After almost 26 years of unbroken democracy in Nigeria, the politics of opposition appears to be incoherent and in great disarray. It is even tattered and irreverent. While the central ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) is seemingly intact, the opposition parties are scattered, disjointed and disunited. Virile opposition, a sine qua non for an enduring democracy, the oxygen of democracy is abjectly absent in our nascent and young democracy. The APC, the new political behemoth, like its predecessor, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is behaving to type. It has ruled Nigeria for eight years plus. It plans to equal the PDP 16 years in office or even surpass it.
Don’t forget that the PDP in its years of glory boasted that it will rule Nigeria for 60 years a la Vincent Ogbulafor. It later increased the tally to 100 years. That was the height of power intoxication of the PDP. That was the height of power arrogance and stupidity. In PDP’s 16 years in power, it was the party to beat. Securing the PDP primary is akin to victory at the polls. The PDP nearly controlled all the states in the federation. Under PDP, the opposition was cowed, subdued and almost obliterated until the opposition with the help of some breakaway PDP chieftains formed a formidable opposition ahead of the 2015 general election.
Despite the politics of the PDP, things were better. Nigerians were living better. Dissent was tolerated mildly. The exchange rate was stable. The cost of living was okay. Prices of food items were affordable. Nigerians were enjoying too. It was that period that Nigerians were adjudged the happiest people on earth, a theme the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, adroitly and cleverly explored and parodied in his fat novel, Chronicles of the Happiest People on earth. When Soyinka’s fat novel came out in 2021, Nigerians were no longer the happiest people on earth. We were among the saddest and angriest people on earth on account of economic hardship, political exclusion and threatening hunger and insecurity. President Muhammadu Buhari’s nepotism and mismanagement of our diversity, polity and economy in his eight year-reign did not help matters. Unfortunately, President Bola Tinubu is methodically following Buhari’s example in nepotism and inflicting economic hardship on hapless Nigerians through some of his uncoordinated policies. The removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the naira without planned succour have inadvertently pauperized millions of Nigerians.
With about 10 years in power, the APC is behaving like its Papa and ancestor, the PDP. It is almost beating the opposition to pulp and submission. The opposition is indeed finding it difficult to breathe. If they criticize the ruling party’s government, they will be accused of crossing the line a la Felix Morka, the APC overzealous spokesman. If they say Nigeria is degenerating to a one-party state, they will be accused of subversion, treason and other punishable epithets. The APC is behaving like a head cutter, who would not allow anyone pass him with a machete. The APC has been in opposition before they took over power by force and intimidation. They will not allow anyone to intimidate and force them out of power. Power is so sweet.
The aroma of power is irresistible. Our politicians caress and romance power like a lover. Nigerians like power so much that after making so much money in business by fair and foul means, they will go into politics to acquire political power to intimidate their fellow Nigerians and acquire all acquirable in Nigeria, Dubai, London and even China. Very soon, our big men politicians will acquire properties in Mars and the Moon. Our politics is asoebi and owanbe party. It is not yet about developing the nation and its people. Our nation-building agenda is still far-fetched. It is still a forlorn hope.
We are still building our stomach and satisfying our appetite for greed and lust. In our food is ready and amala and ewedu, ogbono, edikaiko, ofe nsala and mia kuka politics, everyone will like to belong to the ruling party, the holder of the big yam and the big knife. If you want to belong, you must sew the asoebi with shoe and cap to match. If you wear the wrong cap and wrong asoebi, you will be thrown out of the owanbe party.
It is perhaps against the backdrop of growing intolerance and muzzling and stifling of the opposition that a national conference on Strengthening Democracy in Nigeria was organized by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD), Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Westminster for Democracy (WID), Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA) and National Peace Committee. At the big event, Nigerian politicians gathered and spoke sweet words to our ears, including the ones they believe and the ones they didn’t believe. With due respect to some of them, who have distinguished themselves, our politicians are almost the same, whether in power and out of power.
There is basically no difference between the APC and the PDP or even the Labour Party, and the other parties, except the difference in name and symbols. All the political parties in Nigeria are multi-purpose vehicles through which politicians access power by fair and crook means. Nigerian voters are their play materials whom they manipulate to gain power for themselves and their elite group. Nigerian politicians do not like to play the opposition. It is a difficult and hard game. It is game for losers who want to regain power. Many Nigerians loathe losers. While winners have brothers, sisters and cousins, losers remain orphans; nobody wants to associate with losers. Goats will always follow one who carries yams. This can explain why people don’t want to be associated with the opposition. Playing the position is never a juicy game.
However, the opposition despite being loathed remains the oxygen of any thriving democracy. It is its salt and pepper. Without strong opposition, our democracy will atrophy and die a permanent death. Our first republic was adjudged as our best political outing because of existence of virile opposition led by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Awo did to Western region what the rest could not do to their regions and the country at large. This was probably why Chief Emeka Ojukwu described Awo as the best President Nigeria never had. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu rose to central power from opposition. He tenaciously fought the PDP behemoth as the last man standing in South-West region when the PDP brazenly took over the rest.
The present crop of opposition leaders, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso must learn from Awo, Asiwaju and other eminent Nigerians who have distinguished themselves as opposition figures. If the opposition wants to make impact in 2027, they must swallow their pride and come together. It is not about PDP, LP or NNPP or even APGA or whatever opposition party or their leaders. The APC is an amalgamation of different parties that come together and subsumed their identities under APC before ascending to the ruling party in 2015.
With infighting and rivalries in PDP, LP and NNPP, the opposition is dead on arrival, except they unite. In Matthew 5:13, Jesus Christ said, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Those who have ears let them hear.