Tinubu and fickle opposition front: Matters arising

As the administration of President Bola Tinubu sets to mark its second anniversary this month, May, 29 2025, it is doing so in the face of what may be good news for it, which is the unrelenting capitulation by sections of the opposition front.

Literally, from state to state, there seems to be a growing realignment of political interests and factors to seek accommodation with the ruling political party – the All Progressives Congress (APC) in one form or another under the leadership of the president. So pervasive has the situation become that there are wide spread concerns over the country’s political terrain gravitating towards a one-party state, where there will be little or no opposition to the government in power.

Already, not a few contemporary political circumstances portray a major deficit in opposition tendencies, whereby the ruling party seemingly runs literally unchallenged, with telling effects on the state of governance across the country. These concerns remain valid as while the opposition front remains more or less a sitting duck awaiting slaughter, so also runs the bold advocacy of the ruling party that there is no harm in Nigeria turning into a one-party state. For instance, the recent advocacy by the national chairman of the ruling APC, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, who cited that even a world power like China was run by a one-party state, is a case in point.

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While several instances of dips in the fortunes of the opposition had been recorded in the past, some of the more recent tendencies include Delta State – a traditional stronghold of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which recently stirred the country’s political turf when that state’s chapter of the party announced that its entire leadership structure was collapsing into the ruling APC. By this development, its PDP governor, Sheriff Oborovweri, along with the PDP- dominated Delta State House of Assembly and other leading lights of the party joined the APC, even as strange bed-fellows.

Akwa Ibom State, another stronghold of the PDP, was where its governor, Umo Eno, also recently declared support for the re-election bid by President Bola Tinubu of the APC, thereby foreclosing the prospects of his support for any presidential candidate from his PDP come 2027.  Even as this development constitutes a patent anti-party activity in PDP being a betrayal from the top, the reaction of the national leadership of the PDP is still awaited in the public domain.  

Coming close on the heels of the Akwa Ibom and Delta State cases was the recent stir created by the governor of Anambra State, Charles Soludo, also of the opposition All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), who, during the course of a recent visit to the state by President Bola Tinubu, unilaterally pledged the support of his party for the president’s re-election bid come 2027.

Against the backdrop of the deep-seated misgivings by a wide cross section of the South-East zone with laments of exclusion from and denial of the dividends of political gains from the Nigerian federation, Soludo’s proclamation expectedly attracted a spirited backlash in condemnation of his sole, pro-Tinubu campaign. Not a few voices – ostensibly from the zone – have risen in sharp rebuke of his advocacy.

Then came the rather unapologetic but ambitious advocacy by Dave Umahi, Minister of Works in the current administration for corralling the entire South-East zone to support the re-election bid of Tinubu come 2027. He is taking his gambit higher by highlighting the dividends accruable and ‘actually’ accruing to the South-East under the Tinubu dispensation. Umahi is even advocating a summit of the entire political structure of the South-East to rally support for Tinubu’s re-election as president come 2027. 

Against the rash of endorsements for Tinubu and the collapse of the opposition comes the issue of what motivations and pressures impel this tendency and the associated vitiation of opposition politics across the country? Why has joining the Tinubu bandwagon become the ‘Silk Road’ to enhanced political fortunes on the Nigerian political turf? And rather more pointed is the question of whether capitulation is all that is available to the opposition front?

As remains self-explanatory, opposition politics constitutes the safety valve for any democracy, especially for Nigeria, which has a multiplicity of disparate ethnic nationalities and needs consensus to progress as a single entity, at every stage of its political life. This is due to the provision of opposition politics for alternative views and tendencies, which allow for inclusiveness in a majority-minority political matrix. Courtesy of opposition politics, the majority may have its way while the minority still retains its voice with guaranteed scope for participation in the political process. This is also why the growing concern over the progressive decline in opposition politics remains valid as the play-out of stifling opposition in Nigeria has never ended well. The lessons of history teach that literally all the instances of political turmoil in the country from the days of the ‘Wild Wild West’ in the 1960s to the advent of military rule in 1966 and the resultant deadly 1967-’70 Nigerian Civil War, were all spawned by tendencies to stifle opposition politics.

This is also where the lessons of history teach that opposition politics in Nigeria has always been based on ephemeral values and shifting loyalties, due primarily to the unfortunate fact that political parties in the country’s history were neither formed nor run on ideological basis with the intent to foster altruistic outcomes, and thereby move the Nigerian society forward. Rather, the driving force for forming political parties has been crass-opportunism, with the intent to exploit the common patrimony in a winner takes all dispensation. 

However, while this situation has festered over the years in the country’s politics, it does not preclude a more creative approach from the opposition to think out of the box to explore options of surviving rather than mass capitulation. After all, the incumbent President Bola Tinubu, along with others, mobilised the opposition in 2013 to eventually overwhelm the ruling PDP and launch a new political dispensation – the APC, which led to the administration of immediate past President Muhamadu Buhari, with him now serving as the incumbent president.

In the same vein, what Nigerians expect from the opposition front is a new dispensation other than mass capitulation and self-immolation in the face of extant challenges. It has been done before and can be done again.