The Opposition’s Big Alliance And The Politics Beneath It

There is something revealing about the sudden enthusiasm with which old political enemies are rediscovering one another.

Men who spent years telling Nigerians why they could not possibly work together are now appearing on the same platforms. Former presidential rivals are exchanging pleasantries. Politicians who once accused one another of destroying their parties are discussing a common political future. Meetings are multiplying, consultations are being held and the language of unity has become almost irresistible.

The explanation is simple enough.

2027 is approaching.

But politics becomes dangerous when the public is encouraged to mistake proximity for unity.

The opposition’s effort to construct a common platform against President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress deserves serious attention. The arithmetic is compelling. The 2023 presidential election demonstrated what a divided opposition can produce: several substantial challengers drawing support from different constituencies while the eventual winner emerges with less than a majority of the total votes cast.

The lesson was obvious.

Fragmented opposition may produce a victorious incumbent even when there is widespread dissatisfaction with the government.

That reality explains much of what is happening now. Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Seyi Makinde and other political actors have, at different stages, been involved in conversations about cooperation or a common front. The African Democratic Congress became the principal vehicle around which some of the major opposition figures gathered, while other platforms and consultations have continued to emerge.

But beneath the public language of unity lies a much harder question.

What exactly is holding these people together?

If the answer is simply Bola Tinubu, then Nigerians should be worried.

An opposition coalition whose strongest bond is hostility towards the incumbent may be able to win an election. It may not be able to govern the country that victory produces.

This distinction is fundamental.

It is easy to agree that a government has failed. It is much harder to agree on what should replace it.

It is easy to campaign against inflation. It is harder to explain how inflation will be brought under control without imposing another round of painful adjustments.

It is easy to promise security. It is harder to restructure the security architecture, fund it properly, improve intelligence coordination and establish accountability for failure.

It is easy to condemn borrowing. It is harder to explain how a government will finance infrastructure, social services and development while keeping debt within sustainable limits.

Politics thrives on the first set of questions.

Government is judged by the second.

This is where the opposition’s emerging alliance must be interrogated.

The coalition has already demonstrated how difficult unity can be. Earlier attempts to bring the major opposition figures together encountered disagreements over leadership, zoning, presidential ambition and the choice of political platform. Some participants have moved between platforms while others have maintained separate political ambitions. Even parties reported to be part of the broader opposition arrangement have, at different moments, distanced themselves from particular coalition agreements.

That is not necessarily evidence of failure.

Political negotiation is inherently messy.

But it is evidence that the photographs of unity conceal a much harder negotiation underneath.

Who leads?

Who gets the presidential ticket?

What happens to the ambitions of those who believe they are entitled to it?

Which region produces the candidate?

What happens to zoning?

Which political structure controls the machinery?

Who chooses the running mate?

How are legislative candidates selected?

Who controls appointments if victory comes?

And perhaps the most consequential question of all: what happens when the interests of the people who assembled the coalition begin to diverge after victory?

These questions cannot be postponed indefinitely.

The danger is that Nigerian political coalitions have often been constructed backwards. Politicians first determine how to defeat the opponent and only afterwards begin negotiating what they intend to do with the power they have captured.

That is how political marriages of convenience are born.

They look impressive at the wedding.

The trouble begins when the marriage enters the house.

Nigeria has seen enough of this.

The country does not need another coalition assembled principally around the removal of one president. It needs a political alternative capable of telling Nigerians what kind of country it intends to build.

The distinction may sound academic. It is not.

A coalition that cannot agree on economic philosophy before an election will not magically acquire one after victory. Politicians who disagree fundamentally about the role of government, the management of public finance, the structure of the federation, energy policy, security, education and institutional reform cannot conceal those differences forever behind the language of unity.

Eventually, somebody has to govern.

And governing exposes every contradiction that campaigning can conceal.

There is therefore a responsibility on the opposition to move beyond political arithmetic.

The coalition should tell Nigerians what it intends to retain from the present administration and what it intends to reverse. It should identify policies it considers successful even if they were introduced by political opponents. It should explain where it believes the present government went wrong and, more importantly, demonstrate why its own alternative would produce a better result.

That would be serious opposition.

It would also separate politicians who are preparing to govern from politicians merely preparing to campaign.

The current political climate gives the opposition a considerable opening. The economic reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration have imposed severe costs on households even as the government argues that the foundations for recovery are being laid. Inflation, living costs, insecurity and declining purchasing power have become central political concerns. The opposition therefore does not have to manufacture public dissatisfaction. It has to convince dissatisfied Nigerians that it possesses something better.

That is a much higher burden.

It is not enough to say that Nigerians are suffering.

They already know.

The opposition must demonstrate that it understands why they are suffering and possesses credible instruments for changing the circumstances.

This is where some of the emerging alliances may face their greatest difficulty.

The men around the table bring different political histories, constituencies and ambitions. Some have occupied the highest offices in the land. Some have governed states. Some have contested presidential elections. Some built their political identity around one ideological proposition and later found themselves negotiating with people whose political histories point in another direction.

There is nothing inherently wrong with political evolution.

But Nigerians are entitled to ask whether these changes represent genuine ideological growth or simply the movement of political interests towards the next available vehicle.

That question should not be dismissed as cynicism.

Politics is about interests. The problem begins when politicians pretend that interests do not exist.

There is another uncomfortable reality.

The ruling party will not sit still while the opposition assembles.

The APC has the advantages of incumbency, federal visibility, political structures and access to the machinery of government. The opposition knows this. That is why it is rushing to consolidate.

But the very urgency that makes coalition necessary can also make it vulnerable.

When politicians are frightened by the strength of an opponent, they are tempted to compromise too quickly. They may suppress genuine disagreements in the name of unity. They may postpone difficult decisions. They may convince themselves that the details can be sorted out after victory.

That is precisely when Nigerians should become suspicious.

The details are the government.

The question of who gets the presidential ticket is not a detail. It is the question of who will determine the direction of the country.

The question of zoning is not merely a regional quarrel. It speaks to the political compact that has helped hold Nigeria’s deeply divided federation together.

The question of economic policy is not an academic disagreement. It determines whether the next government continues, modifies or abandons policies that affect millions of households.

The question of internal democracy is not an inconvenience. A coalition that cannot practise democracy while seeking to govern a democracy has a credibility problem.

There is also the danger of personality politics.

Nigeria has repeatedly invested enormous political expectations in individual politicians. The assumption is that a sufficiently experienced, charismatic or popular individual can solve institutional problems that are much larger than the individual.

That is wishful thinking.

Nigeria does not merely need a new occupant of Aso Rock.

It needs stronger institutions around whoever occupies it.

A serious opposition coalition should therefore be discussing the civil service, electoral institutions, security agencies, judicial independence, local government administration, public procurement and fiscal accountability with as much intensity as it discusses presidential tickets.

It should be discussing how power will be restrained, not merely how power will be acquired.

That would make the coalition genuinely different.

There is an even more immediate responsibility.

The opposition must not abandon the country it is trying to govern.

The election is coming, but Nigeria is not suspended until then. People are still paying school fees. Businesses are still struggling with energy costs. Farmers are still confronting insecurity. Hospitals still need equipment. Roads still require attention. Young Nigerians are still searching for work.

An opposition that spends the next year talking almost exclusively about how to win power will have misunderstood the nature of opposition.

Its job is to hold the government accountable now.

Its lawmakers should interrogate expenditure now.

Its state governments should demonstrate better governance now.

Its leaders should offer serious policy alternatives now.

Its presidential aspirants should tell Nigerians what they would do differently now.

If they cannot demonstrate those qualities before acquiring power, Nigerians have every right to wonder why they should be trusted with more of it.

The emerging coalition has another problem that money and arithmetic cannot solve.

Trust.

The political actors involved have histories. Nigerians remember them. They remember who stood where during previous elections. They remember the promises made, the alliances broken and the political principles defended until circumstances changed.

Politicians may regard political memory as inconvenient.

Voters do not.

That is why the coalition cannot simply ask Nigerians to forget the past in the name of a new beginning. It must explain the past where explanation is necessary and demonstrate why the new arrangement is different.

There is nothing wrong with former adversaries becoming allies.

Indeed, mature politics requires people to overcome old rivalries for the public good.

But reconciliation becomes credible only when it produces something larger than the interests of the people reconciling.

Otherwise it is merely another bargain.

The opposition therefore faces a choice.

It can construct a formidable electoral machine designed principally to defeat Tinubu.

Or it can construct a political movement capable of governing Nigeria.

The first may win an election.

The second has a chance of changing the country.

That is why the coming weeks and months should be watched not merely for who attends which meeting, who defects to which party or who appears beside whom at a political summit. Those are the visible movements.

Behind the mask are the negotiations that matter.

Who is willing to surrender ambition for the common good?

Who is prepared to accept a candidate other than himself?

Who is prepared to publish a programme before demanding votes?

Who will accept internal rules and abide by them when the rules become inconvenient?

Who will agree that good policies must survive a change of government?

Who will accept scrutiny of his own record rather than merely attacking the record of the incumbent?

Those are the tests.

The proposed opposition alliance could become the most serious challenge the ruling party has faced in years. It could also become another grand political arrangement that collapses under the weight of its own ambitions.

The difference will not be determined by the number of political heavyweights sitting around a table.

It will be determined by what they are willing to sacrifice to make the table serve the country rather than themselves.

Nigeria has seen political alliances before.

It has seen declarations of unity.

It has seen historic photographs.

It has seen elaborate promises.

What it has not seen often enough is a political coalition sufficiently disciplined to put the programme before the personality, the institution before the individual and the country before the calculation.

That is the coalition Nigerians should demand.

Not merely one capable of removing a government.

One capable of replacing it without becoming another version of the problem it promised to solve.