Twenty years apart but very similar. Yet very different in hegemonic politics! But first the uncanny similarities – and differences – in two ruling parties!
In 2007 the PDP was the undisputed lord of the political manor. Indeed by 2008 the late Vincent Ogbulafor then PDP national chairman was so flush with power he bragged his party would rule for the next 60 years – in the first instance!
Behemoth PDP had just fair or foul muscled the 2007 vote. Pumped with power and glory Ogbulafor couldn’t see anything tripping the juggernaut any time soon. Yet 18 years on the PDP is a miserable ‘also-run’ in the run-up to 2027!
In 2007 the ruling APC wasn’t even born until 2013 when legacy opposition parties fused – the first of such in democratic Nigeria. Yet now it’s the new colossus sending a chill down the spine of its confused partisan opposers.
Almost 12 years in power and angling for its own 16-year stretch mercifully none in its ranks is screaming 60 years – as Ogbulafor rashly did in PDP’s ninth year in power.
Yet the similarities between PDP and APC couldn’t be more uncanny.
In 2007 the PDP controlled between 29 and 31 states (out of 36) – depending on what time in 2007 you’re counting from. After that horrible election the PDP had grossed 31 states.
It due time however it would be rid of at least four states – Edo Ondo Ekiti and Osun – states the courts found it had grabbed at that grand heist. That was the beginning of its end in power.
In 2026 the APC is entering the 2027 elections with 31 out of 36 governors. Add the two non-APC collaborative governors – APGA’s Chukwuma Soludo (Anambra) and Accord’s Ademola Adeleke (Osun) – the number rises to 33 (out of 36). That’s a new record for a political behemoth!
Between 2003 and 2007 – two extremely controversial polls – President Olusegun Obasanjo had used guile and brute to hammer into shape PDP’s rogue hegemony.
Aside from leashing intra-PDP dissent he mercilessly cracked down and thoroughly subverted PDP governors who dared to have own minds. In Plateau it was suspect emergency rule plus a latter-day impeachment of Governor Joshua Dariye.
In Oyo it was rogue impeachment later set aside by the courts – just to put the fear of God in the opposition. The Supreme Court voided Dariye’s removal too.
Why? Obasanjo even told Governor Rashidi Ladoja (now the reigning Olubadan) to kiss the sole of the late Lamidi Adedibu Obasanjo’s Oyo PDP ‘garrison commander’ – or kiss his governorship bye-bye! That spurred Lodoja’s ‘simple minority’ impeachment!
But the opposition too have accused President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) between 2023 and 2026 of a similar skullduggery to build up his own APC into a fearsome electoral fortress for 2027.
In truth even without an Obasanjo-like brute force the political high fashion between 2023 and 2026 was for opposition governors to cross into the ruling party. Such peculiar uprooting – pioneered by Delta’s Sheriff Oborevwori – wiped PDP clean from both the South-South and the South East.
But even with Tunubu’s inter-partisan charming – sweet to APC but outright gall to the opposition victims – much of that was possible because the PDP most times had fallen on its own sword.
That was clear from Governor Umo Bassey Eno while crossing from PDP to APC. He claimed with his first-term feats he could win re-election on any platform. But he was fleeing the PDP because the division in there might render him platform-less in 2027!
The PDP is yet out of its war of attrition even if the Nyesom Wike faction now has legal recognition!
But if the ruling PDP was similar to APC in power politicking it’s the stark opposite in performance record.
In 2007 the Second Niger Bridge was still the beatific election-season video to charm the blissful South East electorate who seemed sworn to PDP till death did both part!
The Lagos-Ibadan expressway was all bedecked with President Obasanjo’s regnant portraits mouthing some remedy. But though a death trap the promise of Bi-Courtney Highway Services Ltd (BHSL) coming to the rescue never materialized.
By swearing 2007 would be do-or-die President Obasanjo had foresworn that election to more brawn than brain – and it delivered on that brutal and grotesque promise.
The APC infrastructure run into 2027 is a diametric opposite. Under President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) both the Second Niger Bridge and the Lagos-Ibadan expressway were done and dusted!
To boot David Umahi PBAT’s Works minister has not only delivered a revamped First Niger Bridge (opened by Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa in the First Republic: 1960-1966) he’s already mulling turning Lagos-Ibadan expressway from tar to reinforced concrete – lasting no less than 50 years with routine repairs!
Aside from the Loko-Oweto bridge (that links Benue Plateau Nasarawa et al to the South-South and South East) PMB had started – and PBAT delivered – the ecologically challenging Bodo-Bonny project.
Bodo-Bonny is the first-ever road and a medley of bridges that link Bonny Island Nigeria’s rich gas capital to the Ogoni country in the Rivers mainland.
A hostile and delicate terrain notwithstanding PBAT perhaps is using the Bodo-Bonny inspiration to build the long dreamed of Lagos-Calabar coastal road – a project many South-South homers as Donald Duke governor of Cross River when Tinubu was governor of Lagos are busy squealing is impossible!
There is also the Sokoto-Badagry expressway coming to life at last!
So two ruling parties in a stretch of 20 years. Similar in partisan intrigues but different – as day is to night – in sheer verifiable performance! What easier way to gauge a government’s performance than verifiable physical projects?
So the PDP in 2007 headed to the election with vain glory and a brutish swagger. That made the sitting president to roar: ‘do or die’! But the APC is entering 2027 with verifiable projects in about every part of the country.
Added to a penetrating nationwide structure – 33 governors to PDP’s 31 in 2007 – it’s tempting to dismiss the election as a wrap for the ruling party. But is it?
Somewhat the APC echoes Achilles in Greek mythology. Achilles’ mother holding him by the heels had plunged the infant into the Styx – one of the foreboding rivers of the Greek underworld.
So Achilles became an invulnerable battle tank – except at the heels where his mother had held him during that magical dip. Hence ‘Achilles heel’ as a fatal weakness.
As scary as the APC armada is its Achilles’ heel may well be the soaring cost of living. It should do everything in its policy regime to correct that weakness.