The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, is in a celebratory mood as more politicians defect, depleting the ranks of the rival Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
In what was like a tsunami in Delta State, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, his predecessor Ifeanyi Okowa and their political appointees, defected. However, such defections are not unexpected as the ruling party, at any time, controls the resources of the country, including its security apparatus that can be deployed at will even to settle filial disputes.
Essentially, the main political parties in the country are all-purpose electoral vehicles to seize or retain power. So the competition is quite keen. This, of course, is not in the overall interest of the people who have, since the time of military adventurers, become victims, rather than beneficiaries of governance.
What, however, seems to be unusual this time is the concern of some non-politically partisan elites that Nigeria may be heading towards a one-party state.
The impression is given that we run a multi-party democracy, so the defections might be negative.
I respectfully disagree with such analysis which I think is the product of liberal Western political thought. This presents democracy as a multiparty electoral system rather than being a people-centred participatory system of governance. It is a deceitful political system that gives the impression of a progressive political movement. In reality, it is a stagnant political system that thrives on form and processes, rather than an empowerment of the populace to actively participate in governance and, ensure all-round development. It is a cyclic Western political tradition that produces a bullying and incoherent Donald Trump, who hands over power to a spineless and cunning Joe Biden who hands the baton back to a triumphant Trump.
When these liberals worry about the possible emergence of a one-party state in Nigeria, I ask, what are we practising? All the main politicians are from the same tradition with a shared manifesto. Let us take the three leading political parties: APC, PDP and Labour Party, LP. They are all agreed on the removal of fuel subsidy, the same that has uncontrollably fuelled inflation since the Buhari presidency. They are all agreed on the so-called floating of the Naira, and the resultant currency devaluation. They are agreed on the privatisation or wholesale of our national wealth to the rich. They concur on the privatisation of electricity and ever higher tariff. They are all opposed to free, accessible education for Nigerian children.
In all these, the threesome hold the constitutional provision that government exists for the welfare of the people in contempt.
Also, they have the same idea about tackling insecurity which is a reactive one. They camouflage ethnic cleansing in the North-West and North-Central as ‘herders-farmers’ clash. Hence, they are treating leprosy as rashes.
In terms of tackling proper insecurity, they leave it to the armed forces that seems overwhelmed; to a policing system that is centralised and excludes the state, local government and communities. All three parties are afraid to allow the populace self-defense. So, the only two armed groups in the country are the Federal Government and the bandits/terrorists.
What further evidence do we need that Nigeria is a one-party state than facts which tell us quite clearly that all the leading politicians in the country have long political affiliations and have belonged to multiple political parties. I am not referring to affiliations from the times of the Babangida regime when politicians like President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar belonged to the same political factions alongside General Shehu Yar’ Adua.
I am being more contemporary; that is, since the 1999 return to civil rule when the leading politicians have belonged to a minimum three political parties each. For instance, Muhammadu Buhari was the presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, in the 2003 and 2007 elections; that of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, in 2011 and the APC in 2015 and 2019. Today, he is courted as a godfather.
President Tinubu started out from the Alliance for Democracy, AD, on to the Action Congress, AC/ACN, before berthing at the APC. Peter Obi started out from the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, unto the PDP, then the Labour Party. Given the move to register his followers, the Obidients in the LP, and the political crises in the party, it is uncertain if he will stay in the party.
Atiku Abubakar started out from the PDP, which twice gave him the Vice Presidency of the country, before decamping to the AC on whose platform he contested the 2007 presidential election. He returned to the PDP in 2009 then defected in 2014 to the APC , and then back to the PDP for the third time. On that platform, he ran unsuccessfully for the 2019 and 2023 presidential elections. Who knows whether he would remain in the PDP or seek new alliances as we face the 2027 residential election.
Nasir El-Rufai, the estranged political son of Atiku, had moved from PDP, where he was Minister, to the APC where he was two-term governor. Now, he is in the Social Democratic Party where he is seeking new political alliances.
It is not just that the leading parties have the same ideology and similar leaders, they also lack democratic credentials. The APC was unable to hold its quarterly National Executive Council meeting for 18 months, and parades an unedifying national leadership. On its part, the PDP has for years been incapable of putting in place an elected Chairman or Secretary. The Labour Party is a borrowed or hijacked platform with three, or possibly four, national executive councils.
So, what is the fear of a one-party state where what practically emerges after each electoral circle is one party that attracts majority politicians, especially those that have questions to answer for their financial dealings?
The problems of the Nigerian politicians and the people differ. The politicians’ main concern is how to expand their powers or seek better protection under any party ruling the country at the centre. This is not the same aspirations of the Nigerian people. What our people seek is food on the table, shelter over their heads, clothes on their backs, available, accessible and affordable basic healthcare and education for their children. So, while the Nigerian politician is thinking of the next elections, most Nigerians are thinking of the next meal. Where would it come from and how; as a miracle or manna from heaven?
The October 25, 1974 song by Bob Marley aptly presents the thinking of the Nigerian masses: “Them belly full, but we hungry;
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
…Cost of livin’ gets so high,
Rich and poor they start to cry:
Now the weak must get strong.”
