In politics, the future is a currency of little value. People are only ever interested in who is leading them now, not who could does so in the future. This is why the toughest job in politics is not governing, but opposing. An opposition party, by definition, is one whose political agenda has been rejected by a majority of voters in the most recent elections, which means an uphill climb back to power. And on this task, the opposition party has everything stacked against it.
For the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the prospects of a return to power in 2023 cannot be grimmer. In its 16 years in power, the PDP did three things right that have fundamentally changed Nigerian politics and democracy, perhaps forever, whatever its other shortcomings, of which there were numerous. The PDP’s three presidents so far, Obasanjo, Yar’adua, and Jonathan, each managed to help consolidate Nigerian democracy in ways no one else before them, or since, has done.
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First, where the ruling parties and political leaders of the First and Second Republics could not keep the military at bay, Obasanjo and the PDP succeeded. His purge of the military of all senior officers who had ever held any political office demystified the military’s claim to political power and sent a loud message that in Nigeria too, as in other democracies, the place of the solider is firmly under that of the elected politician. This immediately delegitimised any future coups and gave our democracy a breathing space to grow and flourish, even if it has yet to do so to its full potential.
Obasanjo’s PDP also gave Nigeria its first successful transition from one civilian government to another in 2007, if only within the same political party. That year’s election was, for good reasons, adjudged one of the worst in Nigeria’s history. But unlike that of 1983, the outcome was not yet another military government. And when that election was upheld at the Supreme Court by a single judicial vote, its biggest beneficiary, the late president Yar’adua, promised to clean up our electoral system for good. His electoral reforms created the possibility that an opposition party could take presidential power through the ballot, certainly the single most important thing that had been lacking in all Nigerian elections before then.
The current ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), benefitted from those reforms to oust the PDP itself in 2015, and by that, enabled political transition from one party to another for the first time ever in Nigeria. But Yar’adua’s reforms were not only carried through by former president Jonathan; they were strengthened beyond measure when he conceded to Buhari in that same election. It is easy to forget the significance of that concession, but political events in the United States in the past year are a good reminder that there can be no democracy if an incumbent is unwilling to concede defeat to the opposition.
Thus by purging the military of political ambition, by reforming our electoral system and making it possible for an opposition party to win a presidential election, and by setting a powerful example in conceding defeat to the opposition, the PDP has, in my view, left a legacy of democratic development in Nigeria. No other political party could manage to eclipse in the foreseeable future.
A military coup is simply unthinkable in today’s Nigeria, what with a current population of more than 60 percent who had not known a single day of life under the military. And despite the cynicism of many Nigerian voters and the APC’s thinly veiled mischief in changing the electoral laws, our electoral system remains robust enough to deliver power to the opposition if they win. And were INEC to declare an opposition candidate winner of the next presidential election, it will be impossible for the APC not to concede as Nigerians would not accept anything less.
Why then are the prospects of a return to power so grim for the PDP? In my view, there are a few not so simple reasons. First, the PDP was a powerful political party, but it always lacked regenerative capacity. A political party has two mechanisms, above all, by which to regenerate and perpetuate itself into the future: a set of ideas effectively realised when in government and effectively transmitted to young members in or out of it. The PDP lacked both. The core of those who formed the party in 1998 have either moved on to the great beyond or are simply too old to remain relevant in today’s Nigerian politics. Thus lacking any coherent ideology deeply rooted in the political culture or political economy, and without a strong youth wing to carry on the mantle into the future, it simply hemorrhaged after sixteen years in power.
Moreover, as a political party, the PDP has not really recovered psychologically and financially from its loss of power in 2015. PDP used to devour opposition parties and politicians ranged against it. Today, the shoe is in the other leg. Many of those who held various offices under it are either now in political oblivion or have crossed over to the APC to remain relevant. But it is the PDP’s political brand, perhaps more than anything else, that has not recovered from defeat in 2015. At the 1999 elections, and for much of its 16-year reign, the PDP was the most national political party ever to emerge in Nigerian politics, with whole control over three and part control of two more of our six geo-political zones. Today, it controls none; and a party whose name was once synonymous with power is now more known for one man’s pettiness.
And then, there is the small matter of the PDP’s lack of a political agenda for Nigeria and the right candidate to sell it. For an opposition party to take power, it must first offer the electorate an alternative vision of society different to, and presumably better than, the one under an incumbent government. This alternative vision must be clearly conceptualised and articulated both in the abstract and in concrete policies that will resonate effectively with a majority of the electorate before and during elections. Above all, the opposition candidate must embody this alternative vision of society in all respects. In 2015, the APC achieved all three.
However, six years into life in opposition, the PDP is proving simply incapable of any. Why so? Why has the PDP been unable to regenerate itself, rebuild its brand name, or articulate and sell a vote-winning political agenda to Nigerians less than 20 months to the next election? I am not a party person, but I can think of only one reason. The PDP and its supporters are conflating Buhari’s underwhelming performance and recent unpopularity as acceptance for the PDP. If so, this would be a serious mistake because the two are very different political realities.
Voters have been known to return parties and politicians they are very much disgruntled with, for, among other reasons, because they think the opposition may yet be worse. As in 2019, the PDP may yet find out in 2023 that this is still the case with a majority of Nigerian voters.
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