ACN and the ANPP, is controlling exactly the same number of states following allegations of illicit hegemonic politics.
The way these patterns repeat themselves should not be surprising if one pays attention to the fact that it is largely the same set of people who led the PDP that later turned out to be the leaders of the nascent APC in 2015. Examples include Amaechi, Atiku, Saraki, Audu Ogbe, El-Rufai etc. But then it is not even about individuals; it is about a system that reproduces lopsided politics – the same lopsided result would occur even if the said set of people is replaced by an entirely different set.
Senator Ben Obi was spot-on in his description of Nigerian political parties as “rainbow coalition of strange bedfellows,” as individuals in the so-called parties are actually not bound together by any ideological conviction. They are merely in a marriage of convenience; a loose alliance for electoral opportunism.
Thus, the same sickness afflicts all Nigerian political parties – absence of ideological commitment and unity. Every member’s loyalty, apparently, is primarily based on their personal interests with the collective interest remaining secondary. This is exactly the reason a party like the ADC can be harmed and indeed possibly be destroyed by outside forces. Such forces usually rely on – or are helped by – weak internal cohesion and conflicts of interest pre-existing in the party. Recall the Labour Party crisis for a classic example.
Instructively, only a ruling party cannot be so undermined – either from the inside or the outside – given that it enjoys the patronage of power. Experience shows that to so undermine a political party in Nigeria, one needs certain institutions of state, including the police, INEC, and the judiciary – and of course no one can influence these entities more than a party that produced the president of the nation. Secondly, no one can muster financial power – so critical for undermining or strengthening a party – more than a president and his party. Therefore, the president is ultimately an irresistible unifying force that holds a ruling party together. This unity is forged, not by a collective commitment to any ideology, but by the CARROT and STICK possessed by no less a person than the president. Thus, when some disgruntled fellows within the then ruling PDP formed the so-called nPDP (new PDP), they soon found out that they were not dealing with just a political party but the full might of the state. They were thus left with no choice but to leave the party and align with the emerging new opposition bloc, the APC.
One only has to look at secret societies to understand how strong commitment to group ideology and goals makes a group too strong to be undermined. Sociologists have, for decades, studied this phenomenon, but a most outstanding reference remains Georg Simmel’s A SOCIOLOGY OF SECRECY AND OF SECRET SOCIETIES (published in 1906) where he trenchantly demonstrated how common commitment to loyalty (especially in regard to secrecy) helps such groups maintain cohesion, power, and control. American and Italian security agencies that have fought the Mafia for decades would attest to how much of a tough task it is, simply due to the fact that uncompromising loyalty and commitment to the group’s ideology and goals by its members has erected seemingly impregnable walls around the group.
While secret societies present an extreme example of group loyalty and commitment – being that members are bound by oath to defend this at all costs regardless of law, morality, and justice – it provides an interesting insight into why our political parties are not really functioning as one and are invariably vulnerable to external interference and internal sabotage. If the APC and the ADC switch roles as the ruling party and an opposition party, respectively, the former would be as vulnerable as the latter to external interference and internal sabotage.
In view of all this, the fear that the ADC may not offer, in concrete terms, the much needed political and ideological alternative to Nigerians is not unfounded. This is given that the alliance has not shown any evidence of departure from what we have always had – political parties serving merely as a vehicle to power and nothing more. This is why I can predict almost with certainty – as I did regarding the Labour Party in 2023 – that the ADC will naturally fall apart once it fails to win the 2027 presidential election.
Obviously, a lot of people supporting ADC are doing so in the belief that if its presidential ticket goes to Peter Obi, something will be radically different. This optimism does not appear entirely realistic as it chooses to neglect the heavy and irresistible influence of political structure on governance. In politics, a leader necessarily makes continuous compromises to satisfy the various interests that constitute his political structure in order to keep it healthy and intact. For instance, party stakeholders who invested their political capital to get one elected president will always stake claims for reward including by way of appointment – either to get appointed themselves or, at least, have a say in who gets appointed. So, it is indeed unrealistic to imagine that a President Obi elected on the ticket of ADC will constitute a cabinet not dominated by the old faces of the APC and PDP ilk. But then appointment is just one out of the many aspects of governance where exigencies of electoral politics force an elected person to keep compromising. I intend, in a future article, to examine in greater detail the possible candidacy of Obi in ADC and what it may entail for politics and governance.
For now, suffices it to say that I still strongly hold on to my conviction that our sphere of politics has become trapped in a vicious circle so much so that it lacks the capacity for self-redemption, as the workings of the system keep producing the same unwanted result. This sphere, therefore, requires an external force to be saved, and going by time-honoured democratic traditions, this force is the CIVIL SOCIETY – but, unfortunately, this vital component of democracy is yet to become robust enough to have such a revolutionary impact in Nigeria.
Henry Chigozie Duru teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.
Every election we see the same pattern repeating itself and the common man keep hoping for a Messiah (change)
This is, as usual, a very intelligent analysis.
However, I still maintain that, as long as we keep concentrating power in the centre, we are going nowhere. The only way forward is to go back to the system of governance we practised in the First Republic. Nigeria is too diverse to be entrusted into the care of a central government.
Again, the civil society cannot have the desired revolutionary impact in a country where there is so much disunity among the ethnic groups and where there is this perpetual fear of dominance by a particular ethnic group.