Nigeria may be heading for one-party state

[bayo4luv]

As the already weak and fractious opposition is set to loose the pivots of its ranks in the emerging power equation towards the 2011 polls, it is feared that Nigeria may become a one party state. At the moment, the opposition is not just weak, it is in recession. 

In the days of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, many of the founders of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) trooped out of the party to either float new ones or join opposition parties. The idea was to confront what was seen as a cabal that had hijacked the party and wrest power from it. Now, the urge to go back to the party they parted ways with is seeming irresistible. With the certainty that President Umaru Yar'Adua may not contest the 2011 presidential election, political alignments and realignments are taking place. Atiku Abubakar, vice president under Obasanjo, who left PDP and contested the 2007 presidential on the platform of the Action Congress (AC) is having a rethink.   

There are strong indications that he and his loyalists have concluded plans to return to PDP. With the presidential ticket zoned to the north, Atiku now believes he stands a good chance of achieving his ambition on the ruling party's platform. From his calculation, neither AC nor a coalition of opposition parties can match the war chest of PDP in any election.  Atiku has been the arrowhead of the opposition to PDP. If he goes back to PDP, the opposition would have lost a major plank of its strength. On Tuesday last week, his supporters met in Abuja and declared that they were heading back to PDP because of frustration in mobilizing a national opposition against the ruling party. Those who reportedly attended the meeting included Iyorchia Ayu, Ben Obi who was Atiku's running mate, Tom Ikimi, Funke Adedoyin, Bashir Yusuf, Suleman Nazif, Omar Shittien, Dubem Onyia and Dapo Sarunmi. Only Ikimi has affirmed that he would not go back to PDP. 

Individual ambitions and personal differences among opposition politicians are thought to have made it difficult to forge a united front against PDP. On Wednesday last week, this became evident at Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Abuja when a meeting of leaders and representatives of opposition parties' leaders failed to agree on a merger agreement.   The meeting was called by the National Democratic Movement (NDM) and those in attendance included Muhammadu Buhari, who recently launched a new party; Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and Attahiru Bafarawa, former governor of Sokoto, who was presidential candidate of Democratic People's Party in the 2007 election.  Buhari's Congress for Progressive Change, formed three weeks ago, refused to fuse into or merge with any party. 

The AC has always maintained that position as well. The rigid posture of the respective leaders scuttled plans by the parties to come up with a stronger political platform.  There are currently 55 registered political parties in Nigeria but none is strong enough to confront PDP. The ruling party controls 28 out of the 36 states of the federation and has about 88 out of 109 senators in the National Assembly. In fact, PDP despite its internal issues, is bigger than the other 54 put together. Osita Okechukwu, publicity secretary of Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), told BusinessDay in an interview that the opposition parties would support Buhari as presidential candidate for the 2011 election. According to him, what is happening now is that some opposition leaders were more interested in consolidating in the states they control but that at the federal level there would be unity of purpose. 

Ebenezer Babatope, a member of the PDP board of trustees, in an interview with BusinessDay, said Nigeria would not be a one party state. Rather, he saw the opposition parties as unserious.   

He said the opposition has not come up with alternative policy framework to counter what the PDP has put in place and that even the mega party floated by them has not succeeded. Arguing that the opposition has lost focus, Babatope said it is up to the opposition parties to be inventive, coordinated and focused.

Nigeria may be heading for one-party state

[bayo4luv]