From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Shortly after the Supreme Court judgment on the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, candidates of the two major parties, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the Labour Party (LP) respectively, in separate reactions, jointly resolved and declared to play the hitherto missing role of the opposition effectively.
For them, the vibrancy of the opposition political party is the bedrock, progress, survival, and success of any democratic experience around the world, especially in a developing country like Nigeria.
And matching his words with actions, LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, while officially reacting to the judgment of the Apex Court on the election, declared that he will henceforth lead the frontiers in consistently appraising and adding a critical voice to government policies and programmes.
“Going forward, we in the LP and the Obidient Movement are now effectively in opposition. We are glad that the nation has heard us loud and clear. We shall now expand the confines of our message of hope to the rest of the country. We shall meet the people in the places where they feel pain and answer their needs for hope.
“At marketplaces, motor parks, town halls, board rooms, university and college campuses, we will carry and deliver the message of a new Nigeria. We will focus on issues that promote national interest, unity, and cohesion. We will continue to give primacy to our Constitution, the rule of law, and the protection of ordered liberties. We will offer the checks and balances required in a functional democracy.
“Given our present national circumstances, there is a compelling need for a strong political opposition. We shall, therefore, remain in opposition, especially because of the policies and the governance modalities that we in the LP campaigned for,” Obi had declared.
Even when many pundits expressed reservations on the possibility of his keeping the light of vibrant opposition flaming in a country where political sycophancy reigns supreme, he proved them wrong in his New Year message last week, when he reiterated his party’s resolve to fully adjust to fit into the new role of Nigeria’s main opposition party.
He had emphatically stated that the onerous responsibility before him was to have LP remain firmly in opposition to keep the All Progressives Congress (APC) on its toes, in his determination to protect the country and the interests of Nigerians.
Warning that he will not back down on the task of having a new Nigeria through the role of opposition despite the intense pressure on him, Obi said: “As Nigeria is the only country we have, deeply endowed but lacking good leadership over the years, we will continue to seek a new Nigeria that we know is possible.
“I wish to thank members of the LP, the Obidient family, friends, and well-wishers of Nigeria for their loyalty, resilience, tenacity, and commitment to true democracy. We will continue the ongoing discussions and efforts for the LP to adjust to our new role as Nigeria’s main opposition party.
“We will continue to constructively engage all Nigerians and our friends that have now realised the vast implications of the road not taken and the folly of national interest decisions predicated on sentiments and primordial interests.”
Curiously, from the history of opposition politics in Nigeria, his declaration and follow-up actions seem to be a departure from the past where presidential candidates recoil into their shelves only to return in a four-year election cycle to participate in another poll.
Interestingly, before his New Year message, Obi commented virtually on every burning and sensitive government policy and programme, launching strong and cogent attacks on the APC-led government.
Apart from lampooning President Tinubu and describing his N2.17 trillion supplementary budget as ‘’uncaring’’ and ‘’insensitive’’, he was also very critical of the N4 billion for the renovation of the president’s residence; N2.5 billion for the renovation of the vice-president’s residence; N5 billion for acquisitions of new vehicles for the president, his wife, and operational ones for the Villa.
He equally fired several other missiles, especially against the N15 billion the Federal Government earmarked for the completion of the official residence of the Vice President, describing it as ‘’shocking and disheartening, considering many important challenges facing the country.
He had wondered and interrogated why a new residence was needed when the supplementary budget had provided N2.5 billion for the renovation of the VP’s residence, arguing that; “the implication is that the VP already has a residence.”
Interestingly, the scaling up of healthy opposition has not been the exclusive preserve of the LP candidate and his party alone as the PDP and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, have equally shown readiness to put APC on it toes.
A recent case in point was the hard tackle the umbrella-logo party gave to the New Year presidential broadcast by President Bola Tinubu, where it took both the ruling party and the President to the cleaners.
Describing the nationwide address as a harvest of deceit, false claims, and empty promises, PDP, in the statement it issued, further tagged the broadcast as uninspiring and amounted to a waste of valuable time as it did not address any of the critical issues plaguing the country.
“The president failed to address critical issues of insecurity, decayed infrastructure, comatose manufacturing, and productive sectors; crushing 28 per cent inflation rate, continuing plunge of the Naira, alarming unemployment, excruciating poverty and economic hardship occasioned by the reckless, ill-advised and insensitive policies and programmes of his administration.
“President Tinubu failed to address the vexatious issue of incompetence, insensitivity, massive profligacy, unbridled treasury-looting inherent in his administration, which has put our nation in dire straits,” the statement from the PDP read.
Another case of public display of healthy opposition politics was the unprecedented extent the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku, pushed the case of the infamous President Tinubu’s Chicago University certificate forgery scandal.
Though some pundits described Atiku’s efforts as the height of his desperation, having hitherto known him for his trademark of escaping into the United Arab Emirates (UAE), after every presidential misadventure, he however showed readiness to live up to the expectations of a man ready to give the governing party a run for their money.
From the efforts of the presidential candidates and their political parties to ensure a healthy opposition, it is tempting to conclude that the two parties have taken the responsibility of opposition politics to an enviable and actionable extent.
Regardless of the impression anyone may hold about their resolve to escalate the role of opposition politics, what may be undisputable is that Obi, Atiku, and their parties seem to have impressed many Nigerians with their forthright and inspiring commentaries on national issues.
For many political watchers, Nigerians are beginning to see the replica of the opposition politics witnessed during the Second Republic when Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Waziri Ibrahim, Tunji Braithwaite, and Aminu Kano teamed up to give then President Shehu Shagari the biggest headache of his political career.
They were presidential candidates that contested against Shagari, but among them, Awolowo, like what Obi is doing now, aggressively spear-headed the attacks that constantly depicted Shagari as a weakling; an inexperienced, clueless, and naive leader.
In his New Year message, Obi concentrated on the deteriorating insecurity in the country, the urgent need to turn around the declining fortunes of the Nigerian economy, considering the rising unemployment, inflation, poverty, inequality, and other key socio-economic variables and respect for the principles of separation of powers.
Hear him; “The events of the past year are now part of our national history. As we trudge on, we remain mindful of the state of our nation and that our best hopes and aspirations remain largely unfulfilled.
“Peace and security continue to elude us with the rising level of bloodletting, deeply troubling and sometimes beyond a war situation. A situation where hundreds of Nigerians are violently killed in December alone is deeply sad and unacceptable.
“While we pray for the repose of the departed souls, we demand that the Federal Government must do whatever is required to bring the perpetrators to justice and permanently stop a recurrence in any part of Nigeria.”
He added: “Nigerians are now very aware and convinced that good governance, inclusive development, and accountable leadership, expected in a functional democracy, have continued to elude us. But we must be consistent and resolute in our demand for the rule of law, regulatory quality, and government effectiveness for transformative solutions to a litany of our social problems.
“If there is one fundamental threat to our democracy, it is the undermining and weakening of our national institutions and the capture of state affairs and resources by a few individuals and private interests. This must stop for Nigeria to move forward and function as an inclusive and sustainable society and nation, insisting that there must be full respect for the separation of powers between the three independent arms of government, and the federating units in a democratic and secular country like Nigeria.
Apart from the concerns that vocal opposition has been reduced to only the PDP and most recently the LP in a country of 18 registered political parties with 17 as oppositions, curiously, the ruling party, APC, seems to have remained unruffled.
As a master of the art of opposition politics, the APC, apart from occasionally issuing belated reactions to the attacks from the opposition parties, has conveniently weathered the storms by putting machinery in motion to weaken the opposition through poaching of their chieftains.
“The experiences APC garnered as an opposition party when the PDP was in power has continued to prove valuable in handling the pressures from the opposition parties for nine years now. Don’t also forget that many former PDP members are now holding key positions in the ruling party. The opposition can only rant and make noise, but they will never influence or change any decision the APC-led government has taken,” an APC chieftain told Daily Sun in confidence.
“Do I need to inform you again that the APC has planted moles in the other parties to serve as its eyes and ears? Have you also asked yourself why the opposition has been reduced to only two or three parties, the PDP, LP, and perhaps the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), out of the 17 opposition political parties?
“Why are the rest parties not criticising government policies like the other three? Even the so-called opposition parties knew that APC could weaken them by luring their heavyweight members or sponsoring leadership crises in their parties,” the APC chieftain argued.
In what looked like actualising the threats, already there is beginning to be a noticeable crack in the opposition parties’ united force against the ruling party over the insignificant issue of who leads the opposition charge between Obi and Atiku.
In an apparent attempt to dismiss the impression that LP and its presidential candidate are taking up the responsibility of leading the opposition charge because of the docility of the PDP, a festering seed of discord planted recently is beginning to germinate through the misunderstandings brewing in the camps of both Atiku and Obi.
Following the reactions from Atiku’s camp, dismissing Obi’s capacity to lead the opposition ahead of their principal, the Coalition for United Political Parties (CUPP) last weekend issued a statement, discrediting Atiku as the man fit for the job.
Signed by its National Secretary, High Chief Peter Ameh, the factional CUPP described Atiku as a selfish being incapable of leading the opposition. “We in CUPP wish to disassociate ourselves from the report proposing and projecting Atiku to lead the opposition political parties in Nigeria because of many reasons.
“CUPP had worked with Atiku in the past, only to realise later that we worked for a candidate who cared for himself, his ambition, only without giving a hoot for other coalition partners. It is also in the public sphere that former vice president Atiku has severally professed his aversion to multi-party democracy. He is a fan of either one or two-party systems only.
“Recall that in the run-up to the 2019 general elections, more than 35 political parties went into a coalition which led to the formation of CUPP as it is today with PDP and Atiku as its consensus presidential candidate. CUPP worked tirelessly for Atiku to become the president of Nigeria, but after losing at the polls, he turned his back on the coalition partners, and practically threw them out of the bus, and ran away to Dubai only to surface towards the 2023 general election.”
Explaining further, the leadership of CUPP wrote; “We sent a delegation of the coalition to him to seek his opinion on the way forward for the opposition parties, only for him to tell us that he did not believe and had never believed in multi-party democracy which was the bedrock of constitutional democracy and the reason for the existence of the parties that went into that coalition with him.
“How would a man so enamoured with a one-party system and severally professed his aversion for multi-party democracy lead and be nominated to be in the forefront of such struggle? CUPP sees this as trying to fly a wingless kite, which can never be airborne.
“He is trying to rally the opposition parties to take upon themselves a fight, install him as the president, which he has tried severally and failed. CUPP hereby urges Atiku to leave the stage now that the ovation is high. He has done his best as a consummate politician, having contested severally for the office of the president without victory. The time is now ripe for him to quit the stage for the younger elements and start portraying himself as a statesman that he truly is.”
But, do you blame the crack among the few parties involved in the opposition politics when 15 others are practically depending on the ruling party for existence?
To complicate the situation, the fresh crisis rocking the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), the elite umbrella body of all registered political parties in Nigeria, has confirmed that a vibrant opposition party in Nigeria is seriously facing an insoluble threat.
The factionalisation of the body and lack of ideology in Nigerian politics with the traditional attitude of an average Nigerian politician to jump from one political party to another, spell doom to vibrant opposition in the country.
In a country where other voices have been silenced, vibrant opposition politics will become an important element of the liberal democracy Nigerians crave for. With labour unions and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) among others completely silenced, Nigeria’s democracy needs loud opposition with constructive criticisms and alternative views to official actions and policies to avert the slide into liberal totalitarianism.