Is coalition the best strategy for Nigeria’s beleaguered opposition?, by Aminu Habibu Jahun
In his 20th March press conference in Abuja, Nigeria’s opposition chieftain, Atiku Abubakar, dropped a political dumb bomb: a coalition of opposition parties would confront the APC led regime in 2027. By that declaration, the opposition leaders, or a section thereof, have half heartedly hearkened to the calls, that it is a political suicide to engage the APC disjointedly in 2027.
The exit of El Rufai from the APC, his increasing ties with Atiku Abubakar and their engagements with other opposition leaders, the ceaseless verbal missiles to the PBAT regime, and the emergent political groups angling to have their imprimatur on the 2027 scramble, have injected an unusual amount of oppositional energy into Nigerian politics. But whether the opposition would be left alone, to sustain the tempo to victory, is a concern dear to many Nigerians.
The nation’s opposition community – kingmakers, presidential aspirants, aggrieved used and dumped APC members, and those pushing for a new party devoid of the baggages of the old, and millions of pauperised voters-cry for deliverance from the APC’s neoliberal strangulation of the economy, reinforced by Eko’s suffocating onslaught over the nation. They could only be saved by a highly principled oppositional leadership.
The nation’s growing oppositional community expected a political bombshell from Atiku Abubakar, to bolster the hope that 2015 is set for reproduction in 2027. But with the inescapable preference for a coalition, it seems far fetched, but not entirely impossible.
The nation’s political history is littered with failed pre election coalitions/alliances. That of the 1st Republic (UPGA) couldn’t defeat the ruling party alliance (NNA) in the 1964 federal election. Whilst the one mulled between the NPN and NPP before the 1979 election couldn’t materialise. And the proposed alliance induced by the aftermath of the 1983 election by the UPN, GNPP, NAP, NPP and PRP couldn’t takeoff due to military intervention which truncated the 2nd Republic.
An oppositional coalition which downplays its centrifugal tendencies is rare in a democracy such as Nigeria’s. After Atiku’s bid to fly the PDP ticket in 2007 failed, the attempt by a faction of the PDP loyal to him, ANPP and AD to form an alliance was nipped in the bud by the presidential ambition of Buhari and Abubakar, which paved way for their defeat in the election.
In pre election coalitions, parties retain their identities, leadership organs, and independence, whilst in a political merger, the type which midwifed the APC, the constitutive parties willingly surrender their identities and leaderships, subsumed under a unified identity and leadership.
Coalitions pool old political wines to attend to new challenges, whilst mergers distill fresh ones to address unfolding obstacles. Unlike in coalitions/alliances underscored by intense horse-trading, decision making is quicker in merger-produced political parties.
The new identities, leaderships, and increased sizes bestow unusual vitality on political merger parties, radiating fears in the parties they set to devour, exuding confidence to, and reviving hope of, their enlarged members. Arising from agreed liquidations of member parties, political merger creations bestride political spaces like youthful collosi: intimidating, powerful, and at last freed from the inadequacies of their pre merger legacies.
Probably the inadequacies of political alliances/coalitions informed the decision of the chieftains in ACN, ANPP and CPC to settle for a political merger, as the most effective strategy to confront the PDP in 2015. APC is the political testimonial of political merger as an effective weapon in Nigeria’s oppositional politics.
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The Goodluck regime’s liberal disposition, not to interfere with the oppositional drive for a political merger, didn’t truncate the emergence of the APC; but the PBAT led regime is ill disposed towards leaving any party to pose a challenge to it, including any coalition/alliance.
In his post APC desertion interviews, El-Rufai posited that the Tinubu-led regime is responsible for the crises and instability in the major opposition parties. Yet, the opposition chieftains have glossed over that it would be easier for the regime to destabilise the constitutive parties to the coalition rather than a single merger produced mega party. With as many parties to the coalition, there would be as many chances for state interference.
But why should the opposition jettison the political experience of 2015 and roll themselves backwards to the 60s in search of an ineffectual oppositional model to deal with a 2027 political challenge? Could it be resistance to change upending the oppositional political order by an intimidating new party?
Some leaders in the largest opposition party, are glued to their party brand as it is a source of life to them, impervious to the great lesson of 2015, glossing over the fact that for a political party axphysiated by the state, is name retention more important, or winning election? Or, is it the fear of leaving their comfort political turfs, where they call the shots to another where some of them might be sidelined?.
Since the nation’s opposition community is being denied the most effective electoral strategy to exact their pound of flesh from the APC; and as it is said, a half bread is better than none, the prayer is for the coalition to work. An urgent task before the formation of the coalition is to free the opposition parties from any vestiges of state interference. And if the task of the coalition is to deny the APC a second term, and nothing more, then pragmatically the coalition is to make the four parties with subnational governments: APGA (1), LP (1), NNPP (1) and PDP (12), the core of the coalition, with the PDP and LP (had they fused into a union, they could have defeated the BAT in 2023) as the coalitional fortress.
With the APC’s win-election-by-all-means disposition, a coalition isn’t the best strategy for Nigeria’s beleaguered opposition, weakened by state interference. But despite its shortcomings, it is better than for the parties to confront the Tinubu regime separately in the election. But if it fails to unseat the APC in 2027, Nigeria is set to become a one party dictatorship.
The foot dragging on the registration of new parties by INEC could be construed as the regime’s moves to truncate democracy by preventing the emergence of a powerful oppositional platform, which could be its political waterloo. Pari passu with the conclusion of the coalition, there should be a legal struggle against INEC on the registration of new parties.
Jahun, a commentator on public affairs, writes from Dutse, the Jigawa State Capital. He can be reached on 07039038088.
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