Tag: APC

By Alade Rotimi-John

The view has gone on unchallenged for too long that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is the persuasive purveyor of the presentational symbolism evinced in the visceral defection of high brow members of the opposition from where they belonged; to arrive at some forlorn destination.

This position has thankfully received a counter boost in the much more intentional, calculated and specific ambush of the APC jukebox via the agency of the seeming blitzkrieg outing of the coalition of parties code-named, African Democratic Congress.

President Bola Tinubu has been popularly passed off as the grandmaster of the politics of stratagem, of decoy and of illicit persuasion. He too has gleefully basked in the dubious appellation.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish politicians for whom it is a strain to think of them as less-than-gentlemanly from irresponsible propagandists. Ideological coherence and political rascality seem to have merged and lost their differentiation. The difference between sensibility and intellection is unfortunately becoming blurred. The view of politics which the responsible politician articulates perceptually is today drowned in the hypnotic suggestion which depicts defection as the herding of the flock to where the grass is greener.

In the month of May 2025, the APC cheered itself on as it mindlessly poached members of the opposition including Governors, legislators and their officials. In a notable instance, the entire structure of governance and of the party was dragged along with them. Moralists, utilitarians and public intellectuals all looked askance or in muted suspicion wondering how the APC’s upturned algebraic equation would be resolved. They asked cui bono what the role of a formal opposition is in a plural, multidimensional society like Nigeria.

The ordinary people too were challenged to their wits. The APC could not realistically offer any reasoned reply to the community of questions. It offered instead an incoherent defence or Apologia which is the literary equivalent of what in theology is referred to as “apologetics”. Fidelity to the nature of politics no longer mattered, as the APC was faithfully doing the bidding of its Grandmaster.

Engineering dissension and fueling implacable differences within groups it imagined as a credible counterpoise to its suzerainty, the APC strutted haughtily making foreseeable detente in the camps of the opposition impossible. Its foot soldiering braggadocio manifestly exemplified in the chaotic antics of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr Nyesom Wike, is the patent spoil sport.

One is apt to run away with the impression that there is within the hierarchy of the opposition parties, a pool of spies searching or snooping the opponents’ operations. The APC appears to be substituting governance with politicking of the most inane brand. Unbeknownst to it, however, these measures were tending towards a dreadful attitude of hate and disrespect for the party.

Not a few people sensed the APC approach as tending towards a one-party state miasma. A one-party system is the inglorious precursor of dictatorship or authoritarianism. It must not be tolerated even in its embryonic stage. The Grandmaster’s tactics had to be reviewed, customised and deployed as defeating him on his home turf appeared excruciatingly difficult. A conglomeration of opposition political parties which are united in their expressed phobia for a one-party state will have to come together, pool their resources and aggregate their talents or expertise.

In 2013 – 2014, the APC itself was forged out of the furnace of a number of disparate and singularly ineffectual parties which common object was the sacking of the Goodluck Jonathan presidency through a sustained combined effort. This time, history is poised to repeat itself employing poetic justice as grundnorm.

Finding it difficult to pass through INEC’s eye of the needle respecting an application to be registered as a political party, a group of persons whose nature is distinctly that of the adventurer, talked a subsisting but generally low-key political plank into allowing its grounds to be used for leading the offensive for terminating the APC reign of cheap demagoguery and of a projected ride into a one-party system.

The face of the projected onslaught against the APC was unveiled at Abuja on Wednesday 9th July, 2025. Leading the offensive as protem Chairman of African Democratic Congress (ADC) is a former President of the Senate who is also a retired army General, Senator David Mark. Unveiled as interim Secretary of ADC is controversial Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, a former Governor of Osun State and a man acknowledged in political circles as possessing ‘revolutionary’ ardour or its college brand, Aluta.

Purposeful as the requirement to terminate the APC bumpy drive into a one-party state is, it will be grossly insufficient or will be a waste of the people’s time and psyche if it is the be-all-and-end-all objective of the coalition; if it will be a musical chair of sorts.

Expectedly disturbed by the burgeoning wave of public consciousness regarding what the people observe in it as a callous avowal of political opportunism, the APC summarily summoned its propaganda machine to spew pessimism regarding a feared body of fortunes that the coalition portends.

Governor Dikko Rada of Katsina State, for instance, has unwittingly summed up the angst of the APC even as he exposed the cluelessness of its government. He has asked bemusedly: “Those making noise about coalition should come and tell us the alternatives they have. Are they going to bring back subsidies? Where are they going to get resources? This is not time for deceiving people again”.

Put differently, Governor Rada is wondering what the ADC coalition will do distinctively away from the devious, desultory and opaque administration of the APC government.

It is generally observed that the Tinubu government has failed to meet the expectations of the people even regarding its published manifestos. Many hold the view that the government’s promised performance on the economy, its avowed frontal attack on insecurity, the published all-out onslaught on corruption, the loud pronouncement on the envisaged improvement in the living standard of the ordinary citizen, etc. are mere cold comfort; just to lull the people to sleep and “to grab and run [away]” with their votes.

It is expected that a new administration will, for instance, turn the vaunted benefits of the fuel subsidy removal to the people. It is to be expected that the prostrate condition of the Naira will be upturned as fiscal and monetary policies that will redound to a welfarist socio-economic milieu will be single-mindedly pursued. The unbridled borrowing spree of the APC government and its proverbial wasteful expenditure would be terminated forthwith.

Since Buhari, Nigeria has been sorely divided along ethno-religious lines. The people look forward to a government for which nepotism, cronyism, tribalism and religious favouritism will be anathema. One of the banes of the APC government is its indifference to accountability or openness in the affairs of the public till or revenue. A new government should install financial prudence and even-handed discipline as a cornerstone of its governance framework.

Nigeria is abundantly blessed with cognate human capital in all fields of human endeavour and in governance. It is strange that she is finding it hard or difficult to situate round pegs in round holes respecting, for example, the filling of cabinet positions.

The general membership of the Federal Executive Council is generally perceived as not fitting for the exigency of the Nigerian condition or as not cognate for the role.

Even as hunger stalks the land and the people are impoverished so much that they can not address their basic food needs, our government appears helpless as it has no immediate solution for terminating the scourge.

As far back as 1979, Chief Obafemi Awolowo identified the most pressing problem facing Nigeria. He characteristically proffered the way out of the quagmire. Intoned inimitable Awo:

“… I would like to be permitted to declare that our most urgent problem today is that which relates to the abject poor in our fatherland. As we have noted, about ninety percent of our population belongs to this class. So long as this large number of people remain impoverished, our economic growth rate may continue to look good on paper, but our national development will remain depressed and subnormal.”

To the extent that the APC government has adamantly focused its gaze exclusively on projects or programmes described in popular discourse as “White elephant” to the exclusion of the requirement for the execution of sincere strategies for poverty alleviation, the Awo epistemology is as extant as events that have happened this morning. It is as poignant as when it was rendered.

The Nigerian malaise has, mainly through official ineptitude and gross insensitivity, grown by leaps and bounds. It has become for all citizens a desperate situation requiring no half measures. It can only be relieved by a wickedly desperate alchemy.

Rotimi-John, a lawyer and commentator on public affairs, is the Deputy Secretary-General of Afenifere. He can be reached via: lawgravitas@gmail.com