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On Wednesday, when the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) inaugurated its Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), one curious development was the presence of leaders of some opposition political parties at the event. Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, and Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, not only attended the event but they were also appointed into APC’s PCC.
Indeed, the appointment of Wike, Adeleke and Soludo to coordinate President Tinubu’s presidential campaign in their respective political territories presents a compelling drama in political alliances between the ruling APC and its opponents. Wike belongs to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Adeleke is associated with the Accord Party. Soludo is a prominent figure in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). Yet, these influential politicians have promised to help secure another presidential term for Tinubu, the candidate of the APC.
This arrangement may look harmless since the PDP, APGA and Accord Party are, in the true sense of it, passengers in the presidential race. However, it is a poisoned chalice as the potential casualties would be the candidates of these parties in other elections. To be sure, while Wike, Adeleke and Soludo are deploying their political influence and networks to advance Tinubu’s presidential ambition, the candidates of their respective parties would be left fighting for political survival against the same APC they are helping to strengthen.
It is a curious political contradiction, indeed, that opposition leaders are helping the ruling party win the presidency while their own parties are expected to compete against it for governorship, legislative and other elective positions, as the case may be. This is not merely a question of political loyalty. It is a question of political survival, strategic calculation and the future of Nigeria’s multiparty democracy.
The closest historical parallel is the experience of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in 2003, when the party’s decision to support the re-election of President Olusegun Obasanjo and cooperate with his PDP-led federal government helped create the conditions for its subsequent political decline. The lesson of that episode remains relevant today: a party can surrender its political independence in pursuit of immediate accommodation and discover, too late, that it has weakened the very foundations on which its survival depends.
The Alliance for Democracy emerged in 1998 as a major political platform, particularly in the South-West, where it drew strength from the legacy of progressive politics and the political tradition associated with the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. In the 1999 general election, the party secured the governorships of six South-West states: Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti. This remarkable showing established the AD as a formidable regional political force and a significant counterweight to the PDP, which controlled the federal government under President Obasanjo.
However, the relationship between the AD and the PDP became more complicated as the 2003 general election approached. A faction of the AD leadership, associated with the party’s national chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, entered into an understanding with Obasanjo’s PDP to support the President’s re-election. The arrangement was controversial because it appeared to contradict the fundamental purpose of an opposition party, which is to provide an alternative political vision, challenge the ruling party and offer voters a credible choice.
For the AD, the consequences were severe. The party entered the 2003 elections divided, with internal disagreements and rival political interests undermining its cohesion. The PDP subsequently captured five of the six South-West governorships previously held by the AD, leaving Lagos State as the only one retained by the AD-aligned political camp, which was then closely associated with the emerging Action Congress.
The political consequences extended beyond the immediate election. The AD suffered a prolonged loss of relevance, influence and organisational cohesion, while the PDP expanded its reach into territory that had once been a stronghold of opposition politics. The central lesson is unmistakable: when opposition parties abandon the distinction between cooperation on national issues and political subordination to the ruling party, they risk becoming instruments of their own undoing.
The danger is not necessarily that every opposition politician who accepts such an appointment is acting in bad faith. Political cooperation is legitimate in a democracy, and individuals retain the right to make their political choices. The danger arises when personal political advancement becomes more important than the institutional survival of the party under whose banner those politicians built their public profiles.
The immediate concern is that the political calculations behind the APC’s latest campaign appointments may have consequences that extend far beyond the presidential election. Wike has been assigned responsibility for Tinubu’s campaign in Rivers State and the Federal Capital Territory; Soludo has been named coordinator in Anambra State; and Adeleke has been appointed coordinator in Osun State. These developments make the situation more complicated than a straightforward attempt by the APC to recruit individual defectors. The party is engaging political figures who possess their own constituencies, electoral structures and party affiliations. The critical question remains: what happens to the political fortunes of these parties when their leading figures become responsible for mobilising votes for a rival party’s presidential candidate?
For the PDP, the danger is particularly acute. The party has endured prolonged internal crises, leadership disputes, defections and disagreements over its political direction. Its survival depends on rebuilding a coherent national structure and convincing Nigerians that it remains a credible alternative to the APC. Wike’s involvement in Tinubu’s campaign further complicates that task. Even if the PDP’s leadership has authorised his cooperation with the President, the arrangement risks deepening divisions between those who favour accommodation with the ruling party and those who believe the PDP must challenge it directly.
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For APGA, the calculation is different. The party has maintained a stronghold in Anambra State and has built its political identity around the interests of its supporters, particularly in the South-East. Governor Soludo has publicly stated that he supports Tinubu for president while retaining APGA as a platform for legislative contests. That arrangement may appear politically pragmatic. APGA can support the President at the federal level while seeking to preserve its own identity and electoral relevance in Anambra. However, the risk is that the party would gradually surrender its structure to APC, which will ultimately affect its fortunes in the National Assembly and state House of Assembly elections.
The Accord Party faces a comparable challenge in Osun State. Adeleke’s appointment to coordinate Tinubu’s campaign places him in the unusual position of mobilising support for a presidential candidate from a different party while retaining his own party affiliation. The question for Accord is whether this arrangement will strengthen its bargaining position or diminish its standing as an independent political platform. Adeleke may gain access to federal political networks, but his party’s candidates for other elections will be vulnerable.
Therefore, the APC embrace of PDP, APGA and Accord Party is simply a poisoned chalice. It is a political accommodation, which would gradually weaken the opposition parties’ organisational independence, electoral leverage and credibility. It is President Tinubu’s trump card for an ultimate political conquest. Being no political novice, Tinubu understands the importance of coalition-building, strategic alliances, political patronage, the management of competing interests and what destabilisation could do to a political organisation. His approach, therefore, appears to go beyond obtaining endorsements from opposition politicians, but seeking to place their political networks directly at the service of his presidential ambition.
In Anambra, Soludo’s political influence could assist Tinubu’s campaign in a state where APGA remains a significant force. In Osun, Adeleke’s popularity and political organisation could provide the APC with access to constituencies it has struggled to control. In Rivers State and the FCT, Wike’s extensive political network could similarly benefit the President’s re-election bid. Nevertheless, if these alliances succeed in delivering significant votes to Tinubu while leaving the opposition parties divided over their own electoral strategies, the APC would emerge stronger without having to win formal defections from every party involved. The APC would benefit from the political machinery of its opponents while those parties bear the cost of confusion, internal disagreement and weakened opposition mobilisation.
The experience of the AD in 2003 illustrates how quickly an opposition party can lose its political foothold. Academic analysis of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic has identified the PDP’s incumbency advantages, the weakening of opposition politics and the electoral collapse of the AD in the South-West as important features of that period.
If the PDP, APGA and Accord allow their internal priorities to become subordinated to the APC’s presidential ambition, the country could witness a further concentration of political power. Such an outcome would produce a political environment in which opposition parties continue to exist legally but struggle to offer effective competition because their leaderships are divided, their electoral strategies are compromised and their strongest political figures are working to advance the ruling party’s presidential interests. That would be damaging to democratic accountability.
Elections become meaningful when voters can choose among competing political programmes and when opposition parties can scrutinise government policies without being constrained by conflicting political loyalties. The presence of multiple parties on the ballot is not sufficient. What matters is whether those parties can function as independent institutions.
The lesson from 2003 is that opposition parties must distinguish between cooperation that advances their interests and arrangements that undermine their long-term survival. They must ask difficult questions before entering political alliances. Will the arrangement strengthen the party’s electoral organisation? Will it preserve the party’s independence? Will it improve the party’s bargaining power? Will its supporters understand and accept the political logic? And what happens if the interests of the ruling party conflict with those of the opposition party?
These are not abstract questions. They go to the heart of political survival. The AD’s experience showed that supporting a popular or politically powerful presidential candidate from another party does not guarantee protection for one’s own candidates. A party may help elect a president and still lose control of its traditional strongholds.
For today’s opposition parties, the challenge is to avoid confusing access to power with the possession of political power. A governor may enjoy direct access to the President. A party chieftain may receive an important campaign appointment. A political organisation may secure promises of federal cooperation. But none of these benefits necessarily guarantees the survival of the party that provided the politician’s original platform.
Political alliances must therefore be evaluated not only by what individual leaders gain today but also by what their parties might lose tomorrow. President Tinubu is entitled to build the broadest possible coalition for his re-election. His political opponents are equally entitled to cooperate with him where they believe it serves their interests. But the PDP, APGA and Accord must recognise that the politics of accommodation carries risks that cannot be dismissed by the prestige of a campaign appointment or the promise of federal goodwill. The AD experience of 2003 offers a sobering reminder.
The greatest danger for the PDP, APGA and Accord is not that their leaders have been invited into Tinubu’s campaign council. It is that, in helping to secure the President’s re-election, they would weaken their own capacity to compete for political power and secure their parties’ future.
As the 2027 election approaches, the question is whether the opposition parties have learnt from history or whether they are walking into a familiar trap, convinced that this time the outcome will be different. History does not repeat itself in precisely the same form. But political parties that ignore its lessons often discover that the consequences are painfully familiar.
