Lately, the opposition has been warning of President Ahmed Tinubu’s plot to turn the country into a one party state. In other words, he wants to transmute to an autocrat or dictator. Few days ago, three Americans collaborated a piece “No one Has ever Defeated Autocracy from the Sidelines” in which they warned of President Donald Trump turning an autocrat. They said all true democrats must join in the fight against Trump. They called what the president is doing “competitive. authoritarianism.” Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt defined it as “a system in which parties compete in elections but the systematic abuse of an incumbent’s power tilts the playing field against the opposition.”
Returning to our country, is President Tinubu, popularly elected so called, actually working to upturn the very process that made him what he is today? Is he plotting to subvert Nigerian democracy? I doubt very much. Tukuna, how did the suspicion arise? It came about as a result of some recent happenings, ironically, in the opposition camp, such as a number of PDP state governors jumping or planning to jump ship to the ruling APC. They included Sheriff Oborebwori, the governor of Delta State, who made the jump April 23. He was followed by his immediate predecessor Ifeanyi Okowa. Delta is an oil producing state and had been held by PDP since 1999. Though oil rich the two two said Delta needed to align with the APC federal government to “unlock development opportunities.” But the real reason could be personal – using federal might to shield themselves from prosecution on a likely corruption charge. Reacting to the defections, PDP’s national chairman Damagum didn’t hide his disappointment: “If there’s any state that should not have taken this path, it’s Delta. We gave them everything – support for the governor, and even the former governor, who was our vice presidential candidate in 2023. We least expected this action from them.” Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, whose NNPP also has suffered high-profile defections, all to the APC, has said politicians who leave their party for another have committed “the greatest political crime.” According to him, “When vulnerable people vote for you and you turn around to join their oppressors, it is a political sin of the highest order.”
However, for sin, whether political or religious, to be committed the sinner must find it alluring. He must know he stands on ‘sure’ ground. Here the opposition is more to blame for its misfortune. It has simply capitulated without the APC challenging it to a fight. There is too much trouble already in the house for it to pay attention to national politics. Take the PDP, for example. Since last year, it has been busy appointing and removing its national officers. As it is, its leadership squabbles have reached the courts. In a country like ours where politics are business, nobody will invest in troubled waters. People naturally will tend towards a winning party. What’s worse for the PDP, in particular, is that it was caught off guard when Tinubu declared emergency rule in Rivers, a PDP controlled state. It took the party a long time to understand what the president had done and a much longer time to mount legal challenge to the action. By then it was too late to stay Tinubu’s hand. Is Labour Party any different? Naanaa. The party has lost its head after its heady rollercoaster electoral performance in the 2023 presidential election that saw its presidential candidate Peter Obi placing third. Internal wrangling going as far as the court has weakened the party to the extent that it is hardly recognizable now. Between the opposition parties there is talk of going into a grand alliance to challenge Tinubu and his APC in 2027. But it has remained just that, mere speculation. Even before it has arrived, there is already a roadblock over who will be the coalition’s presidential candidate. Peter Obi? Atiku Abubakar? Or who? They can’t seem to agree on a name.
What more, the PDP has shown a shockingly weak hand in its handling of Nyesom Wike’s case. For a party that held power at the federal level for 16 years and one expected to have enthroned discipline as its ethos, allowing Wike to take up a ministerial appointment in an opposition party government while still keeping his PDP membership is inexplicable. The same Wike was it that caused the party to lose the Rivers governorship, even if momentarily. A Jeroboamian treatment of Wike would have told party partisans that they couldn’t behave just any how they liked. But this is what many of them are now doing. And the APC is having a good laugh. Who wouldn’t? Speaking tongue-in-cheek, the party’s national publicity secretary, has this to say: “Many of these people are coming in and saying, we want to be part of the (APC) process. We want to identify with that process. There’s nothing wrong with that. And you know that does not mean that we desire for Nigeria to become a one party system.” The PDP, at a point, said it would govern for 60 years. As it happened, it lost power after only 16 years. The APC? This is only its 10th year in power. If a weakened opposition means it will continue to govern, why not.
