Dead political parties and the undertaker

It was more than symbolic that last week, Godswill Akpabio, president of the Nigerian Senate, in his assumed funereal role as a morbid anatomist, summarily declared the African Democratic Congress (ADC) dead. In his present cheerless role, Akpabio has had the lot of overseeing various ailing political parties go in and out of emergency under his watch.

A number of the troubled parties were wheeled into political ICU kicking and struggling in protest. Almost always, the hapless entities succumbed to the induced crisis. ADC happened to be the one he declared kaput.

The ADC, for proper identity clarification, is one of the troubled members of an ailing Nigeria. The death of a party, were it happened, would surely be a grave development, for as is well known, the death of a part of a whole often foretells danger for the larger body, especially one that is already contaminated.

There is however, a troubling primary issue in the public notification from the Senate president on the status of the ADC. Could Akpabio, the histopathologist, have acted in a haste? Could the pronouncement of the demise of the ADC be exaggerated, apologies to Mark Twain?

The Senate president’s proclamation followed the latest gale of defection of legislators and other political supporters from the ADC to the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The glee with which Senator Akpabio reportedly made the comment on ADC was quite apparent.

It is true that the ADC is passing through a challenging time, perhaps too debilitating for a coalition platform rejuvenated not too long ago to mount an effective challenge for power in the 2027 elections. The party has not had to contend only with landmines laid by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), it has proved less than prepared to meet the demands of clarity on fundamental issues of its own existence. Even at that, it may yet be premature to declare the demise of the party.

With what had appeared as a firm determination to provide a robust platform for opposition politicians and political parties being hounded and stifled by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), ADC was received in its latest coming with abundant enthusiasm. Many saw it as that bulwark on which opposition elements can find the vitality of a united front to take on APC the menace.

The promise of the ADC fizzled out rather fast. Disappointingly, the party that Ralph Nwosu midwifed in the early years of the Fourth Republic and recently transferred to the united coalition front, proved quickly not to be an open house. The lack of readiness by the party’s leadership to take a principled position on the sensitive matter of zoning its presidential ticket to the South eventually caught up with it.

The departure from the party of the duo of Peter Obi, unarguably, the symbol of principled politics in Nigeria in the most recent time, and the equally respected and popular Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso is, by any account, a major deflection of the air on which ADC has been floating so promisingly.

It will surely take the ADC some time and extra effort to regain its gait. To declare so dismissively however, that the party is dead, so early in its new life, is to be uncharitable and inhabited by dark wishes.

The fate of the ADC is relevant beyond the individual interest of its promoters. Senator Akpabio and his party may not believe that. The death of any political party or the situation of some parties being rendered moribund as appears to be the goal by the ruling party, diminishes   democracy in Nigeria.

Inside the APC coven or what often abstractly appears so, there is no doubt that the principalities who gather regularly to chart their way forward, not only chant the names of the opposing parties they want dead, but actually fine-tune strategies to render them useless, where they fail to die. The political arena is presently littered with victims of the strategy.

A day or so after Senator Akpabio declared ADC dead, a sad development occurred on the floor of the Senate which only profound followers of politics in Nigeria, at least in the Fourth Republic, would appreciate its import. Senator Abdul Ningi, a titan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) announced his resignation from the once ruling party.

Senator Ningi represents Bauchi Central Senatorial district. He has been at the National Assembly since 1999, including his stint at the House of Representatives. He has established a profile as a steady, independent-minded legislator over the years.

The Senate president must have considered it unnecessary to declare PDP dead following the weighty resignation of Senator Ningi from the party, apparently because the wicked had already done their worst on PDP a long time ago. The once behemoth of Nigeria’s politics is, to all practical reckoning at the moment, neither dead nor alive.

PDP is not ADC, though. It is a major piece of Nigeria’s political evolution. It lost out and has been entangled in its own wilderness not mainly from the machinations of a rampaging APC at first, but largely as a result of hubris, disdain for its own rules and inordinate ambition by characters within its fold. There are lessons there for APC to learn, if it will.

Strategies for undermining contending opposition parties do other offer viable routes to long term development of the system. Pinning the Labour Party (LP), down, for instance, through contrived judicial and administrative machinations woven at the coven, can only offer temporary advantage. That, of course, may be all that the APC leadership needs. has barely been released for now, but it should have better and bigger ambitions.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP), has also been lurked in a battle for the control its own soul and its future, induced substantially from outside. The party remains alive, but embattled no less.

The travails of the opposition parties, dead or partially alive, may appear to be in the interest of the the undertaker, the ruling party, at the moment, but that seems, at best a momentary pyrrhic advantage.

The future of vibrant democracies is better assured, as historical experiences show, when institutions and structures of multi-party competition are secured and strengthened for diverse views to contend. Celebrating the death of any political party or moving unconscionably to kill some, whether through Euthanasia or by subversion through deployment of institutions of the state holds out no promise. There is nothing to celebrate in the death of ADC or any other party for that matter.