Tinubu’s rises stronger as opposition parties fall apart
Cracks within Nigeria’s opposition parties have cleared the path for President Bola Tinubu’s dominance across national matters as the 2027 elections approach.
Political analysts argue that there is virtually no real opposition to the president at the moment, except for an army of young people on X and Facebook, who have taken up the unofficial role of holding the government to account.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which once prided itself as the most powerful party in Africa, is now as weak as a worm, as it begins its journey into political oblivion, experts say.
In 2007, PDP had 32 governors. After the 2015 defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan, the number of the party’s governors whittled down to 12.
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However, the cracks in the 2023 election between Atiku Abubakar, its presidential candidate, and Nyesom Wike, ex-Rivers State governor and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), have had an untold impact on the PDP, with the party’s leadership unable to put the brakes on.
Though the number of PDP governors rose to 13 after the rancorous 2023 elections, the party now has eight governors, with governors switching to the All Progressives Congress (APC) like bees to the honey.
BusinessDay gathered that two more PDP governors are at the exit door, waiting for the opportune time to announce their departure.
However, Ayo Fayose, ex-Ekiti State governor, claims that three more PDP governors will leave the party within the shortest possible time.
“Let me tell you, there are three more governors that will leave soon,” Fayose said.
“There will be five remaining. The five remaining, one of them will struggle to catch the ticket, and they all know that the ticket is an ordinary tissue paper,” he noted.
To think that these comments came from a one-time biggest voice in the PDP after the 2015 election is unimaginable. Fayose, once the ‘Lion of PDP,’ criticised former President Muhammadu Buhari so badly that APC members wanted him jailed. Due to his loyalty to former President Jonathan, Fayose stood Buhari in the face and sometimes told him the uncomfortable truth.
“For a President that was elected because he promised to fight corruption and clear the North-East of the Boko Haram insurgents within three months, the signs that he must take a bow and return home are clear,” Fayose said in 2018, while calling for President Buhari’s resignation.
The statement was then signed by Lere Olayinka, the then special assistant to Fayose on Public Communications and New Media.
Olayinka is currently a media aide to Wike and he fights with PDP members on social media, some of whom he once defended.
As a party, the PDP died after the 2023 election, experts note. It violated the rotational arrangement put in place by its founding fathers by refusing to zone the presidential ticket to the South. Atiku, from the North-East region, eventually won the ticket at a point Muhammadu Buhari from the North-West concluded an eight-year term.
Also, the former vice president did not agree to cede the vice presidential ticket to Wike, which inflamed the crisis before and after the 2023 election. Atiku eventually lost the election, worsening the party’s fortunes.
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“That turned out to be the biggest mistake of the century,” Adaku Amadioza, an Abuja-based lecturer of politics.
“Even if there was no rotation by the PDP, the fact that the APC had a southerner as a candidate should have informed them about the national sentiment at that time. And, if Atiku had ceded the VP ticket to Wike, the story, perhaps, would have been different. Wike will not only win Rivers, but can also influence some of the states in the South eventually won by Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate,” Amadioza said.
Analysts argue that the money politics in the PDP and the preference for certain candidates by the PDP forced out a potentially better candidate like Obi, who could have given a bigger fight on the PDP ticket in the 2023 election.
Shockingly, the two principal actors in the 2023 presidential elections are no longer active in the PDP.
Wike is a federal minister under an APC-led government and members of his group in the 2023 election have nearly exited. In fact, Wike has publicly admitted that he would support President Tinubu in 2027 – something that would have been taken more seriously in the PDP heyday.
Also, Atiku Abubakar has moved to the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Right now, the number of PDP governors could fall to five or four before the 2027 election, and the party does not seem to enjoy the confidence of Nigerians.
The nation has now lost opposition in the mould of Lai Mohammed, Adams Oshiomole, and Chibuike Amaechi, who forced the Jonathan presidency into issuing multiple press releases in one day.
Labour Party
The Labour Party, which was once thought of as a viable opposition, is not spared.
Obi and his group are backing the Nenadi Usman-led National Executive Committee (NEC), as Julius Abure and his team lay claim to party leadership.
It has been one litigation to another, with party leaders unable to compromise.
The party has interpreted a Supreme Court judgment on its leadership crisis differently, worsening its self-inflicted crisis.
Though Obi’s voice is loud, his words are not often taken seriously. One APC member described him as “desperate.”
“Right now, the Labour Party cannot win an election without someone like Peter Obi. On the other hand, PDP can’t win an election even with Goodluck Jonathan. I am sure Jonathan won’t even consider joining the PDP because a house divided against itself cannot stand,” Hamzat Umaru, president of Nigerian Voters’ Forum, noted.
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Tinubu having his way
Right now, with the opposition also speaking differently and fighting itself, rather than the government in power, analysts say President Tinubu can afford to change his skin colour without batting an eyelid.
Except the usual opposition from the ‘noisy neighbours’ on social media, Nigerians no longer have confidence in the opposition, with many speculating that the 2027 presidential election is already won and lost.
“We have never been closer to a one-party state than now. Tinubu does not need to worry about PDP, the Labour Party or the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He is only contesting against the Nigerian people in 2027,” Umaru noted.
