Amidst the general impression that most political parties have gone to sleep, while the ruling All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party are slugging it out ahead of the 2023 polls, some of the less active political organisations insist that they have presence across the country, OLUWAFEMI MORGAN writes
The general feeling of political pundits is that many opposition parties are only relevant as placeholders for politicians who hope to use their platforms once they lose out in the ruling APC and the main opposition PDP. This is exemplified by the movement of the ex-governor of Ekiti State, Segun Oni, to the Social Democratic Party after he lost at the PDP governorship primary for the state.
The placeholder theory as regards the political parties is best exemplified by their relative silence concerning holding of meetings, contributing to national discourse and increasing their size through the mobilisation of like minds into their folds. The opposition parties often disappear from the political space only to reappear at the peak of elections to display a weak response to political matters.
The end result has always been poor performance at the polls. Most of the opposition parties hardly win any seat at the National and state Houses of Assemblies. Of course, at the local government level, it has always been the ruling party in each state that occupies the local government councils.
Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission deregistered 74 political parties in February 2020 based on the result of the audit of their accounts as well as their underperformance at the polls. Despite an Appeal Court ruling and the reinstatement of the Boot Party and the Allied Peoples’ Movement by the court, INEC remained resolute on its resolve to focus only on 18 parties for the 2023 polls.
A statement by the Chairman of INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, in 2021 indicated that the deregistered parties failed to win “at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in one state of the federation in a presidential election; in one local government area of a state in a governorship election; in at least one ward in a chairmanship election; one seat in the National or state Assembly election; or one seat in a councillorship election.”
The 16 parties that scaled through the pruning include the Accord Party, Action Alliance, African Action Congress, African Democratic Congress, African Democratic Party, All Progressives Congress, All Progressives Grand Alliance and the Allied Peoples Movement.
Others were the Labour Party, New Nigeria Peoples Party, National Rescue Movement, Peoples Democratic Party, Peoples Redemption Party, Social Democratic Party, Young Progressive Party and Zenith Labour Party.
Another concern of political analysts is the silence on strategic political mergers. For many, the APC could only have ousted the PDP successfully due to the merger of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change with the Action Congress of Nigeria and others. Not a few are of the view that the idea of the Third Force recently mooted by the likes of Profs Pat Utomi and Attahiru Jega of the Rescue Nigeria Project remains an intellectual exercise as not much is known about negotiations among the opposition parties.
Sunday PUNCH reached out to some of the political parties to ascertain their level of preparedness for their respective primary elections, their structures and their position on various issues.
The National Chairman of the African Action Congress, Dr Leonard Nzenwa, said the party had consistently engaged the public on national issues, especially the issue of insecurity in the country.
Nzenwa claimed that the party had structures across the country and was willing to welcome progressives, who had defected from other parties as potential candidates. Although the party chieftain lamented that some dismissed members of the AAC had continued to misrepresent the party, he asserted that it was willing to form a merger with progressive minds.
“As long as you are law-abiding, you are not an irritant, you are not an outcast legally, you don’t have a problem with the state, and you are not unnecessarily comical and controversial, the party will see you as a (potential) candidate, but once you are an entertainer and a comic, the party will not have anything to do with you,” he stated.
The Public Relations Officer of the AAC, Slyvester Cletus, disclosed that a former PDP chieftain, Dr Caro Nwosu, had been cleared by the party as its presidential aspirant. She had earlier been endorsed by the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Women in Abuja recently.
While responding to the challenges of opposition parties, Cletus said “moneybags” might take over a lot of the opposition parties once they lose out of the primaries in the main political parties. He noted, “Politics has been monetised. To rescue Nigeria you have to make sacrifices, consult and engage various interests, while making sure that the party and the electorate do not sell their conscience to the highest bidder.”
In a similar vein, the National Secretary of the ADC, Said Abdullahi, said the party remained present in all the states of the federation and would become more formidable as a result of the current merger talks.
“The Labour Party is adopting us; the NLC will be adopting us within the next few days, as well as other NGOs and so on. We are forming a merger party; all the meetings have gone a very long way. We are forming a merger party known as the ADC,” he said, adding that the current talks with the LP had been fruitful, while continuing to wait for other parties to clear the legal hurdles (with INEC) before they would join the ADC alliance.
Abdullahi said the ADC held its convention on March 23, 2022, but had yet to hold its primaries. He described the APC and the PDP as “two viruses” that have wreaked havoc on the nation.
In a similar vein, the National Chairman of the ADP, Yabagi Sani, disclosed that the party held its convention on Wednesday, March 23, 2022, even as he welcomed all Nigerians to join it. He did not give any further details concerning possible merger with other parties.
Though the ADP’s presence couldn’t be said to be readily felt in all parts of the country, Sani claimed that the political party had its structure in all the states. He asked our correspondent to visit the party’s website to have a full grasp of its activities. Sani claimed that the ADP was a youth-driven party that would continue to strive to gain a robust membership base through its website.
A visit to the website of the party revealed executives who are relatively unknown in the Nigerian political firmament. Although the party claims to have a nationwide spread, its website only reveals the address of the national headquarters in Abuja.
However, the National Chairman of the APP, Yusuf Dantalle, claimed that the party had a nationwide spread, even as he failed to state clearly if it had a presidential candidate despite claiming to have organised its primaries. He said the party had constantly responded to political issues, adding that many of the challenges in the nation were as a result of years of bad governance and poverty, which had made idle hands to take up arms against the country.
While responding to a question on the APP’s activities, the party chieftain said the only difference between many of the existing parties and the ruling party in terms of the range of activities was that the APC used public funds to enhance its presence, while others lacked the needed funding to push their agendas.
The National Secretary, AA, Suleiman Abdulrasheed, said the party, which had been holding its convention every year, was working towards meeting the INEC deadline in due time.
Abdulrasheed, who stressed that the party had its secretariats nationwide, said it was not into any merger arrangement with other parties. He also stated that the AA had yet to have a presidential aspirant, but was working assiduously to convene its National Working Committee meeting, which would guide other internal democratic processes.
The National Chairman, North, National Rescue Mission, Usman Jikamshi, said a lot of people were showing interest in the party, noting that groups and deregistered parties would be “fusing” with the NRM. He stressed that the NRM would pool together the best hands to rule the country.
“We are considering an upset to those two parties (the APC and the PDP) because those two are the same. They caused collateral damage to us; so, we all have to put all hands on the deck,” Jikamshi stated.
The PUNCH had reported that the PRP re-elected Bello Falalu as its National Chairman during its national convention held on Saturday, April 2, 2023. Falalu promised a level playing field for all aspirants and also urged all to embark on a robust membership drive.
In an earlier response to our correspondent, the Special Adviser on Media to the PRP National Chairman, Mohammed Ishaq, said, “So far, we are in talks with the MC Front and the Rescue Nigeria Movement, but we have not concluded.”
While claiming that the PRP had structures across the country, he said, “We have been in the media criticising and correcting the government about many issues, particularly regarding corruption, insecurity and others.”
He also noted that other political interests were willing to adopt the party, adding that Jega had already joined the PRP and called on the media to shift their gaze from the APC and the PDP to the activities of the other parties. He also noted that apart from visibility, opposition parties were challenged by limited funds and the cloud of insecurity in the country, which had continued to hamper their consultation, mobilisation and negotiations.
Ishaq stated that although the party’s primaries had not been slated, the immediate past chairman of the Nigerians-in-Diaspora Organisation, USA, Patience Ndidi Key, recently declared for President under the PRP platform.
However, members of the civil society organisation raised concerns about the preparedness of the less visible opposition parties to cause a major upset to the ruling and the main opposition parties in the country. Although they remained optimistic that the opposition parties still have time to get their acts together and consolidate merger talks, they added that visibility, funding and internal practices might not favour the emergence of an opposition party as the ruling party in 2023.
The Chief Executive of Connected Development, Hamza Lawal, lamented that the opposition parties did not have the kind of reach, popular personalities and the grassroots presence that the APC and the PDP wield in the nation. Lawal added that opposition parties lacked the strategic mechanism to disseminate their messages and present their candidates, therefore hampering their capacity to win Nigerians to their side.
“When you look at the two major political parties, you have popular members who are some of their founding fathers. A lot of these (opposition) political parties do not have structures at the grassroots level, and they don’t even have a framework that tell people what they are doing and what their plans are. A lot of them are silent on issues that affect every Nigerian,” Lawal observed.
The activist explained that the kind of “vibrant” opposition that the APC gave the PDP in 2014 was currently non-existent, adding, “For instance, I remember pre-2015, we had a vibrant opposition, but now we don’t have a vibrant opposition, and when you look at the political parties, their presidential aspirants, a lot of them are not popular. They don’t have relevance on the ground and they are not doing anything that will bring value or hope to the Nigerian people. The so-called Third Force is just a bubble. There is no force; the only two forces we have are the two main political parties.”
The CODE boss advised voters to ask questions, stating, “What are the political parties saying? Who are the party owners, the so-called godfathers of the party? What is their vision? What are their ideologies? Most of the parties do not have ideologies. This is one of the things that are fostering voter apathy in the country.”
The Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, told our correspondent that opposition parties needed to do more than bring national issues to the front burner. He noted that the parties needed to provide alternative solutions to lingering problems, while also making sure that they field the right candidates. Itodo expressed fear that many of the opposition parties would make “moneybags” their candidates due to their high nomination form fees.
“In public outreach and mobilisation, they must use the opportunity they have to provide alternatives. If the APC is not performing or delivering on security and economy, what are the alternatives? How will the other parties address the governance and the developmental challenges that Nigeria is currently grappling with?” Itodo queried.
However, the co-convener of the Centre for Liberty, Aare Ariyo Atoye, expressed disappointment that the main opposition party, the PDP, had not been able to galvanise other opposition parties under a government of national unity. He stated, “It is not automatic that the failure of the APC will bring another party to power. They must fight for it. I have not seen that fight; I have not seen that coordination.
“You may say that the manner of opposition put forward by the APC was really off the mark in 2014/2015 because they went overboard. They even employed propaganda, but they were desperate for it. Now, we have the worst situation; I have not seen a coordinated PDP. Do you know that the PDP has not reached out to the smaller parties to even promise a government of national unity? They think it is automatic,” he said.
Atoye added that the opposition parties were not pulling their weights towards 2023 because they all seemed to be carrying on as if they could oust the APC singlehandedly.
While the general polls have been fixed for early 2023, only time will tell if the opposition parties will wake up to their responsibilities or continue to wait for the fallouts of elections in the ruling APC and the main opposition PDP.
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