To argue that contemporary Nigeria’s politics and political parties, are in a flux, is in a way, an understatement. They are rather fleeting and defy precision. It can then be understood why the erstwhile Senate President, Chuba Okadigbo, mocked that what Nigeria had, were rallies and not political parties.
By Emeka Alex Duru
To argue that contemporary Nigeria’s politics and political parties, are in a flux, is in a way, an understatement. They are rather fleeting and defy precision. It can then be understood why the erstwhile Senate President, Chuba Okadigbo, mocked that what Nigeria had, were rallies and not political parties.
According to the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Overview, the difference between political parties and rallies lies in their function. A political party is a permanent, organized group seeking to gain power, while a political rally is a temporary event used by parties and candidates to mobilize support and showcase strength.
Political parties or rallies?
Collins Dictionary defines political party as an organization of people who share the same views about the way power should be used in a country or society (through government, policy-making, etc. It also explains rally as a large public meeting that is held in order to show support for something such as a political party. From the definitions and explanations, a political party, ideally, is ideology-driven. It is an aggregation of people with common interest, a product of conviction and orientation by members. That informs the classification of political parties in advanced democracies as being of the far right, far left or moderates.
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On the other hand, a rally is momentary and aims at an immediate agenda. The moment the target of a rally is realised, the gathering is dispersed or disperses. That, unfortunately, is the character and manifestation of the present political parties in the land.
PDP to the rescue?
Perhaps, it was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that could be said to have come close to qualifying as a political party before it was mismanaged. At its formation on July 29, 1998, the facilitators of PDP were guided by far reaching visions. They had dreamed of a party that would put the Nigerian nation on a new phase of political engineering.
Part of their intention was to put in place a political platform that would ensure a “re-creation of civil political institutions, reconciliation of Nigeria, rekindling of the spirit of unity and brotherhood in the polity and the revitalization of powers of the people to build a prosperous industrial democracy. The founders had aimed at bringing together all patriotic Nigerians of like minds into a single formidable party capable of renewing and refocusing the loyalties and productive energies of the nation to work for national reconciliation, economic and social reconstruction, respect for human rights and rule of law and to restructure the country in the true spirit of federalism.
Their long-term aspiration was to erect a frame work that would ensure a just and equitable distribution of power, resources, wealth and opportunities to conform with the principles of power shift and power sharing, rotation of key political offices and equitable devolution of powers to zones, states and local governments so as to create socio-political conditions conducive to national unity and to defend the sanctity of electoral democracy.
Parties without ideologies
Other political parties that came up at the time – the All Peoples Party (APP) and Alliance for Democracy (AD), did not boast of such elaborate foundation and platform. By sheer coincidence or design, membership of the APP comprised more of people who had had dealings with the military administrations at one point or another. Critics, did not therefore see them as real democrats. In similar vein, while the largely South West-based AD, prided itself as a home for politicians of progressive tendencies, it was rather obvious that the party was a platform for Yoruba chieftains that needed a forum to carry on with the region’s trademark opposition politics.
It was therefore not strange that the APP and AD could not withstand the pressure from the PDP and their internal contradictions. While the APP transformed to All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and got stagnated, the AD metamorphosed to the Action Congress (AC) and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), that appeared its ceiling. The fusion of the two – ANPP, ACN – with elements from the General Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Rochas Okorocha’s All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) under the All Progressives Congress (APC), in 2014, became compelling for the parties to confront the PDP in the election the following year. APC thus was a special purpose vehicle, lacking precise principles, other than displacing PDP and gaining power in 2015.
Enter the APC
The victory of the APC in the 2015 general election altered the tempo and direction of the nation’s politics. Ever since, whatever pretensions to ideology in party affiliations by the political players, have been thrown to the winds. The trend rather has been characterised by flurry of movements by even elected officials from one political party to another. It has so bad that the constitutional limitations placed on the legislators against dumping their parties for another except in instances of pronounced crises, are not being observed. With the race for 2027 politics unofficially on the way, the movement has been in top gears.
Alignments, realignments without cause
By 2023, before the gale of defections, APC was in control of 21 states, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had 13, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Labour Party (LP), had one apiece. With the defections, the APC currently has 31 states in its column, PDP two (Bauchi and Oyo), LP, one (Abia) and APGA one (Anambra). Accord is holding on to Osun following Governor Ademola Adeleke’s exit from the PDP.
In like manner, as of May 2026, the APC held a commanding majority in the 10th Senate, with reports indicating that the party had approximately 73 to 88 senators out of the 109 total seats. The statistics indicated a significant increase in APC’s strength from the initial 2023 election results through several defections from opposition parties.
Opposition in disarray, democracy in trouble
The fragmentation in the opposition camps makes it difficult to assign any figure on the number of senators or House of Representatives to any of the parties. Few days ago, 17 members of the House of Representatives announced their defection from the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC).
The fate of democracy and growth of party politics in the absence of robust opposition, therefore hangs on the balance. The immediate fear is the subtle manipulation of the country towards a one-party state. Realisation of such bizarre agenda by President Bola Tinubu and his APC, would amount to a sudden death to multi-party system and an onset to civilian autocracy.
