BY BRIGHT JACOB
The view that democracy thrives on a viable opposition is incontrovertible. In politics, the opposition keeps the established democratic authorities on their toes, and should at all times not be shown to be submissive to the authorities or lacking the courage and confidence in the face of political adversity.
This is why even when Nigeria’s democracy passed through some of its darkest phases during the military regimes in the country, the “opposition” as it were, espoused a dogged determination to salvage the country and didn’t relent in their struggles – attributes citizens say are missing today and which they crave in Nigeria’s present democratic reality.
Also, apart from the press, the opposition is viewed as the watchdog of the people in a democracy. This is because ordinary citizens who are not physically present in the corridors of power, can rely on the opposition to become their eyes and ears as well as mouthpiece to bring pressure to bear on the government and make demands on the state.
By this, even if those in government may have been “corrupted” by absolute power, they would still feel the pulse of the people which, through the opposition, would be brought to the awareness of these power brokers and political movers and shakers.
For Nigeria, the opposition, in its exceptional ways, has continued to draw certain aspects of the political trajectory of Africa’s largest economy and this is verifiable. Opposition parties are known to have formed coalitions and mergers that bundled ruling parties out of power.
And despite being called “deflated”, it continues to claw its way up from immateriality and seems set to survive and be heard in Nigeria.
After the May 29 inauguration of the administration of Bola Tinubu, the spotlight will once again be focused on the opposition, which comprises the People’s Democratic Party, the Labour Party, the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Social Democratic Party, All Progressives Grand Alliance, to mention but a few, and Nigerians want to know if their brand of opposition will have balls, and whether coalitions are in the offing.
“I don’t see them being a formidable opposition post-May 29, except, of course, they can work out some kind of coalition with the LP and maybe NNPP. Forget the reconciliation efforts you are hearing about now. It will not help their coming back to power. Unfortunately, that arrangement with LP and NNPP can be better imagined”
Historically, the opposition and even coalitions have also been critical when dissecting Nigeria’s political anatomy. In days of yore during The First Republic when Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo were politicking at their best, and when regionalism was still in vogue, the opposition and coalitions played crucial roles which shaped the First Republic.
Before Nigeria’s Independence in 1960, there was the Northern, Western and Eastern Regions, and later Midwestern Region which was created in 1963, and these regions had their respective regional parties which oozed ethnic biases at the time.
The presence of other minority parties notwithstanding, the Northern Region was dominated by The Northern People’s Congress of the Hausa-Fulani ethnic stock, under the leadership of the late Tafawa Balewa, while the Action Group, controlled by the Yoruba people of the Western Region had the late Obafemi Awolowo who ran the show there. And then Nnamdi Azikiwe of Igbo extraction held sway in the National Council of Nigerian Citizens in the Eastern and Midwestern Regions.
Of course, in the general elections held in 1959, the regional parties showed their mettle as they won majority seats in their respective regions. But none had the needed spread to constitute a national government, hence, the witnessing of the first major political alliance in the country, which saw the NPC and NCNC forming a coalition to balance power.
At that time, the NPC-NCNC coalition made a lot of sense as it achieved the much-sought-after North-South spread that was nationalistic in outlook, and which an AG-NCNC coalition couldn’t float because both were regarded as “Southern parties”.
Also, population was a game changer which determined which way the leadership position went, and the North, being the most populous region and more preferred option to the British, had Tafawa Balewa of the NPC who became the Prime Minister, while Nnamdi Azikiwe became Governor General, and would later become “President” after Nigeria became a Republic in 1963.
Awolowo, together with his Action Group, was boxed out of the power equation at the national level, and he became the opposition leader.
After the military came to power in 1966, the First Republic was laid to rest. However, in 1979, the Second Republic was birthed, but that too would be cut short in 1983.
Its four-year stint, notwithstanding, the Second Republic saw the emergence of new political parties with the National Party of Nigeria being the preponderant party because it produced the President, Shehu Shagari.
However, after the 1979 election, the party had a weak hold of the National Assembly, and this led to a coalition between it and the Nigerian People’s Party.
The NPP at the time had former president of Nigeria, Azikiwe, in its fold and was its presidential candidate during the election.
The Unity Party of Nigeria, a progression of the Action Group which was superintended by the indefatigable Awolowo, didn’t enter into any major alliance or form a coalition. But it was a welfarist party that welcomed Nigerians from different walks of life into its fold.
Awolowo also contested for Nigeria’s presidency in 1978 and 1983 under the platform of the party, but lost on both occasions to Shagari.
Analysts believe that his inability to form coalitions may have contributed to these losses. He would eventually retire from politics after the marauding boots of the military banned all political activity in the country in 1983.
In the Third Republic, which is the most short-lived (1992-1993), the only two political parties were the National Republican Convention and the Social Democratic Party. Ibrahim Babangida, who came to power in 1985, was the Head of State and author of this Republic. Sadly, the political parties that existed prior to the 1983 coup were no longer relevant.
Babangida promised to return Nigeria to democratic rule by 1990. However, almost seven years after he came to power, he kept shifting the goal-post of the military’s handover, until in 1993 when he “stepped aside” after annulling the June 12, 1993 presidential election which Moshood Abiola, was adjudged to have won.
Because Babangida fostered just two parties on Nigerians, there was no room for coalitions whatsoever, and any thought of an alliance was impracticable. Thankfully, he left office two months after he annulled the June 12 election, and an Interim National Government headed by the late Ernest Shonekan was installed, but was quickly ousted less than 90 days by then-Minister of Defence, General Sani Abacha, who became Head of State in November 1993.
There was wild jubilation after Abacha came to power as it temporarily doused the tension created by the political unrest ravaging the country. But contrary to expectations, Abacha didn’t hand over the reins of government to Abiola as expected.
Consequently, almost one year to the anniversary of the annulment, precisely on June 11, 1994, Abiola declared himself president at Epetedo in Lagos Island. He went into hiding after this but later resurfaced, only to be arrested by Abacha. He died in detention on July 7, 1998.
Before Abiola was whisked to prison, opposition to Abacha’s military regime, the National Democratic Coalition, had already been formed. This was not the normal opposition formed in a democracy. NADECO confronted the military head-on and sought to enthrone democracy in the country.
Despite the danger they faced, NADECO members continued to vex Abacha and the usually dark-spectacled dictator was on edge. He arrested notable members of the Coalition, while some like Nigeria’s current president-elect, Tinubu, fled abroad.
After Abacha’s death on June 8, 1998, Abdulsalami Abubarkar came to power and initiated the transition which led to democratic rule in the Fourth Republic.
The three main political parties at the time were the People’s Democratic Party, Alliance for Democracy and All Nigeria People’s Party.
General Olusegun Obasanjo, the eventual winner of the 1999 election, was the candidate of the PDP. The coalition between the AD and ANPP, in which Olu Falae was the flag bearer, couldn’t stop Obasanjo.
By 2003, three more political parties came into the mix. They are the All Progressives Grand Alliance, National Democratic Party and the United Nigerian Peoples Party. However, it was prior to the 2007 general elections that floodgates of political parties were registered, but Nigerians were not familiar with most of them.
In 2019, there were 91 registered parties cleared to contest the election. But that number was pruned by the electoral body, INEC, to 18 for the 2023 elections, with the same number producing presidential candidates jostling for the country’s highest political office.
The PDP, on its part, had ridden on the wave of its 1999 success in the general elections until in February 6, 2013, when the All Progressives Congress was formed through a merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change as well as the All Nigeria Peoples Party.
And in 2015, the PDP which hitherto boasted in 2008 that it was poised to rule for 60 years, lost to the APC after Muhammadu Buhari defeated then-President Goodluck Jonathan. That defeat compelled the former ruling party to taste the bitter pills of playing opposition politics, and it also lost two more elections back-to-back.
The APC has remained in power since then. And Tinubu’s recent victory in the February 25 Presidential poll has been a morale booster to the party, even though the former Governor of Lagos State, before his party’s presidential primary election, “invoked” the spirit of the coalition and merger he entered with Buhari’s party, the Congress for Progressive Change, when he (Tinubu) thought he was about to become surplus to requirements in the APC.
And even after he overcame every hurdle and won the presidential election, the opposition parties, mainly the PDP and LP, called the election a “sham” and have gone ahead to challenge the outcome in court.
Unperturbed, the APC continues to bask in the euphoria of victory. The party was also declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission to have won majority seats in the National Assembly.
Indeed, before the governorship election on March 18, INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakudu, during a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners in Abuja, released the breakdown of seats won by the political parties in the two chambers of the National Assembly.
He said that out of the 109 and 360 seats up for grabs in the Senate and House of Representatives, 98 and 325 results had been announced for the two chambers, respectively.
According to Yakubu, who said the 10th Assembly would have “the most diverse party representation” since the inception of democracy in 1999, eight political parties won various seats into the National Assembly, and they are: APC, PDP, LP, NNPP, SDP, APGA, YPP and ADC.
For Senate seats, it was APC (57), PDP (29), LP (6), NNPP (2), SDP (2), APGA (1) and YPP (1). For the House of Representatives seats, APC (262), PDP (102), LP (34), APGA (4), SDP (2), ADC (2) and YPP (1). And with the supplementary elections in some states still to be held on April 15, Mahmood declared that the APC already dominates the NASS.
Reacting, a political analyst, Kizito Opara, said that the PDP’s “perennial troubles” will breed a “lingering animosity” within the party that could prevent them from being a formidable opposition post-May 29. However, Opara said this could be remedied if the PDP was able to go into a coalition with the LP and NNPP.
Opara also said that the opposition parties might not be able to trounce the APC because of the egos of individuals like Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Opara said, “Though the PDP have their perennial troubles still in the court, but if you ask me for my opinion, I believe there will still be a lingering animosity in their camp even after the court has decided on their case.
“I don’t see them being a formidable opposition post-May 29, except, of course, they can work out some kind of coalition with the LP and maybe NNPP. Forget the reconciliation efforts you are hearing about now. It will not help their coming back to power. Unfortunately, that arrangement with LP and NNPP can be better imagined.
“The APC will overwhelm the opposition. None of them would be able to dislodge the APC….I don’t think so. The last election was the best opportunity they had to do so and they didn’t take it. The opposition is not ready yet.
“Look again at what happened between Obi and Kwankwaso. None wanted to step down for the other. This is why my forecast is that their greatest undoing as we journey to 2027 will be their respective ego,” Opara stated.
Speaking further, he praised Tinubu for being “the master-strategist who brought together opposition parties with different ideologies” when the PDP was in power. Opara, however, noted he was yet to see anyone with the “Tinubu effect” in the camps of the opposition parties.
Opara also said that he expects to see a wave of defections “from the so-called diverse National Assembly” because of the attractiveness of the ruling party.
“The APC is an attractive party. It has always been. I will not be surprised if some members of the so-called diverse 10th Assembly under SDP, YPP and even LP begin to defect to the APC. Yes, those members may likely move to where the grass is greener,” he said.
An Engineer, activist and former Presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party, Martin Onovo, argued that there was no likelihood an inauguration would take place on May 29.
“Definitely (there would be a strong opposition to the APC). You are pretending like you do not realise the unprecedented change that the LP has brought to the Nigerian political environment. A lot of disinterested people are now interested”
However, he noted that should a new APC government be inaugurated, there would be a strong opposition to it.
Onovo stated that the Labour Party had brought unprecedented change to Nigeria’s political environment which had evoked political interests among Nigerians. He also countered the victory of the APC at the polls.
Onovo said, “Definitely (there would be a strong opposition to the APC). You are pretending like you do not realise the unprecedented change that the LP has brought to the Nigerian political environment. A lot of disinterested people are now interested. That’s number one.
“Number two….this is the most diverse National Assembly-elect ever in the history of Nigeria. And you know that based on what we know, LP won the election….at least the presidential. Or, do you believe that APC won the election in Rivers State? Call anybody you know there and ask what the results there were. They altered results there. It’s very clear. APC wrote results and announced it and made a fool of everyone who went to vote,” Onovo said.
Asked whether the LP as an opposition party could dislodge the ruling party during the elections in 2027 without a coalition with the PDP or other political parties, Onovo insisted the LP would be able to do so if it was announced the winner of the presidential election held recently across the country. Doing that, according to Onovo, would bring about the defection of APC members to the Labour Party, and hence the dislodging of the ruling party.
He corroborated his point using what transpired in Imo State after the APC governor, Hope Uzodimma, came to office in the state dominated by the PDP, but controlled now by the APC.
“Why are you worrying whether the LP can on its own dislodge the APC (during the elections in 2027)? The first thing they (INEC) should do (now) is to announce the correct results (of the presidential election). If you announce the right results that Labour won, half of the National Assembly will switch to Labour.
“Many governors have operated with minority state assemblies. Let us use Imo state. Imo was over 90 percent PDP in the state assembly. After APC went and got their judgment that God knows how they got it, and Hope Uzodimma became Governor, what happened? Today, APC has a majority in that House,” Onovo said.
