The gale of defections from opposition parties to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, appears to suggest that Nigeria may be tilting dangerously towards a one-party system. While such moves are often dismissed as part of political evolution, the frequency and motives behind the defections have triggered fresh concerns about the health of the country’s democratic experiment. Dissecting the emerging pattern and its implications, renowned civil society leader and Professor of Political Science, Odion Akhaine, unpacks the structural and ideological weaknesses plaguing Nigeria’s political parties. In this no-holds-barred interview, he explains why party culture has failed to take root, how political survivalism drives the shifting allegiances, and why Nigeria’s opposition may already be out of time to mount any serious challenge to President Bola Tinubu in 2027.
With an insider’s perspective drawn from years of academic inquiry and civic engagement, Akhaine warns that what is unfolding isn’t just a political strategy, but also a systemic crisis.
Looking at the gale of defections from
opposition parties to the ruling party, do you think it is enough to say that Nigeria is gradually becoming a one-party state?
Given our authoritarian history, people are bound to interpret tendencies such as this as an inclination towards a one-party state. But that does not encapsulate the reality of the Nigerian polity. Nigeria is a diverse society with many ethnic groups. We casually say there are 250 ethnic groups, but they are more than 600.
That kind of society is a marketplace of ideas. To that extent, you cannot put those ideas into one box. It is very impossible to do so. Looking at it from the deficit side, you will realise that we have not had a party culture since the advent of the Fourth Republic. A party culture that is underlined by a clear ideology, we have not had it. Therefore, people move from one party to the other depending on the weather. In Nigeria, there are no political parties. What we have are special purpose vehicles. A politician can form three political parties and bid for presidency or governorship on a platform of one. If he loses, he will go to another party, which was also formed by him. In summary, we don’t have a party culture. And the Republic is also conscious of this deficit. That is why they tried to put in place laws that invalidate the tenure of party candidates who jump from one party to the other. But again, the law has been politicised and given different interpretations so that people can jump from one party to the other. The question to ask is: are they doing it on the basis of ideology? The answer is no.
They are doing it on the basis of what they can get from the ruling party. It is for self-aggrandisement. That is the basis of what they are doing. Incumbents in Nigeria have also weaponised the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), in terms of those who have embezzled our commonwealth. They are given respite when they move to the ruling party. These are the attractions for the defections—not integrity or that a party is doing well in office or has ideological direction.
You said Nigeria’s political culture is still evolving. If that is the case, can the trend be attributed to the evolution of Nigeria’s political culture?
If you look at history holistically, you can say it is part of political evolution and political development in Nigeria. But I think it is just a negative aspect of it. We can’t say it is qualitative or even quantitative. It is on the negative side. I thought the political elites should be able to defeat this tendency within the political development of Nigeria. We cannot just describe it as evolutionary. It is rather a contradictory dynamic in the political development of Nigeria that needs to be transformed.
What is really responsible for this absence of party culture, and how do you think parties can evolve to ideological culture?
Party culture means that you need to have a membership that has the same ideological orientation, the same worldview, and a common interest. That is the basis for political parties. There should also be an institutional element of a political party, which includes abstract institutional principles. For example, parties should have internal discipline. Members must adhere to the rules of the party. Everybody must espouse what the party believes in and advocate for it. We don’t have that. Party is supposed to be supreme. In Nigeria, once a president or a governor is elected, he becomes the leader of the party and dictates what happens in the party. We also don’t have a culture of independent financing, which allows members to pay dues used for party operations. Parties rely on moneybags who dictate their rules and affairs. There is no culture of the big picture, which involves forming a party, building it, and ensuring it endures and weathers storms. In Nigeria, once the party is no longer relevant for the special purpose it is meant for, which is to capture power, that party is gone. For example, the ANC in South Africa was formed in 1912, fought the apartheid system, and remains the dominant party in South Africa. That is why I said we don’t have a party culture.
Since Nigeria has been battling with this manner of defections, especially in the Fourth Republic, some have called for the introduction of a two-party state to ensure the nation has strong parties like we had in the ill-fated Third Republic instead of small parties. What do you think?
It is not a question of yes or no. We know how it was experimented with in the Babangida era and how the process was truncated. At least, the lesson from that era was that people were now building cross-ethnic alliances for power. For you to win elections in this country, you have to go to other parts of the country to canvass for votes. In a way, it was promoting national unity. But that doesn’t mean you will decree a two-party system in Nigeria. As contradictory as it appears, we have actually had two dominant parties in the country. It is not a two-party state, but we have two dominant parties. It is just like in Britain, where Labour and Conservative are the dominant parties, but other parties exist. In the US, Republicans and Democrats are the two dominant parties, but others also exist. It is the same in Germany and other parts of Europe. That is the trend. However, the issue is that, whereas those parties are ideologically segregated, in Nigeria there is no ideological boundary. It is an all-comers affair. If we had a good concept of party formation, parties could be formed at the local government level only to contest local government elections. But we have party rules that are counterproductive.
For instance, some rules require a party to have offices in two-thirds of the country to be recognised. That shouldn’t be. Parties should be allowed to form at the state or local level to contest state assemblies, governorships, and local government elections. If we do that, Nigeria may be better off. It would help us develop examples of performing governance models across states.
If you were to dissect the opposition as presently constituted, what would you say is their problem?
I think the problem of the opposition is basically narcissistic and self-serving. It speaks to the absence of ideology. If you had an ideology, it means you have a blueprint on how the country should be governed and how it relates to its external environment. We don’t have that. That’s why I said the current political actors see parties as special purpose vehicles for the attainment of power and all the attractions that come with power.
As a political scientist and someone who actively participated in society, do you see indicators that suggest defections may be due to coercion?
One of the reasons people defect is because they don’t want to be left out of the show. They don’t want to miss out on the process of sharing the national cake. Wherever the land is fertile, they move in. What you may regard as an element of compulsion is that many politicians have soiled their hands by tampering with the national treasury. They are answerable to the EFCC and ICPC. To escape accountability, they run to the ruling party. That’s what happened in Delta State. When they say they defected to be “connected to the centre,” they are not telling the truth. They can say that to the marines.
You will agree that preliminary politicking ahead of the 2027 elections has commenced. Given the gale of defections, do you think the opposition still has a chance of salvaging its structure?
In politics, they say a day is like a century for manipulation. But the opposition, as presently constituted, doesn’t even qualify as an official opposition. They are in complete disarray. And if you look at power politics in Nigeria, power is likely to remain in the South for the next six years. The question is whether Asiwaju will be re-elected. If a candidate comes from the North, I can tell you the entire South will vote for Tinubu. This time it won’t be about performance—it will be based on sentiments. I don’t see the opposition altering the equation. If you bring a candidate from the East without the electoral capital to defeat a candidate from the South-West, it won’t work. And time is too short to build the kind of alliance required to unseat an incumbent. In my opinion, this is the time for building and appropriating political capital at the state level—not at the central level.
But we’ve seen examples in Kenya, Benin Republic, Senegal, and even Nigeria, where last-minute alliances led to opposition victories. Could that happen here?
We political scientists describe politics as the art of the impossible. Anything is possible. But the Kenyan elites are not the same as Nigerian elites. The political elites in Nigeria are the worst. They don’t pursue the bigger picture; they focus on the immediate. That’s a major drawback in Nigeria’s political culture. Anything can happen between now and 2027, but the major problem is the nature of power distribution in the country. The understanding is that the South should do eight years before power rotates to the North. That context is already shaping the alliances being formed. If you bring a candidate from the South-West or East to unseat Asiwaju, I doubt if it would work.
In summary, is it accurate to say we are just a step away from becoming a one-party state? Are the features of a one-party state present now?
One of the things I find disturbing is the increasing intolerance of oppositional voices. I’m not just referring to parties like the PDP. I’m also talking about ordinary citizens who speak out. Their harassment is not good for the polity. It becomes even more dangerous if we end up with one dominant party in the country. It’s not good for democracy. (Vanguard)
