Opposition parties and imperative of unity

Multi-party democracy is a political system where three or more political parties have the capacity to gain control of government, either separately or through coalitions. Nigeria operates a multi-party democracy. The main characteristic of this political system is the presence of political competition in which multiple parties, with different ideologies, opinions, and interests, compete in elections, preventing a single party from dominating. It is a system that is designed to avoid dictatorship by encouraging cooperation and diverse viewpoints in decision-making

The ruling party in government administers the government, while the opposition in government ensures democracy by scrutinising executive actions, ensuring transparency, and offering policy alternatives. They monitor government spending, hold leaders accountable, and represent minority interests. It then means that there is no effective democracy if there are no opposition parties. Where there is no opposition, a country is at best a democratic autocracy, which describes a system where formal democratic institutions exist but are manipulated by incumbents to maintain power, limiting true political competition. These regimes hollow out democratic checks and balances, combining superficial democracy with autocratic control.

Nigeria now is in a full blown democratic autocracy such as never seen in Nigerian history. When President Tinubu came into power in 2023, the All Progressives Congress (APC) was in the minority in the House of Representatives, as the totality of opposition members were more in number. The Party had about 63 out of 109 senators. Today APC has more than two-thirds of the members of the National Assembly. It has about 31 Governors out of the 36 state Governors. The 31 Houses of Assembly under the APC Governors have majority of the members of the Houses of Assembly. This effectively wipes out opposition powers in Nigeria. The remnants can only have their say, while the APC has its way in all things.

President Tinubu orchestrated this situation to ensure that all his draconian policies are fully implemented in Nigeria. He also plotted this state of affairs to turn Nigeria into his fiefdom where himself, his wife, sons and daughters, loyalists will maintain strongholds on the corridors of power for eternity. For clarity, Tinubu had maintained absolute power in Lagos State for about 27 years, from 1999 till date. As things stand now, Tinubu has what it takes to amend the Constitution to become President for life. In the unlikely event that he comes back a second time, he will certainly take a shot at this agenda of life President if the democratic equations remain the same. Even the daft will tell you that this move will destroy our already fragile democracy.

The only solution to this debacle is in the unity, coalition, and cooperation of the opposition parties. The ruling party did not arrive at the present position through the support of the people but through the intimidation and manipulation of the opposition parties. The then main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) became the first victim of this intimidation and manipulation. This party governed Nigeria from 1999 to 2015. Unfortunately, it didn’t train itself to be an opposition party. It even boasted that it would govern Nigeria for 60 years. When it lost power in 2015 due to internal bickering and wrangling and quest for power and resources, it never recovered from it. APC simply uses the bait of power and resources to win the members of PDP to its side each time general elections are held. This strategy came to a head in 2023 when five governors of PDP openly and unashamedly campaigned for APC just to secure their own individual power and resources and avoid the prosecution of their past actions in government. They succeeded in returning Tinubu to power but succeeded in destroying the PDP. Today the PDP is no longer the leading opposition party, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) is. From about 13 governors in 2023 to about 2 governors now, the party has almost been wiped out in the National Assembly, and was disallowed from fielding candidates in some earlier elections. A court even advised them to go home and sort out their differences. The lesson is very obvious; any party which abandons unity in their fold for filthy lucre is gone.

The Labour Party faced same fate. It garnered a lot of support from the Nigerian people during the 2023 general election. After the election, greed, despotism took over the party until it was disallowed from fielding candidates due to internal divisions in the party. The leaders of the party whose tenure had ended simply refused to go because of the filthy lucre they were enjoying in office. They organised a kangaroo national convention and returned all of them without being elected by the delegates or without a properly organised congresses to produce voters for the convention to elect legally accepted leadership of the party. The Supreme Court sacked the illegal national working committee and threw the party into turmoil. It has not fully recovered till date. The lesson here is that any party, which is interested in survival, must learn to obey its constitution and laws. Rule of law is the basis of orderliness in society. Chaos and anarchy descend on any organisation, association or party that neglects its own rules and regulations.

Going into 2027 with the overwhelming presence of APC among the powerful, the only survival tactic for the opposition is unity. This unity can only come from sincere and inclusive negotiations among all the contending forces in the polity. It is not the time for ethnic, religious, or sectional chauvinism. It is time for patriotism and nationalism to be the watchword. You cannot defeat an incumbent President who had elicited the intention to fight for power, grab it, snatch it, and run away with it without being united.

The best strategy to wrest power from APC largely will proceed from the same strategy APC used to defeat an incumbent. APC, preparatory to the 2015 general election, organised a transparent primary election where every aspirant from North and South came together to freely contest and the winner was supported by every party member from all parts of Nigeria. Transparent elections confer legitimacy on the winners and give the losers the fortitude to bear the loss. Ambitious people, like Bola Tinubu, who had a life ambition to be President and who was from the same section of Nigeria like the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, then paused his ambition to choose an acceptable candidate from the opposite section to defeat an incumbent. He waited for the most strategic time, when there is no incumbent President, to strike at the seat of the President, and despite the humongous challenge laid on his path, he overcame.

APC realised that citizens from the opposite section will prefer to vote for an incumbent from a section of the country to complete his remaining four years in office rather than voting for a fresh candidate who will spend an extra eight years in office. It is either they retain the incumbent or vote for a candidate from the other section of the country. Power has not stayed in one section of the country for more than eight years. Contemplating voting for a fresh candidate from same section of the incumbent President which can create the possibility of power remaining in one section for twelve years is dead on arrival. However, every aspirant who intends to contest for the primary election must be given level playing ground to freely contest.

Time is not on the side of the opposition. With the present Electoral Act, 2026, which Mike Igini, former Resident Electoral Commissioner of INEC, described as the worst in the history of Nigeria, the opposition parties do not have a choice or chance of survival if they don’t stick together. Direct primaries have been imposed on them by APC’s tyranny. If they are wise, they will strenuously reach consensus in all the posts to avoid rancour. The ruling party is waiting to use the instrumentality of the judiciary to emasculate the opposition. The more their primaries become more adversarial, the likelihood the ruling party will use the judiciary to embarrass them. Nyesom Wike of the PDAPC vowed to fight to the end if the PDP does not endorse Tinubu of the APC as its consensus candidate. The judiciary has always been his greatest hope in achieving this. PDP can barely recognise itself today. It is now a carcass.

The persecution of opposition members is too glaring. Whenever anyone joins APC his sins will be forgiven. Whenever anyone joins the opposition, sins would be manufactured to crucify him. Nigerians no longer enjoy freedom after speech. Movement is no longer free in Nigeria, even to go out and vote. Any member of the opposition who does not understand that if the opposition does not come together to act in unity, it will fail is an agent of Tinubu in disguise. Time has come to make sacrifices for the sake of rescuing Nigeria from destruction. In unity there is strength.