By Olukorede Yishau
POLITICAL PARTIES, like men, often think history is a story about other people’s past until it knocks on their own door and when it does, it rarely asks whether they were once popular, but it asks a simpler question: What did you learn?
It is the lack of this understanding that makes sitting too comfortably on a throne come with a peculiar danger: after a while, the occupant begins to see the throne as his birthright.
The occupant forgets that there was a time when he stood outside the palace, knocking on the door, promising those inside that he knew how to run the place better, he forgets the promises that brought him there and he forgets the people who opened the gate for him. And, most dangerously, he acts as though another group of people cannot someday kick him out.
I remember this analogy as I ponder the question that should concern the All Progressives Congress (APC) as it prepares for another presidential election: has the APC learnt from the mistakes that brought the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) down?
The question is not an accusation but a warning.
The ruling party must remember that the PDP did not collapse because somebody woke up one morning and decided that a 16-year-old political empire should disappear.
Instead, its 2015 defeat was the culmination of years of internal quarrels, defections, factional struggles, poor management of ambition and a growing disconnect between the party’s immense political machinery and the frustrations of ordinary Nigerians.
‘The PDP, I dare say, had become so accustomed to winning that it eventually seemed to forget that elections were still elections. While this fact was lost on the party that planned to rule for sixty years, the APC was born out of the recognition that the PDP could be defeated if opposition politicians stopped fighting one another and build a coalition.
So, it came about in 2013 from the merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change, All Nigeria Peoples Party and a faction of the PDP among others and two years later, it achieved what many had considered almost impossible: it defeated an incumbent ruling party.
Nowadays, I wonder: does the APC remember why it was created? Does it remember that it was once the opposition? Does it remember the politicians who defected to it because they believed the PDP had become too arrogant, too internally divided and too disconnected from the political mood of the country?
And does it understand that political parties can die from the same disease from which they once promised to rescue the country?
These are not academic questions. Look at the APC today.
The party has become extraordinarily powerful. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is its leader at the federal level.
It has comfortable majorities in the National Assembly and it has attracted a remarkable number of governors from opposition parties so much that it now controls 31 of Nigeria’s 36 states.
That is not merely electoral strength, but a political geography. And therein lies the danger. When almost everybody around you belongs to your political family, who tells you when the family is misbehaving?
Who tells the president that the people are angry? Who tells the party chairman that some members are beginning to behave like emperors? And, who tells the governor that the crowd at the rally is applauding because the cameras are on, not necessarily because the people are happy?
In those years, the PDP had governors. Lots of them. It had legislators. Lots of them. It had political godfathers. It had enough to distribute. And it had money, structures, incumbency and nearly everything a political party could desire.
But, what it eventually lacked was something more difficult to manufacture and that is the ability to hear itself honestly. The APC should worry about this.
I must say that the movement of politicians into the party is politically impressive. But defections are not necessarily evidence of ideological conversion because we all know that a politician can cross a political bridge because he has suddenly discovered a new political philosophy, but he can also cross because he has calculated where the stronger political shelter is. And Nigeria has seen this again and again.
We saw how politicians crossed into the PDP when it was powerful and crossed out when it became vulnerable. We cannot forget that many crossed into the APC when the APC became powerful.
Some are now crossing again. What does this tell us? It tells us that Nigerian political parties remain heavily personality-driven and structurally weak. It tells us that political loyalty can sometimes be less about ideology than survival.
And it tells us that the number of governors in a party may be a measure of political power, but it is not necessarily a measure of popular affection.
This is where the APC must distinguish between political expansion and political consolidation. I can confidently tell you that they are not the same thing.
A party can collect governors the way a child collects football stickers and still lose touch with the electorate. The PDP learnt this painfully.
The APC should not have to learn it painfully too.
Democracy was never designed merely for everybody to agree because sometimes disagreement is the smoke that tells you there is fire. A political party that cannot tolerate internal disagreement may eventually discover that its members have learnt to disagree outside the room. That was one of the PDP’s problems.
Its internal quarrels became so damaging that politicians who should have been fighting the opposition were fighting themselves. The famous rebellion of the G-5 governors remains one of the clearest examples.
Rather than presenting a united house to the electorate, the PDP entered the election carrying a quarrel on its back. The APC must therefore ask itself: are we managing disagreement or merely postponing it?
Disagreement does not disappear because the chairman says “consensus.” It simply changes address.
A serious political party must also think about the election after the next election. What happens to the APC after President Tinubu? Who controls its machinery?
Will the party remain a genuine political institution or become another vehicle whose identity is inseparable from one individual?
These are uncomfortable questions, but political organisations that refuse to ask uncomfortable questions eventually receive uncomfortable answers.
There is a lesson every Nigerian political party must learn: Nobody owns Nigeria’s political future. Not the PDP. Not the APC. Not any opposition coalition. Not any president. Not any governor. Not any godfather. The electorate does. And the electorate has a peculiar habit of becoming impatient.
There is no doubt that the current weakness of the opposition certainly gives the APC a formidable advantage going into 2027.
The emerging opposition coalitions have themselves been plagued by mistrust, defections and leadership disagreements. Recent attempts to construct a unified challenger have already suffered setbacks.
But APC leaders should be careful about celebrating the weakness of their opponents too loudly because the same complacency that weakens an opponent can infect the victor.
A government that believes it cannot lose may stop listening, a party that believes it cannot be defeated may stop correcting itself and a politician who believes the opposition is too weak to matter may forget that elections are ultimately about the voters, not the opposition parties.
My final take: Is the APC building a political party or merely building an electoral machine?
The distinction matters. An electoral machine is interested in winning; a political party should be interested in ideas; an electoral machine counts governors; a political party counts citizens; an electoral machine thinks about the next election; a political party thinks about the next generation.
It is also important to note that political parties are ultimately judged less by what they say about themselves and more by what citizens experience under their government and this is where the APC’s greatest test lies.
It must continuously make the ordinary Nigerian understand where the current sacrifice is taking the country. It must create jobs, make food affordable and available, convince young Nigerians that the future is not located abroad, and make the citizens feel that a sense of direction and belonging.
Quote
Is the APC building a political party or merely building an electoral machine? The distinction matters. An electoral machine is interested in winning; a political party should be interested in ideas; an electoral machine counts governors; a political party counts citizens; an electoral machine thinks about the next election; a political party thinks about the next generation.
—
