Nigeria: Atiku, Obi Losing Grip

After failing to unite and in the process, handing over victory to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on a platter of gold in the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar have been grandstanding and upbraiding the government of the day. This posturing serves as partial fulfillment of their role as opposition figures or perhaps stems from fear of political self-immolation.They are everywhere and comment on everything — talk of seeking relevance when the battle is over. They trade blames, without pulling punches even when unnecessary. Meanwhile, they have since abandoned their political parties, the vehicles they rode to candidacy, leaving them in ruins.

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) now exist as mere shadows of their former selves. Those elected under their platforms are abandoning these sinking ships in droves, no thanks to their principals who would rather contemplate the next election than look inwards to help organise or prevent their parties from internal implosion. For this duo, hope is rapidly turning into a nightmare. The parties are slipping from their grasp with each passing day. Concerns are mounting about the possibility of their parties leaving them high and dry by the next electoral cycle.

Since 2023 when the battle was won and lost, the opposition has steadily depleted. A significant number of politicians from PDP and LP have defected to the governing party. The latest such incident involves the defection of Delta state governor, Sheriff Oborevwori, and his predecessor, Ifeanyi Okowa — former vice presidential candidate to Atiku Abubakar in the last presidential election — to the governing APC. One wonders about the motivation of our political class: no ideology, no conviction, no principles, no trust. Just business.

According to reports, approximately 30 lawmakers have abandoned opposition parties in less than two years of the 10th National Assembly. Leading this exodus is the PDP, which has lost a governor and vice presidential candidate. Rivers state remains on the edge of the precipice. Meanwhile, APC members are already in anticipatory celebration mode, envisioning a “walk over” and securing a second term for the president.

All these political permutations should cause significant concern for Obi and Atiku. Instead of engaging with stakeholders on revitalising their parties, they join issues with the aggrieved on Twitter (X) and comment on every street-level matter. Peter Obi had no established pedigree in LP; he effectively commandeered the party to serve his disruptive purpose. This approach might not have been problematic had he channeled that same energy toward reengineering the party. Unfortunately, he lacks the discipline of a committed party man–as do they all. What kind of party democracy allows one to abandon the very platform that brought them to prominence?

In this defection circus show, LP stands to lose more due to its absence of grassroots structure. Its presidential candidate in the last election jumps from pillar to post, continent to continent, orchestrating photo opportunities with prominent figures while the home front burns. Obi appears everywhere except where he should be. So engrossed is he in spotting “what’s not” and “what ought to be” that he remains oblivious to his own party’s disarray. Throughout LP’s leadership crisis and the resignation of his key allies from the party, Obi has not intervened meaningfully; instead, he projects an image of a peace-loving gentleman. Really? Even when “your house” is on fire?

It may be convenient to blame the wave of defections on the ruling party or the president’s carrot approach to politics, or perhaps attribute it to sheer hopelessness among political actors who lost out. We might also blame the opposition’s confusion on fear of the ICPC and EFCC, instruments often deployed by the ruling party to target opposition into submission. Herein lies the difference between ideologically principled politicians and run-of-the-mill ones who stand for nothing and can fall for anything.

That notwithstanding, opposition leaders have equally abdicated their responsibilities and failed to put their house in order. Our political class generally performs poorly in opposition. They invariably rush to wherever power resides, and since political parties function merely as special-purpose vehicles to acquire power in Nigeria, aligning with the party in power becomes essential to enjoying absolute immunity–even for those the constitution does not explicitly protect.

Expectedly, Senate President Godswill Akpabio exploited these opposition vulnerabilities to lambast Peter Obi over his disparaging comments about the current government. While speaking at a memorial lecture held in honor of the late Edwin Clark, Obi had lamented the condition of the nation, stating: “We are not a democratic country. Let’s tell ourselves the truth. The labor of our heroes past is in vain.” To this, Senate President Godswill Akpabio responded harshly: “I beg to disagree, let Peter Obi show leadership first by resolving the crisis in the Labour Party. If he is unable to resolve that crisis, is it the crisis of Boko Haram he can resolve?” The Senate President’s assessment of the opposition figure seems accurate, even as his assertion that those “aspiring to be presidential candidates are causing confusion with their mouths” deserves condemnation.

Despite these observations, we recognise that what matters most to the political class is surviving the shark-infested waters of Nigerian politics. They gravitate toward where their bread is buttered among the well-heeled power brokers; this appears more important than allegiance to any political party. However, this reality should not prevent party leaders from conducting their house-cleaning before examining the closets of others — a practice at which Obi and Atiku have become particularly adept.

We treat politics with contempt yet expect favorable outcomes, just as rhetoric increasingly supplants substance and individual merit outweighs political affiliation. In Nigeria’s peculiar political equation, neither party loyalty nor the electorate truly counts anymore. Obi and Atiku must do considerably more to justify the hope of nearly 200 million non-APC members looking to the opposition to cleanse the Augean stable of Nigerian politics.

Zainab Suleiman Okino chairs the Blueprint Editorial Board. She is also a syndicated columnist and can be reached via: [email protected]