Those of us who longed for competitive politics in Nigeria to stop the country becoming a dominant-party state welcomed the advent of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a formidable rival to the then dominant People’s Democratic Party (PDP). And we all hailed the historic victory of the APC in this year’s presidential election, the first time an opposition candidate unseated an incumbent president in Nigeria. It was a turning point in the electoral history of this country and signalled the emergence of a permanent competitive two-party system in Nigeria. Now, however, it is starting to look as if the APC’s unprecedented feat in the 2015 presidential election might be a one-hit wonder, a flash in the pan. The truth is that while it took PDP 16 years to completely unravel and lose power at the centre, it might take the APC just four unless it takes a step back from the abyss!
This is a provocative postulation, but it’s based on two simple premises. The first is that the APC is not a cohesive party, but a very fragile coalition of strange political bedfellows, and its chances of re-election in 2019 depend, in large part, on the shaky coalition holding together. The second premise is that APC’s electoral strength, based on the results of this year’s presidential election, is not so impregnable as to make PDP’s return to power in 2019 unimaginable. Now, because the APC is a tenuous coalition and because it is still inchoate, it needs another victory in 2019 to establish itself as a strong and competitive party that has come to stay. But if it loses in 2019, it would be seen as a fantastic political experiment that nevertheless has no staying power, and it would simply dismember and become irrelevant.
“Adapt or die” is a common Darwinian refrain in the business world. But it also applies to all walks of life. Just as empires and multinational companies have come and gone, great political parties can rise and fall. As Charles Darwin pointed out, it’s not the strongest or the most intelligent species that survive but the ones most responsive or adaptable to change. And it seems to me that the existential challenge that APC faces is how to unify its fragile and fractious coalition into a cohesive party. In other words, the APC must unite or die!
Unfortunately, the leadership of APC is in denial about the nature of the party’s problem. Some are even complacent about the 2019 general elections. For instance, APC’s national chairman, John Oyegun, believes it’s too early to talk about 2019. In a recent media statement, he said: “Good Lord! You’ve not even finished 2015, you’re talking about 2019”. But that is short-sighted for two reasons. First, four years is not eternity and second, serious political parties don’t think that way. For instance, the chairman of the UK Conservative party, which won a surprise victory in this year’s May 7 general election, said in a recent interview: “In the weeks after the 2010 elections, we were already looking ahead to 2015”, adding that, “We were determined not to let the campaigning capacity collapse between elections”. Serious political parties don’t go to sleep after winning or losing an election. They strengthen their structure, capacity and grass-roots support to become an even stronger fighting force in the next elections.
Of course, while Oyegun thinks four years is eternity and wants his party to take a holiday, its main rival, PDP, is working 24/7, fixated on 2019. The PDP is daily making strategic political calculations. The party’s role in the APC leadership crisis in the National Assembly and the emergence of its senator, Ike Ekweremadu, as deputy Senate president, were carefully orchestrated. The focus of these strategic moves is, of course, the next general elections, and some PDP leaders and strategists can smell victory in 2019. Now, I believe PDP still has a mountain to climb to repair its damaged credibility and become electable again, but I also believe that APC’s electoral base is not so unassailable as to make victory for PDP in 2019 unthinkable, especially if APC underperforms and if its frail coalition unravels. Let us, for purely analytical purposes, consider the results of the 2015 presidential election.
Nationally, Buhari beat Goodluck Jonathan by 2.5 million votes. This is not a significant margin in the grand scheme of things, and APC could lose that advantage depending on what happens in the South-East, South-South and South-West in 2019. These three geo-political zones are important because to retain the presidency in 2019 the APC must, in addition to maintaining its strong performance in the North, where it won in 17 of the 19 states, also win in enough states in the South. So, how could things look for the APC in these three zones in 2019?
Take the South-East first. The zone gave PDP a bloc-vote in the 2015 presidential election, but it was a lukewarm support compared to 2011. For instance, in 2011, the South-East gave Jonathan 4,985,246 votes, but these dropped significantly to 2,464,906 in 2015, by more than 50 percent. The turnout in Imo was only 42 percent from 84 percent in 2011, and in Abia, it was 30 percent, down from 78 percent. But the South-East was never endeared to Buhari. He received a paltry 20,335 there in 2011, and just about 300,000 in 2015. Now, if the South-East is unhappy with the Buhari government, and the primordial ill-feeling is still strong, and decides to vote for the PDP again in 2019, but this time massively, the APC could be in trouble in terms of its overall votes.
For historical and ideological reasons, political parties have their strongholds. For instance, in the UK, the Conservatives are strong in the South of England, while Labour’s traditional base is the North. In the US, Democrats are strong in the South, while the Republicans are solid in the North. Now, these allegiances can occasionally change, but traditional loyalties tend to be strong. I think we can also say that, in Nigeria, the South-South and the South-East are PDP strongholds. The Jonathan influence will still be strong in the South-South, and the Igbo may not warm to Buhari and his government. Consequently, APC may still not get massive votes from the two zones in 2019 unless there is a seismic political shift!
So, here is the point. Assuming the South-South and the South-East stick with PDP in 2019, it follows that APC must keep its North and South-West coalition intact to have a chance of retaining power. Buhari got only 321,609 in the South-West in 2011, but under the APC he received 2,433,193 from the zone in 2015. Even if Buhari or whoever APC fields from the North in 2019 retains all the 17 Northern states that the party won this year, the APC’s presidential candidate would still need to win in most, if not all, of the six South-West states to be re-elected in 2019.
This is why the fracturing of the APC North and South-West coalition poses an existential threat to the party. In a recent statement, Bisi Akande, former interim chairman of APC, said that party’s crisis stemmed from a “conspiracy of the North against the Yoruba”. Indeed, the view has gained currency that some APC leaders want to humiliate Bola Tinubu and reduce his influence in the party. Yet without Tinubu, who the Financial Times described as “Nigeria’s Svengali”, the APC would not have been formed in the first place, and the party would not have won in the South-West, the linchpin of APC’s victory in the presidential election.
But, now, all is not well with the APC’s North and South-West alliance. The problem this poses for the APC is that although the South-West is the party’s only stronghold in the South, it faces stiff competition from the PDP there. For instance, in this year’s presidential election, PDP won 42 percent of the total valid votes cast in the South-West as against APC’s 56 percent, and currently controls two of the zone’s six states. The rupturing of the APC’s North and South-West alliance would certainly be a boon to PDP, which is waiting in the wings. Indeed, if the view that the North “used and dumped” the South-West, as Akande has insinuated, is widely shared, it may work against the APC in the South-West. Ominously, Akande, whose view is likely to be shared by several prominent APC South-West leaders, believes that APC, in its present state, may not be strong enough to win the presidency again in 2019. To be sure, the discontent in the South-West wing of the APC coalition is very damaging to the party. And if you also consider the rumblings in the Northern faction of the alliance, with the possibility that some disgruntled and ambitious former PDP leaders may return to the PDP in 2019 and take some states with them, then you would see why APC faces an uncertain future. That’s without even adding the fact that a resurgent PDP may field a popular Northern candidate that could split APC’s votes in the North.
So, APC faces an existential crisis. To survive, Buhari needs to perform very well and deliver on his election promises. Then, the party must hold its fragile coalition together. This looks like a tall order at the moment. But the starting point must be to pacify the South-West element of the coalition. It would be a strategic mistake, for instance, to antagonise Tinubu and other prominent APC South-West leaders. The APC should also sort itself out in the North. The truth is that without unifying its fragile coalition, the APC would become extinct; it would be as dead as a dodo. This would be a loss, because Nigeria needs a robust and competitive two-party system.
Olu Fasan
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
