TINUBU AND HIS ONE-CHANCE OPPONENTS

The series of legal setbacks suffered by opposition politicians stemmed from their lack of due diligence, writes BOLAJI ADEBIYI

It is an ironic twist. Receiving Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s former presidential candidate, and his New Nigeria Democratic Party colleague, Rabiu Kwankwaso, into the Nigeria Democratic Congress, the NDC national leader, Seriake Dickson, mocked the African Democratic Congress. “Welcome to the party that does not know status quo ante bellum,” he said.

In early May, Obi and Kwankwaso crossed the carpet from the ADC to the NDC in search of a presidential ticket for the 2027 general election. The immediate impetus for that move was the seemingly intractable leadership crisis in their former party. Buffeted by intense litigation and political manoeuvring, the duo realised that their ambitions could not be realised with the APC, whose leadership had been suspended by the Independent National Electoral Commission following the Court of Appeal’s ruling that the internal litigants revert to the status quo ante bellum. 

Whatever relief the itinerant politicians’ move provided proved pyrrhic last Friday, when the Federal High Court, Lokoja Division, ruled to remove the NDC’s lifeline. The party had obtained its registration on the back of the same court’s judgment ordering the electoral body to list it as a political party. That was on 10 December last year. Apparently, the duo were unaware of the tentative status of the party’s registration until last Friday’s ruling, which vacated the earlier judgment and directed the NDC and its challenger, the People’s Movement Party, to revert to the pre-10 December 2025 position.

As it stands, Dickson’s mockery of the ADC as a status quo ante bellum party has come back to haunt his NDC, which faces the grim prospect of being excluded from the ballot in the upcoming general election. In that event, Obi and Kwankwaso, along with their supporters, will be the main casualties, as they seem to have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Paradoxically, the ADC would seem not to have taken Dickson’s mockery to heart, as it stood firmly in support of the NDC last week, dismissing the court ruling as part of the All Progressives Congress’ grand design to weaken opposition parties and to install a one-party state in the country. However, this reaction smacks more of the opposition parties’ tendency to hold the ruling party responsible for their persistent errors of judgment than of an altruistic desire to defend one of their own.

Outmanoeuvred within their parties, leading politicians, including Abubakar Atiku (Peoples Democratic Party), Obi (LP), and Kwankwaso (NNPP), have run from pillar to post in search of a safe haven to realise their political ambitions. It was Atiku who first berthed at the ADC, a dormant party believed to have been promoted by President Olusegun Obasanjo some time ago. Things went smoothly until he was joined by Obi, then by Kwankwaso.

Just as the opposition elements appeared to be forging a common front, strife erupted when a chieftain of the ADC, Bala Gombe, began a rebellion and approached the court to have himself restored as the party’s leader. In little time, the matter ended up at the Court of Appeal, which returned the parties to the court below while ordering maintenance of the status quo ante bellum, pending the resolution of the dispute.

Acting on the appellate court’s judgment, INEC promptly suspended the David Mark-led party leadership, which was favourable to the new entrants, effectively jeopardising their aspirations. By the time the Supreme Court intervened in their favour, Obi and Kwankwaso realised that the ADC had become unsuitable for their purpose and sought succour elsewhere in the NDC.

While they appeared to be right in leaving the ADC, with its multiple litigations that remain in court and offer no assurance of being resolved in their favour, the NDC they berthed in would seem more challenged given last week’s ruling. This must be confounding to Obi, who, upon his admission to the party, had appealed to NDC members to avoid litigation that could imperil their desire to wrest power from the ruling APC.

Interestingly, ADC and NDC leaders blame their ongoing woes on the APC and President Bola Tinubu, whom they accuse of orchestrating their internal crises and influencing unfavourable judicial outcomes. They also accuse the judiciary of pandering to the ruling party’s dictates, warning that its interventions could supplant the opposition and undermine democratic growth in the country.

These accusations fly in the face of opposition politicians’ comedy of errors in judgement and shocking lack of due diligence that have led them to where they are. For instance, many political analysts have argued that it was a strategic error for them to abandon their legacy parties amid internal crises. They ought to have stayed back and sought an amicable resolution of the disputes, as no political organisation exists without contending interests.

This strategic error has been compounded by the tactical blunder of failing to exercise due diligence on the parties they engaged to realise their aspirations. At the time they joined the ADC, multiple lawsuits were challenging the party’s leadership. Their wholesale takeover of its leadership only exacerbated the latent crisis. The NDC was similarly and gravely challenged, as its registration was tentative given multiple suits challenging its status as a political party.

Another tactical failure is their refusal to recognise the judiciary’s supervisory role. However, the judiciary is a constitutional regulator of politics. It is bound to adjudicate and render decisions one way or the other. The challenge is that they fail to recognise the merit of unfavourable decisions. Whatever the case, the judiciary’s regulatory powers will not be abrogated by mere sentiment in the face of hard facts. This imposes a responsibility on opposition elements to be more diligent.

In effect, there were ample signs that the opposition politicians were walking through landmines and failed to see them. The recourse to blaming President Tinubu and his APC, therefore, is nothing but ostrich-like. While the president and his party may have been the agent provocateurs, the practical conditions for their perceived mischief to succeed were created by the opposition politicians.

Adebiyi, a Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, writes from Abuja