Public affairs analyst and columnist, Olusegun Adeniyi, has cautioned Nigeria’s two dominant political parties — the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) — against the growing trend of political arrogance and opportunism, warning that history may repeat itself if lessons from the past are ignored.
Writing in his column titled “APC, PDP and the Tide of History,” Adeniyi drew parallels between the PDP’s past overconfidence before its 2015 defeat and the APC’s current posture, urging the ruling party to remember how quickly fortunes can shift in politics.
He recalled how, in 2013, then PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, had dismissed the newly formed APC with a boastful football metaphor, saying, “If you go for a contest, you have the striker — you know Lionel Messi? PDP is the Messi in that contest. We will dribble them like Messi.”
“Two years later,” Adeniyi wrote, “it was the PDP that was ‘dribbled’ out of power by the special purpose vehicle cleverly cobbled together by the late President Muhammadu Buhari and his successor, Bola Tinubu.”
The columnist described the PDP’s fall from dominance as a cautionary tale for all politicians, noting that at one point the party was so confident it would rule for 60 years that it neglected internal reforms and public accountability. He quoted former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, who had once declared that he and other military elites helped to birth the PDP, adding that “one of our compatriots who said PDP would rule for 60 years could still be right.”
Adeniyi, however, lamented that the same PDP that once controlled nearly all state and national positions “cannot even organise a proper meeting at any level today.”
He criticised the growing culture of political defections, describing the recent wave of PDP governors joining the APC as driven by personal gain rather than ideology. “Such is the nature of the ongoing political chicanery that the decamping PDP governors are not even pretending about the motivation for their action,” he observed.
He quoted Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori, who justified his defection by saying it was due to the “love Tinubu has shown to us in Delta State,” and Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah, who described Tinubu as “not just a leader of our nation but a partner in purpose.”
“While we await Douye Diri of Bayelsa State to join the train, Oborevwori said in March: ‘This is a movement, this is not a defection; we (governors) have agreed we will move together and when we move together, what is at the national we will be able to grab it,’” Adeniyi added.
He warned that this attitude, where political parties exist mainly as “tools for trading positions,” undermines democracy, as it discourages ideological competition and policy-based governance. “Since we operate in a milieu where public service has been reduced to ‘eating,’ the only attraction of the party is the power of patronage,” he remarked.
The writer also highlighted how the APC’s creation was less about a shared vision and more about power consolidation. Quoting the late Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, Adeniyi noted that each merging party in the APC “was satisfied only when it contributed at least one word to the name,” showing how symbolism, not ideology, guided the coalition.
Adeniyi further advised President Tinubu to remain wary of sycophants and the dangers of political absolutism, referencing former Philippines President Corazon Aquino’s 1985 warning to her successor that “power intoxicates; too much power is addictive.”
He concluded that Nigeria’s democracy risks stagnation if political parties continue to prioritise self-interest over governance. “A democracy anchored on ritualistic elections that are not issue-based will only empower people who neither understand the rudiments of governance nor can advance the public good,” he wrote.
Adeniyi called for a national conversation on the role of political parties and the values that should guide public service, stressing that “the Nigerian people may appear helpless today, but there is no guarantee that things will continue this way forever.”
