There are discordant tunes among the so-called opposition parties. No fewer than 46 of them have declared support for the presidential ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan. According to observers, there is now the latent fear of being left in the cold and the casualty is political principle. It is ironical that the opposition parties that have decried the under-performance of the ruling party for 11 years have turned around to give a collective nod to the aspiration of its leader to remain in office beyond 2011.
There is no concrete proof that the few serious platforms-Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Labour Party (LP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA)-are likely to work together against the PDP. The wisdom that permitted their counterparts in Kenya and Congo to come together during critical elections to dislodge the ruling parties is lacking. And divided they fall.
The PDP, which has been in control of the federal government since 1999, stands out, judging by its antecedent, character and composition. It is a conservative party like the old Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and National Republican Convention (NRC).
The party is driven by its main motive, which is power retention or power consolidation. Its steps and responses to the political milieu are shaped by its desire to retain power and maintain its hold on the polity. When he x-rayed the party, Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, who once described it as a nest of killers, said that its achievements in the 11 years of self-rule fell below expectation.
The weak opposition parties merely exist on paper to its advantage. Dismissing their threats with a wave of hand, the former National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, who was recently shoved aside, boasted that the party would rule uninterruptedly for the next 60 years.
Last week, the Convener of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), Pastor Tunde Bakare, who frowned at the boasting of the ruling party, said the parties outside power gave PDP the license. He described the word opposition as a vocabulary alien to presidential system, urging the scattered parties to forge a common front.
“If all these parties fail to present a candidate, PDP will overrun them. Only a combined effort can bring PDP down”, he added.
However, those challenging the PDP to a duel are the main opposition parties working at cross purpose; the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Labour Party (LP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
Other parties are mushroom organisations struggling for relevance and survival. However, they share the same idea and worldview with the frontline four progressive parties. Their leaders freely associate as leaders of the progressive camp. But they do not know how to put resources together to dislodge the ruling party.
One of them, Chief Rasheed Shitta-Bey, who has now registered a new party, Mega Progressive Peoples Party (MPPP), called on other progressives to seek refuge in the party. He lamented that the progressive parties could not unite and seize the storm.
Shitta-Bey, a former leader of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), attributed the lack of unity and cohesion to ego and personality clashes among the leaders who are not divided by ideology , but by methods.
“It is difficult to come together because each wants to be the leader. So, they hold on to their smaller groups”, he added. Like Bakare, the MPPP leader agreed that in unity lies the strength of the progressives in the opposition camp.
Historically, like minds in opposition in the country have been divided, not only by the dominant party, but by inter-party competitions. Although the country has not shown the tendency for one party system because of their activities, collaboration among the opposition has been short-lived or futile, owing to some predictable factors.
On three occasions, 1960, 1979 and 1999, when the conservative ruling party struck curious alliances with the progressive parties, the marriage of inconvenience broke down. Observers attributed the parting of ways to ideological conflict.
In 1960, the NPC and National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) teamed up to form the Central Government led by Balewa. NCNC parliamentarians were appointed ministers. By 1964, the alliance had broken down, but some NCNC ministers continued to serve in the government till 1966 when the administration was sacked by the military.
In 1960, NCNC, for political expediency, believed more in a synergy with NPC, instead of teaming up with the Action Group (AG) , a party that was close top its ideas and political philosophy.
In 1979, the NPN and Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP), led by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, formed an accord, following the 12 2/3 controversy. By 1981, the relationship was severed. However, some NPP federal ministers refused to quit the federal cabinet headed by President Shehu Shagari. Later, some of them even defected from NPP to NPN.
In 1999, PDP and APP formed a controversial Government of National Unity, with the APP National Chairman, Senator Mahmud Waziri, serving as Obasanjo’s Political Adviser. The union later hit the rock. In 2003, it was big business for the leadership of AD. When the national chairman succeeded in selling the governorship seats previously occupied by the AD governors to the PDP, he too was rewarded with the position of Special Adviser.
The first time all the major parties were in a sort of voluntary alliance was between 1957 and 1960, a time described by the late Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, as a period of emergency when the diverse political leaders made sacrifice for one Nigeria.
However, the first bold attempt at collaboration among progressive parties took place in 1964 when preparations for the federal elections got to a peak. The alliance between the AG and NCNC, which had retraced its steps, was consummated in the United Progressives Grand Alliance (UPGA). NPC and Akintola’s Nigeria National Democratic Party (NNDP), formed the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA).
However, there was division in the fold during the electioneering. While a section of the alliance canvassed election boycott because there was no guarantee for free and credible polls, another section insisted on the polls.
The NCNC leader and Premier of the Eastern Region, the late Dr Michael Okpara, could not offer the type of leadership required to wield the two camps together. Then, the AG leader, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was serving a 10-year jail term.
The alliance could not change the tide in the Western Region where NCNC chieftains had pitched tent with a faction of AG led by Premier Ladoke Akintola.
In the Second Republic, an alliance was mooted by the four opposition parties; the NPP, Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP), and a faction of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), led by the late Chief Michael Imoudu.
The Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) broke down following disagreement on the choice of the presidential candidate. While the UPN governor insisted that Awo should become the presidential candidate, the NPP governors rooted for Zik. The crowd dispersed.
The pattern of alliance showed that, despite its diversity, Nigeria could be a fertile ground for two party system. That may have informed the setting up of two parties by the military for civilians in the Third Republic. The two parties seperated the progressives in the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and conservatives in the National Republican Convention (NRC).
Abdulsalami Administration had wanted to reenact the same political order in 1999 when the INEC approved two parties, the PDP and APP. The birth of AD at the last minute returned the country to multi-party system. The number of parties later multiplied following the verdict of the Supreme Court on freedom of political association and assembly.
However, reality had dawned on the opposition parties as from 2003 that they laboured in vain. As PDP continued to win elections by all means and at all costs, unprincipled members of the progressive parties gravitated to the ruling party and complaints about the imminence of one party state filled the air.
The two major opposition parties, ANPP and AD were in ruins. While ANPP was decimated, from the ashes of AD rose two parties, AC and DPA, which could not effectively challenge the PDP or reclaim the lost grounds in the AD stronghold in the face of the PDP rigging machinery that had waxed stronger.
AC, at its inception, was branded a mega party. The 2007 polls showed that it needed to make an extra effort to win power. To the consternation of its arrowheads, the platform was deserted after the critical 2007 polls by strange bed fellows who were completely enstranged from its progressive agenda.
DPA led by Chief Olu Falae, a faction of AD, Pat Utomi’s camp and other members of the mushroom parties had set in motion a machinery for the formation of a mega party. The end product was mega failure. Instead of evolving a strong and all-inclusive platform, two parties that share the same ideas emerged to begin a political journey to nowhere.
Sources said that, while a faction of the ANPP led by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), had gone ahead to form a party, Congress for Progressive change (CPC), reality later dawned on the group that it only elongated the list of parties that could not fly. A likely collaboration between ACN and CPC, which observers viewed as a good combination, may have also been rejected, thereby dimming the hope of a formidable platform that can actually bid for federal power.
ANPP, sources said, deliberately amended its constitution, in anticipation of the implementation of IBB’s Plan B. As it may become increasingly difficult to triumph over the incumbent PDP President at the party primaries, IBB, added the source, may move to the ANPP to actualise his presidential ambition.
Many ANPP chieftains have an axe to grind with the former National Chairman of the party, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, for the party’s collaboration with PDP government. His relations were said to be major beneficiaries of the ill-defined Government of Unity. In the past, the party had refused to participate in the opposition rally against the PDP federal government organised by the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP).
In fact, the federal government also succeeded in polarising the CNPP. For about three years, two CNPP factions, led by Alhaaji Balarabe Musa and Dr Olapade Agoro, were at each others throat.
Frontline politician and former governor of Kaduna State, Musa, who lamented the division in the opposition camp, said that the parties are torn apart, not by ideas, but strategies and methods. “PDP continues to oppress us because opposition parties are not together”, he said.
A historian, Oludare Raji, highlighted the reasons for lack of unity among opposition parties. Apart from agreeing that financial expediency is at the root, he pointed out that many opposition figures hate to team up because of consequential loss of identity.
“They want to pose as leaders and do not want to concede leadership to contemporaries, not minding their limited reach”, he said.
Former Yobe State Governor Bukar Abba Ibrahim said the country would wobble on in decay under PDP, unless the progressives put their house in order. “There is no party that can singlehandedly defeat the PDP, which believes that power is a matter of life and death”, he added.
ACN chieftain, Chief Oyeniyi Raheem, agreed with him. Dissecting the parties, the House of Representatives aspirant in Lagos, pointed out that parties are reluctant to form alliance because they are not of equal strength. “Many opposition leaders fear that, if there is an alliance, the issue of ranking or who becomes the senior and junior partner will come up. The leaders of smaller parties fear that they would lose influence when they collapse their platforms into a big alliance”, he stressed.
Raheem wondered why some opposition parties no longer have self-confidence in their ability to win. He said: “Certain opposition parties are eager to be in an imaginary Government of Unity in post-election period with the dominant conservative rival they have feebly opposed at the polls. What is required in 2011 is a durable pre-election alliance among opposition parties that can bring real progressives to federal power”
Raji spoke on the infiltration of the progressive camp by politicians he described as fake progressives. He said: “There is this problem of ideological difference. Not all the parties are real progressive parties.”
The historian also pointed out that some political parties that have their taproots in the ethnic nationalities may not bother about collaboration at the centre. “Besides, few big political parties deliberately fund smaller parties to support their cause or lay template for the “Plan B” of their rich leaders”, he added.
A politician, Bisi Adegbuyi, said that, if the opposition parties wake up from their slumber, they can make progress in 2011 by coming together to liberate the country. He urged their leaders to put ego aside and work for the common good, adding that it is incumbent on them to liberate the country from PDP.
“The future of Nigeria squarely rests on the emergence of a coalition government at the centre. Nigeria is a heterogeneous country. As it is in Israel, Pakistan, Canada and other countries that have diverse languages, cultures and religions, you are not likely to have a dominant party winning overwhelmingly in the election, if it is free and fair,” he added.
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