The Emerging APC

If you google “APC”, you will find references to “armoured personnel carriers” in a military context; the brand “American Power Conversion” owned by Schneider Electric which provides power protection products and services including UPS and surge suppressors; and a prominent political party in Sierra Leone, amongst others. The emerging “All Progressives Congress” in Nigeria thus seems to be in good company, at least in terms of lexicon! As an opposition party poised to take on Nigeria’s exclusive ruling party so far in this republic, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), APC, however, faces a more daunting challenge. Since return to civilian rule in 1999, Nigeria’s democracy has recorded few successes and many failures. The major successes relate to telecommunications industry transformation which commenced in 2001; the economic reforms of 2003-2006 which culminated in the Paris Club debt write-off; enactment of the Freedom of Information Act; and the relatively fair elections of 2011. On the other hand, there are numerous low points – terrible elections in 2003 and 2007; increasing poverty and unemployment; massive corruption; the absolute erosion of democratic values, even in spite of civil rule; the challenges of power and infrastructure even fifteen years later; shocking levels of crime, insecurity and breakdown of law and order; the Yar’Adua crisis and power vacuum of 2009/2010, etc. The PDP’s report card can earn no better than a low score no matter how considerate one’s judgment. The absence of political competition and its near-total monopoly of power have encouraged sub-optimal performance from the ruling party and raise the imperative for alternative platforms. Unfortunately, until now, the Nigerian opposition has been complicit in the PDP’s mismanagement of Nigeria’s democracy and development – the voluntary and assisted suicide of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) which couldn’t decide whether it was in alliance with Obasanjo’s PDP government or it was an opposition party, and paid a mortal price for its consequently blurred identity; the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), formerly APP, which consistently acted to destroy its own fortunes and whittled its holding from nine to three states (its chairmen and leaders, as well as its elected governors and legislators have regularly acted as agents of the PDP!); even the Action Congress (AC), later Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), seemed also to suffer from a “PDP complex” acting as a default platform for disaffected PDP members (its presidential candidate and running mates in 2007 and 2011 as well as a large number of its governorship, Senate and House of Representatives candidates in the last two elections have come from the PDP). The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) seemingly conspired to subvert its own chances such that from a possibility of winning up to seven or more states in 2011, it ended up with only one! The incipient APC, however, appears to be the first serious challenge to the PDP’s hegemony – if the planned merger of the ACN, CPC, ANPP and elements from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) is successfully consummated and the emerging entity is internally cohesive, prospects are that the PDP will face its toughest battle yet in 2015. It would be the first time the PDP would be competing against a party with a national outlook drawing from ACN’s South-West base, ANPP’s North-East core, and CPC’s North-West following and complemented by a South-East faction backed by an incumbent governor. The coalition may also have strengths in Benue and Nasarawa in the Middle-Belt and Edo and Akwa Ibom in the South-South. Moreover, the ACN, which has sought to facilitate the opposition meeting of minds, has appeared willing to foster the spirit of give and take required to create such a merger. Of course, the merger is far from being a done deal! Nigeria’s democratic history is littered with attempts to create a “progressive” alternative to our conservative ruling parties – United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) in the first republic; Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA) in the second; and the most recent failed efforts by the ACN and CPC to cobble together an alliance or merger to fight the 2011 election which effectively foreclosed the opposition’s challenge. On the positive side, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) under which M.K.O. Abiola won the aborted June 1993 elections was a “merger” of forces which resemble today’s APC. The only difference is that their coming together was forced by the Babangida military dictatorship which created two parties, the SDP and National Republican Convention (NRC). There will yet be fights over control of party structures and positions; and there will be severe jostling over selection of electoral candidates; the party runs the risk of presenting controversial candidates and inheriting voter prejudices and perceptions; and does the APC have strategic space to make merit-based choices at the presidential level, in which case there are some obvious candidates that should be on the ticket? The emerging party will face strenuous efforts at sabotage, from outside and within; and it could itself self-destruct! On the other hand, it stands to benefit from the developing crisis within the PDP (although leaving PDP may prove more difficult than people imagine) and the exhaustion of PDP goodwill with the people; but if its leaders manage to create a viable APC, they would have made a historic contribution to Nigeria’s political development.