There are uncanny similarities in terms of the intensity of competitiveness and degree of bitterness at the outcome of the polls between the 1979 and 2023 presidential elections, although the two events were separated by almost four and a half decades. In 1979, candidates from the three major ethnic groups were in the contest on the platforms of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and the Nigeria People’s Party (NPP).
There were also relatively minority northern candidates fielded by the Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP) and the People’s Redemption Party (PRP). Although the candidate of the NPN, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, had a slight edge in the electoral votes of the North, Mallam Aminu Kano of the PRP and Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim of the GNPP also had impressive votes in the North, splitting the votes of the region among the three presidential candidates in the race.
However, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the fabled Owelle of Onitsha, swept the Igbo votes of the then Anambra and Imo states while also emerging triumphant in the predominantly Christian Plateau State of the Middle Belt region. The UPN candidate, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, made a clean sweep of the votes in the Yoruba States of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and Ondo, as well as the mid-western state of then Bendel.
Although Shagari shared the votes of his northern region with Aminu Kano and Waziri Ibrahim, he emerged victorious in the presidential election, with triumphs in such minority states as Rivers, Cross-Rivers, Niger, Kwara and Benue States. While Shagari scored 5,686,857 votes to win the election, albeit a minority victory, his major opponents, Awo and Zik, had a combined total of 7,739,074 votes, demonstrating how close and thus credible the election was.
Yet, the Shagari administration took off on a note of shaky legitimacy as a result of large numbers of Nigerians, particularly in the Southwest, bitter and disenchanted with the outcome of the polls. This was compounded by the decision of the Supreme Court in the legal challenge mounted by Awolowo against the elections, with the apex court ruling that two-thirds of each of the then 19 states was 12 and two-thirds of a 13th state, a requirement met by Shagari, and not 13 states as the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) had consistently maintained prior to the election.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that the Supreme Court could hardly have given a different verdict, given the pattern of votes scored by the parties in the election and the NPN’s demonstration of greater national spread, even though the departing military regime was clearly more inclined to handover to that party. Unfortunately, the sheer venality and incompetence of the Shagari administration when compared to the far greater sense of purpose and capacity of the UPN-controlled state governments made the ruling NPN a sitting duck for the daily lethal shots of the opposition media, particularly the redoubtable Tribune Group of newspapers, which continuously and consistently chipped away at its legitimacy.
Four and a half decades later, in the 2023 presidential elections, the country was confronted with the same dilemma. The three major ethnic groups had candidates in the race on the platforms of the APC, PDP, LP and NNPC respectively. Each of the parties recorded victories in the ethno-regional bases of their candidates, but with President Bola Tinubu having greater electoral spread than the other candidates in the pattern of votes recorded.
Indeed, the President had over 8 million votes to the combined over 14 million votes recorded by his key opponents, indicating they could very well have achieved victory had the opposition approached the election as a cohesive and harmonious unit rather than fragmenting their electoral support base the way they did. Yet, rather than come to terms with reality, the candidates and their supporters continue to blame rigging and the bias of the electoral umpire for the outcome of the 2023 presidential polls.
Unfortunately, the bitterness in the aftermath of the last presidential elections has coloured the disposition of the opposition to the President Tinubu administration and the corresponding attitude of the government in response. Unlike the Shagari administration, it is difficult to accuse the ruling government today of incompetence, at least going by the outcomes of its admittedly painful but imperative economic reforms, and the gains of such policies as the removal of fuel subsidies and merger of parallel exchange rate markets have been acknowledged both internally and by disinterested external development organisations.
Yet, the opposition sees absolutely no good in any policy of the administration, even while refraining from presenting its own alternative policy proposals for public scrutiny just about a year to the next polls.
Learning no lessons whatsoever from its 2023 electoral debacle, the leading opposition elements remain as fractious as ever. While posturing as forming an anti-Tinubu coalition to oust the President and his party from power in 2027, each major aspirant continues to nurture an essentially separatist presidential ambition. It was such ambitious individualism that led to a further fracturing of the PDP with the departure of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his supporters for the African Democratic Congress (ADC), chosen as the electoral vehicle of the anti-Tinubu coalition for the 2027 polls.
Other leading opposition elements that have joined the ADC ranks include Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, Mr Peter Obi and, lately, Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso. None of these with presidential aspirations has signaled any intention to surrender the pursuit of personal ambition for the actualization of a collective agenda.
Unfortunately, in picking the ADC as its special purpose vehicle for the 2027 elections, members of the coalition did not take into account existing leadership struggles within the party before its virtual hijack. Now, ongoing legal struggles between contending factions in the ADC have resulted in the INEC refusing to accord recognition to any of the claimants to the leadership of the party until a definitive judicial ruling is given on the matter. The Senator David Mark faction of the ADC, formerly recognized by INEC, has criticised this stance of INEC, claiming collusion between the commission and the ruling APC to frustrate and sabotage the party and calling for the removal of the INEC National Chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan.
But as this newspaper’s Managing Editor and columnist, Lawal Ogienagbon, pertinently noted in his news analysis yesterday, “It is instructive to note that INEC has been consistent in dealing with parties in accordance with judicial pronouncements. It registered the Democratic Leadership Alliance (DLA) and the Nigeria Democratic Party (NDP) following court orders. It also granted access to the Grassroots Initiative Party (GRIP) to complete registration as a party based on a court order. After a long drawn battle, the court in January resolved the Labour Party (LP) leadership feud in favour of a former Minister, Dr Esther Nenadi Usman, and INEC recognised her, and derecognised Julius Abure, who it had hitherto related with in that capacity”.
Ogienagbon also made reference to the judicial nullification of the Ibadan National Convention of a faction of the PDP, which was held in defiance of two court restraining orders, resulting in the recognition of the Nyesom Wike-led National Working Committee by INEC. There is thus nothing capricious or arbitrary in the decisions of INEC in terms of party leadership recognition.
What is troubling is that there is no indication of greater harmony and cohesion among the opposition today than was the case in 2023, despite current cosmetic and deceptive superficialities. And the bitterness among contending factions and factions of the political class becomes even more palpable as the race towards 2027 gathers steam. Indeed, it has been stated that the Tinubu administration was not yet six months in office when plans commenced for the formation of a coalition to oust his administration from power. Reacting to consistent boasts on national television that the opposition coalition would chase the incumbent administration out of power come 2027, the ruling party refused to be a sitting duck, dug in and deployed its advantages to consolidate its hold on power.
An obsession with ousting Tinubu from power has prevented the opposition from dispassionately criticising the administration’s policies and presenting viable alternatives to the citizens. The Tinubu administration is lucky that the non-stop politicking forced on it from the inception in 2023 has not distracted it from implementing reforms that are yielding substantial fruits.
In the final analysis, it is the responsibility of both the ruling and non-ruling political elite to continue to operate within the context of a competitive democratic framework and do nothing to jeopardise its smooth functioning in the interest of stability. This means the opposition’s recognition of the legitimacy of an incumbent administration and the ruling party’s sensitivity to the imperative of a viable opposition as critical to the proper functioning of democracy.
In our emergent world where might is becoming equivalent with right, the ruling elite of backward but resource-endowed countries like ours must put aside ultimately self-sabotaging fractiousness and rather utilise democracy as a hand-maiden to transcending underdevelopment. The alternative would be for their countries to slip into greater poverty, chaos, underdevelopment and instability thus making conditions favourable for disruptive external intrusions or dysfunctional internal anti-democratic eruptions.
