Ismail Omipidan

Nigeria’s current democratic journey, which began on May 29, 1999, was ushered in through what could pass for a hurriedly packaged transition programme in 1998, following the death of former military leader, General Sani Abacha, who had before then concluded plans to transmute into a civilian president.

Before Abacha, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), who came in through a coup in 1985, made several failed attempts to organise elections that would usher in a civilian rule. But eventually, he managed to organise one in 1993, an election adjudged to be the fairest and freest so far in Nigeria’s history. He, however, could not complete the process of handing over to a civilian president, as his government arrested the results of the election midway. Eventually, the results were annulled and the military government clamped down on the acclaimed winner of the poll, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (M.K.O) Abiola.

Following pressures from Nigerians and the international communities, on August 27, 1993, IBB decided to quit. He then put together an Interim National Government (ING) and handed over to Chief Earnest Shonekan as the leader of the ING. He left Abacha behind and designated him Defence Secretary in the cabinet.

Barely three months into the government, on November 17, Abacha shoved Shonekan aside and took over the reins of power.

Like his predecessors, he was making promise after promise on the government’s desire to hand over to a civilian government until it became apparent that he was interested in perpetuating himself in power. This was confirmed by the comment he made in 1995, while receiving the draft of the 1995 constitution, which among other things proposed a rotational presidency, Abacha had declared that “… We need not be prodded and goaded to adopt a particular model. We can’t be rushed any longer into adopting the straight jacket foreign models which had failed us in the past.”

To confer a seeming legitimacy on his plans, his government registered five political parties, and in the course of the aborted transition, all but one of the political parties adopted him as the preferred presidential candidate, thereby shutting out other prospective presidential aspirants.

Despite his adoption, some Nigerians were still opposed to the move. For instance, the late Chief FRA Williams, then one of the Nigeria’s foremost lawyers, insisted that going by the provision of Section 34 of the Political Parties (Registration and Activities) Decree 28 of 1996, Abacha was not qualified to stand for presidential election, notwithstanding his adoption by the political parties.

Quoting copiously from the constitution at the time, Chief Williams noted that a candidate is “a member of a registered political party nominated by the party and accepted (by NECON) to contest an election organised by the Commission,” adding that “it would be ill-advised for Abacha to make himself the instrument for breaking the law he made and signed by himself by accepting the offer” to run.

While all that was going on, one morning in mid 1998, Abacha’s government invited Muslim and Christian clerics to pray to God to deliver the country from whomever and whatever was holding it down.

Sadly, Abacha died on June 8, 1998 after the prayers. Following his death, General Abdulsalami Abubakar took over the reins of power. But unlike Abacha and IBB, he left no doubt as to his commitment to handover to a civilian government in no distant time.

He commenced a transition programme that led to the registration of three political parties: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Peoples Party (APP) and Alliance for Democracy (AD).

And by February 27, 1999, Nigerians were able to cast their vote again in a presidential election for the first time since the 1993 military coup, and the first elections of the Fourth Nigerian Republic. The election brought in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as the elected president.

This year, 2019, marks 20 years of democracy in Nigeria. It is the longest so far in the history of the country’s democratic experiences. For instance, the First Republic ran from October 1, 1960 to January 15, 1966, while the Second Republic was between October 1, 1979 and December 31, 1983. And the Third Republic, which was a mixture of civil and military rule, ran from 1991 to 1993.

Instructively, while two of the three political parties at the onset of the current democratic journey have transformed and metamorphosed into one single political party, which is today known as All Progressives Congress (APC), the PDP has maintained its identity.

However, the parties’ dominance of the political landscape has continued to change with every election since 1999. For instance, after the 1999 elections, the PDP led the table with 21 states, APP nine states and AD six states.

But after the 2003 elections, PDP increased its tally to 29, while AD dropped five, leaving it with one. The APP, which had transformed to All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) at the time, was left with six, in spite of the fact that it gained one of the big states in the North- Kano, at the time.

At the beginning in 2007, PDP increased its tally to 31, leaving AD, which had metamorphosed into Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) with one and ANPP four. But after series of litigations, the PDP lost Edo, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo and Anambra states to ACN and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

In 2011, governorship election was held in 31 states. In the end, PDP won 24 states, leaving ANPP and ACN with three states respectively and the newly formed Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) won Nasarawa State. However, in the aftermath of the elections petitions tribunal in 2010, ACN took over Ekiti, Osun and Edo states, while APGA and Labour Party (LP) controlled Anambra and Ondo states.

Opposition parties’ journey to dislodge the PDP

The move to dislodge the PDP from the centre began in 2003. Interestingly, it was the year President Muhammadu Buhari had his first shot at the country’s presidency.

In that year, it was a North/South contest. Obasanjo was seeking a second term and Buhari was desirous of stopping him. In the end, Obasanjo triumphed.

But in 2007, which was Buhari’s second attempt, it was an all North affair. The late president, Umar Yar’Adua, contested on the platform of the PDP while the trio of former vice president Atiku Abubakar, former Sokoto governor, Attahiru Bafarawa and Nigeria’s former military Head of State and incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, all ran on different political platforms. While Atiku ran on the platform of the now defunct Action Congress (AC), Bafarawa and Buhari ran on the platform of Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) and the ANPP respectively. In the end they all lost.

Daily Sun recalls that in 2007, when it became clear that to defeat the PDP, there must be some form of alliances between the AC and ANPP, an attempt was made to reach out to Atiku, with the sole aim of talking him into burying his presidential ambition, especially considering that he was only cleared at the eleventh hour to run.

But the AC and ANPP men mismanaged the whole process, thus allowing it to degenerate into verbal attacks between Atiku and Buhari, with the duo using unprintable adjectives to describe each other in the media.

Daily Sun’s investigations further revealed that Atiku’s last minute decision then to dump Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu for Senator Ben Obi as running mate, did not also go down well with Tinubu, a factor that may have contributed largely to whatever cold relationship that may have existed between Atiku and Tinubu till date. At the end of the day, a northerner emerged as president after Obasanjo’s two terms of eight years.

But mid way into Yar’Adua’s tenure, Daily Sun recalls, he died. As such, the 2011 race became a fierce contest, following the insistence by some northerners that the then president, Goodluck Jonathan must run, in spite of the fact that the slot was supposed to be for the North. It was this sentiment, Daily Sun further recalls, that the opposition parties cashed in on to field northerners, following the defeat of Atiku at the PDP’s primary by Jonathan, after initially emerging as the North’s consensus candidate within the party. He defeated the likes of IBB, Gusau and Saraki to pick the ticket.

However, the opposition did not behave as if it learnt any lesson from the 2007 experience. Like it happened preparatory to the 2007 polls, the trio of Atiku, Buhari and Tinubu again began their meetings early enough for the 2011 contest. But they again went their separate ways shortly before the polls. Atiku returned to the PDP, Buhari and others formed the CPC, while Tinubu stuck to his ACN.

Like in 2007, again in 2011, when it became obvious that to dislodge Jonathan and the PDP from the centre, CPC and ACN must work together, Buhari’s CPC and Tinubu’s ACN tried a last minute merger, but they again blew the opportunity.

Rather than work together, Daily Sun recalls that both parties worked at cross purposes to the extent that PDP’s presidential candidate, Jonathan, floored ACN’s presidential candidate, Nuhu Ribadu, in most South-West states, including Lagos, with the exception of Osun State, where the governor, Rauf Aregbesola, who had just been sworn in then, needed to prove a point. And like in 2007, CPC leaders and ACN leaders called each other unprintable names, pointing fingers at each other over the turn of event.

Opposition made it in 2015

Less than a year after Jonathan’s emergence, politicians began re-aligning ahead of the 2015 polls. The major opposition parties in the country then all came together, two clear years before the polls to form the APC, with a view to forming a formidable front to do battle with the PDP. With the emergence of the APC then, cumulatively, the opposition party’s states rose to 11; one each in the South-East and South-South respectively; five in the South-West, one each in the North-West and North-Central respectively, and two in the North-East. But shortly before the elections, the tally increased to 16, as five other PDP governors joined the opposition.

APC went into the polls with South West and North West as its strongholds, thus making the presidency a done deal for it, even before the contest. And in the end, it ended PDP’s 16 years hold on Nigeria. It also became the first win for the opposition in the country’s entire political history. To make it possible, Tinubu ensured all the South-West states, but one, were delivered to the APC. The party also won in all the seven states in the North-West, with Kano posting the highest figure of about two million. APC also made a surprise inroad into the Christian dominated states of Benue and Plateau in the North-Central.

Aftermath of 2019 elections

This year, the PDP went into the elections with 12 states, APC 23 states and APGA one. Governorship elections were held in 29 states.  After the elections, APC, which retained the presidency, won in 15 states; while PDP won in 14 states. But just last week, Zamfara through litigation fell to the PDP, making it 15-14, in favour of the PDP at the moment. But governorship elections did not hold in seven states: Kogi, Osun, Edo, Ekiti, Bayelsa, Ondo and Anambra states. Of the seven states, APC has five states while PDP and APGA have one respectively.

However, there is the possibility for the tally to change in favour of either of either APC or PDP before the end of the year.