4th Republic and rising concerns over lame-duck opposition politics

From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

Since the inauguration of the present dispensation on May 29, 2023, many critical observers have taken exception to the lame-duck position of the opposition parties in Nigeria. Not a few believe that the opposition has largely failed in its role as a watchdog to the government in power. Indeed, in the estimation of many analysts, the opposition is literally dead as it has been unable to properly interrogate many unpopular policies and activities  of the Federal Government.

There is no gainsaying that majority of the opposition parties have maintained a loud deafening silence on sensitive national issues like the wage demands by labour unions, mismanagement of the economy, the passage of bills without due consideration by the chambers of the National Assembly, the controversial plan to purchase new official Presidential Aircraft among others.

The same sordid silence from the parties was evidenced in the protracted hardship ravaging the country, which many believe is a fallout of the shoddy handling of the nation’s economy.

For many critical minds, the new trend of keeping silent is a complete departure from the usual hostile opposition politics that characterised Nigerian democracy, especially since the beginning of the current Fourth republic. Many will not forget in a hurry that while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) occupied the seat as the ruling party, the attacks from the opposition parties were ferociously in torrents.

If a defunct political party like the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) was not harshly critical of PDP, the voice of the then All Nigeria Progressives Party (ANPP) among others, was very critical of its activities.

The situation became even worse and more vicious after the dramatic emergence of the APC, a product of the merger of the other opposition parties when it took opposition criticism to a disturbing higher level.

It became so bad that APC could not even differentiate between personal attacks and constructive engagements. Engrossed in their failure to strike a balance between personal attacks and national interests in its desperate plot to take over the government, APC severally went too far and threw caution into the winds in describing former President Goodluck Jonathan in all manners of unprintable languages.

The leadership of the then opposition party, APC, described former president Jonathan as a drunk, incompetent, clueless, corrupt man without moral authority and running a flip-flopping administration.

In their determination to discredit him further, APC once noted that; “Nigeria had never had it as bad, in terms of runaway corruption that has cost the nation billions of dollars in money that would have gone into national development, as it is having under the prodigiously-corrupt Jonathan administration.

“There is no better way to say this. The Jonathan administration is swimming in corruption and the President has contumaciously allowed it to fester because his government is feeding fat on the proceeds of graft. He has even tried to use semantics to cover up the extent of sleaze, saying stealing is not corruption.”

At other times, the then dreaded opposition party quipped that; “this presidency is definitely dazed from its failings, the collapse of the party that sired it and the opprobrium being poured on it daily by Nigerians who are grossly disappointed at its woeful performance and clear lack of direction.”

APC noted in a statement issued by its then Interim National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed: “We are therefore not surprised that in addition to incompetence and cluelessness, it has now resorted to twisting facts.”

Retrospectively, there was a semblance of such a tradition of critical vibrant opposition during the eight-year administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, when opposition political parties engaged in some glimpse of hostile criticisms against some cruel policies of his administration.

If it were not coming from the main opposition party, the PDP, be sure that the voices of other parties from their usual vociferously visible National Publicity Secretaries, fondly called party’s spokespersons, would resonate very loud either through well-articulated press statements or world press conferences.

The stands of the parties on government policies and programmes were equally reflected in the contributions and manner in which members of the opposition legislators at both chambers of the National Assembly usually opposed certain loathsome executive bills as critical positions of the opposition parties.

What looked like a semblance of a healthy opposition in the parties appraising the policies, programmes and campaign promises, manifested last year during the build ups to the 2023 presidential election when, daily, the parties took time to appraise and evaluate the promises, manifestos and build-policy documents presented by each other.

It was either the PDP shouting to high heavens the dangers facing Nigerians if they continue to trust and entrust the future of the country into the corrupt hands of the APC or the ruling party reminding Nigerians how the PDP locusts ate up the economic fortune of the country for 16 years it held power at the centre.

Needless to say, in their disparagements, the political parties provided choices and alternatives to the Nigerian electorate to decide and choose wisely over which party has the capacity and requisite mental composure to redirect the declining fortune and future of the country.

But, curiously, those characteristic healthy critical opposition voices, hitherto used to checkmate and appraise governmental policies and programmes, seem to have died a natural death since the emergence of the current APC administration led by President Tinubu, particularly this year.

Judging by the humongous statistics of budgetary expenses by the presidency and the president’s immediate family, especially the funds earmarked and spent on frivolous foreign trips and State House’s running cost, the current administration is far much more prodigal than the past governments, yet the opposition had kept quiet as if all is going well.

From the usual cacophony of dissenting voices from the opposition party members at the National Assembly to the leaderships of the opposition political parties, the current government seems to be on a rollercoaster in implementing several harsh economic policies without incurring any iota of attack from the opposition parties that ordinarily ought to question the desirability of such policies and the effects on the masses.

For many pundits, the unobtrusiveness of the opposition political parties is fathomable, considering their dispositions and how their leaderships are currently structured. Almost all the parties are currently engulfed in one form of crisis or the other. From the PDP to the majority of the opposition parties, it has been a delicate and intricate web of leadership tussles.

Disappointingly, the leadership crisis in the parties has eclipsed the usual strong voices of the opposition political party, limiting their hitherto usual critical views to only the comments from their leaders, particularly their presidential candidates in the 2023 general elections.

Since the birth of the present administration, while the PDP’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar or his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, sometimes talk for the parties, a greater number of other registered political parties have been reduced to mere spectators with insinuations that the ruling party may have compromised them.

Unfortunately, what would have been part of the third force and opposition, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), did not seem to be too enthusiastic or deeply concerned about national political issues, as it concentrated all its energies and forces on consolidating its stronghold on Kano State politics.

Instead of joining forces with Atiku and Peter Obi who have perhaps become the only voices crying in the wilderness, the NNPP presidential candidate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has not been too consistently fierce in commenting on the policies of the current administration of President Tinubu, probably because he already had his hands full cracking his brain on how to manage the endless crossfire engulfing Kano State politics.

It did not therefore come to many politically-conscious Nigerians as a surprise that there were no official statements from the 18 opposition political parties over the passage of the bill to revert to the old National Anthem apart from unofficial individual reactions.

There was the same deafening silence from the parties in the protracted rift between the Federal Government and organised labour unions over the contentious new minimum wage demand for the Nigerian workers as no documented official statement came from the opposition registered political parties.

Though PDP National Working Committee (NWC), the Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Ibrahim Abdullahi, in his private concerns, suggested a N120,000 benchmark to the labour unions, however, it cannot be regarded as the official statement from the main opposition party.

In his feeble reaction, Abdullahi once noted that; “The back and forth with the labour leaders is hypocritical of the government. They didn’t mean well for Nigerians from the word go, even when they started engaging the NLC. It was not an intended policy direction. It was something that was made as a smokescreen to continue to deceive the Nigerian workers and, of course, the nation.

“With the lies the APC is telling us, if they can afford to construct a road for N3 trillion, if they can afford to do all this jamboree if they can afford to take 1,500 government officials out of this country for things that are not important, then I don’t know why, for crying out loud, they should not be able to pay a reasonable minimum wage.”

If a greater percentage of the opposition parties could be voiceless on sensitive issues such as the new minimum wage for workers, it won’t come as a surprise to many that they equally had no voice on the controversial Lagos Calabar coastal highway.

On the sudden deaf and dumb style of the political parties, many politically exposed leaders had argued that apart from being afraid of victimisation from the presidency, the current APC-led government may have penetrated and weakened the parties so much so that they will not be united to comment on national issues while struggling to restore peace in the party.

Confirming that the opposition parties have been anything close to living up to their responsibilities, the National Secretary of Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), High Chief Peter Ameh, blamed opposition legislators at the National Assembly for gradually becoming an appendage of the current executive.

Speaking to Daily Sun, Ameh said: “The opposition political parties have not done well and they are not really organised. We know what opposition criticisms against an underperforming government can do to our democracy.

“It is obvious that the current Tinubu-led APC government is doing badly, with its incompetence showing in all ramifications, there is also no indication of readiness to take Nigeria out of the economic woes we found ourselves, but, surprisingly, the opposition parties that ought to speak out about the failures and cluelessness in the policies of the current government chose to maintain deaf silence.

“The opposition parties are not doing enough nor should I say that they are not there at all. It goes beyond individuals like Peter Obi and Atiku speaking; all the parties must unite against the backwardness and retrogressive growth of our country. There must be a concerted effort to convince Nigerians on the readiness of the opposition to live up to their expectations.

“Nigerians are becoming worried that Tinubu is having a field day in spending our common patrimony the way he likes, including opting for presidential aircraft even when austerity is biting very hard. They are living luxurious lifestyles at the expense of the poor masses.”

On why the main opposition party, PDP is not living up to the expectations of critically appraising the current administration, the former Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) blamed it on the former governor of Rivers State, Nyeson Wike.

“His hold on the PDP has actually weakened the party. It was that bad that Rivers State governor, Sim Fubara, recently said that the battle is no longer fought along party affiliation but movement.”

“More importantly, there was an unconfirmed report that President Tinubu has infiltrated many of the opposition parties and even tried to buy up some of them ahead of the 2027 election. Our major problem is the National Assembly. That arm of government has been consumed and subsumed by the executive. They are now too weak to run a check on the government and as such, it has weakened the fabric of opposition.

“The level of opposition at the current 10th Assembly is very high yet Nigerians are not feeling their impacts. We now have a legislative chamber that has now become an appendage, going by the way they approve everything from the executive 100 per cent without interrogation.

“The opposition parties must appeal to their elected legislators to be able to push for the policies and programmes to protect the interests of Nigerians. The truth again is that many of the opposition parties are afraid. But it is surprising that they could be so under a president that is a beneficiary of criticising government in power,” Ameh told Daily Sun in a chat.

For the former National Secretary of APC, Waziri Bulama, the leadership crisis in almost all the political parties was responsible for the weak criticism of the sitting government.

He said: “At the moment, all the political parties, including the ruling party, APC, are enmeshed in one form of internal crisis or the other. The kind of politics Nigerians play is that once they get elected, they abandon the parties. The parties are only important platforms for elections and during the struggle for control of the structure.”

“In most cases, the government and the party are the same. In the APC for example, the President and state governors are in control of the APC. The silence of the opposition is understandable because the elections are still very far away.

“Again, because all the parties are controlled by power brokers, not ordinary party members, a situation where a power broker like Wike opted to serve the APC government will certainly cause great ripples in his party, the PDP, which has weakened the party to the point of not recovering from it.

“Such development could be the reason PDP is not paying so much attention to the policies of the APC government, which ordinarily ought not to be. It is almost the same situation in the LP where the struggle for the soul of the party between the labour unions and the party’s leadership will not allow it to concentrate and criticise the policies of the current APC government.”

However, dismissing the impression that the opposition parties have become a lame duck in putting the APC-led administration on its toes, the National Chairman of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Bishop Emmanuel Amakiri, insisted that they are not dead.

Speaking to Daily Sun, Amakiri said: “It is not true that opposition parties are dead. My party, for instance, has been criticising many of the policies like the coastal highway where we urged the Federal Government to channel the scarce resources to other priority areas.

“On the economic hardship in the country, we issued a statement that it has been wailing, hardship and pain since the emergence of President Tinubu. No vision, sincerity, tact or ingenuity to solve our problems. The error of electing a tax master as President is now haunting everyone. Continuous taxing of impoverished citizens is insensitive.

“We have been consistent in our criticisms in our little way, but the truth is that opposition parties are rather operating in a very difficult and harsh environment which is affecting their inputs in correcting the government.”