There is a particular genius to Nigerian politics: the ability of each new administration to repeat the sins of its predecessors while insisting it is engaged in national salvation. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a man who once styled himself as the architect of modern opposition politics, has now become the chief engineer of Nigeria’s quiet slide into a one party dictatorship. It is a transformation so brazen, so sweeping, and so historically tone deaf that even the ghosts of Nigeria’s pro democracy martyrs must be shaking their spectral heads in disbelief. For a country that once fought military dictatorship with blood, sweat and clandestine pamphlets, the irony is exquisite. Nigeria is not being marched into autocracy and authoritarianism by jackboots and decrees, but by consensus arrangements, automatic tickets, defections extracted under duress, and the soft spoken coercion of a presidency obsessed with 2027. The generals used guns; Tinubu uses the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and party primaries. The result is the same.
The Emperor of Consensus
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) recently held a national convention so choreographed, so antiseptic, so devoid of genuine contestation that even North Korea might have taken notes. Delegates wore colorful uniforms, speeches were delivered, and the National Working Committee (NWC) was returned almost wholesale; an electoral miracle achieved not through popularity but through the dark arts of “consensus.” Tinubu insists, with the solemnity of a man reading from a teleprompter, that he does not seek a one party state. “Democracy thrives on healthy competition,” he declared at the APC convention, as though reciting a line from a civics textbook he has no intention of following. But the president’s actions tell a different story: a story of coercion disguised as consensus, defections extracted under duress, and a ruling party so swollen with opportunists that it now resembles a political refugee camp. The belief that the APC is actively fostering crises within opposition parties may remain contested. But its implications are not. A democracy without opposition is not strength. It is a slow drift toward violent unrest.
Consensus, in the APC’s new lexicon, is not a democratic mechanism. It is a euphemism for elite imposition, a polite way of saying: the decision has already been made; your vote is inconsequential. It is the political equivalent of being invited to a wedding only to discover the couple eloped last week. The APC’s grandees now speak of “continuity,” “stability,” and “institutional memory” - phrases that in Nigerian politics usually mean “sit down and don’t ask questions.” The Senate President and Speaker of the House have demanded automatic return tickets for lawmakers. Governors are expected to follow. Ministers are terrified to resign because they know the tickets they seek may already have been promised in some smoke filled room. Tinubu’s defenders call this “stability.” Students of political history call it authoritarian consolidation. This is not internal democracy. This is internal taxidermy; the party is being preserved, not allowed to live.
The Great Defection Harvest
Meanwhile, Nigeria is witnessing an unprecedented wave of defections from opposition parties into the APC. Governors, senators, and lawmakers are crossing over with the enthusiasm of pilgrims seeking salvation. But salvation is not what drives them. Fear is. The presidency has mastered a new form of political persuasion: a blend of cohesion, carrot, and the ever present stick of prosecution. Opposition politicians are discovering that the quickest way to avoid the EFCC’s sudden interest in their bank accounts is to declare for the ruling party. Nigeria has always had transactional politics, but never before has the ruling party been so shamelessly transformed into a sanctuary for the politically endangered. The result is a political monoculture. The APC grows stronger not because it is ideologically compelling, but because it is the only safe harbor in a storm of manufactured instability.
Tinubu denies orchestrating the crises within opposition parties. But in politics, perception often shapes reality. And the perception that the ruling party is undermining opposition cohesion strikes at the core of democratic legitimacy. Tinubu’s defenders call this “realignment.” Students of history call it the death of multiparty democracy.
The 2027 Obsession
The president’s fixation on reelection is palpable. Every defection, every consensus deal, every automatic ticket is a brick in the fortress he is building around 2027. But the more urgent question is not 2027. It is 2031. What happens when Tinubu leaves office; assuming he does, and Nigeria has become, to all intents and purposes, a one party state? What happens when the APC, swollen with defectors, opportunists, and recycled politicians, becomes too large to manage and too undisciplined to control? What happens when the monster Tinubu is creating begins to devour its creator? Nigeria has seen this movie before. It was called the PDP era. It ended in tears. The PDP once boasted it would rule for 100 years. It barely managed 16. It collapsed under the weight of its own arrogance, internal contradictions, and the hubris of believing that power was a birthright. Tinubu, a student of political history, should know better. Instead, he appears determined to repeat the PDP’s mistakes; only faster, louder, and with more choreography.
The Party That Ate the State
The APC is no longer merely a political party. It is becoming the state itself. Defections are rewarded with appointments. Loyalty is measured by how loudly one praises the president. Dissent is treated as sabotage. The line between government and party has blurred into irrelevance. Nigerian democracy is being hollowed out not by tanks on the streets but by administrative suffocation. Primaries are being replaced with coronations. Competition is being replaced with choreography. The opposition is being replaced with absorption. And the electorate is being replaced with spectators. This is how democracies die in the 21st century; not with coups, but with “consensus”.
Opposition parties, meanwhile, are imploding. Leadership tussles, factional congresses, and high profile defections have left them ruptured and electorally weakened. Whether these crises are self inflicted or externally encouraged is almost beside the point. The effect is the same: Nigeria is drifting toward a political monoculture. And in a country as diverse and combustible as Nigeria, political exclusion is not merely undemocratic. It is dangerous. When large sections of the population feel unrepresented or believe that the political process is skewed against them, frustration builds. That frustration, if left unchecked, can spill into the streets. Recent history offers sobering lessons. Syria, Libya, Sudan, Venezuela, Myanmar, Ethiopia—each descended into chaos when political grievances collided with authoritarian consolidation. Nigeria is not immune.
The Betrayal of June 12
Tinubu, of all people, should understand the danger. He is a product of the June 12 struggle, a beneficiary of the sacrifices of men and women who risked everything to resist military rule. Many died. Many were exiled. Many were imprisoned. They fought for a Nigeria where power could change hands peacefully, where opposition was not a crime, and where elections meant something. To now preside over the slow suffocation of that democracy is not merely ironic. It is a betrayal. The men who died for democracy did not die so that one party could dominate the political landscape through coercion, inducement, and administrative manipulation. They did not die so that primaries could be replaced with “consensus.” They did not die so that governors could defect en masse to avoid prosecution. They did not die so that Nigeria could become a one party civilian dictatorship.
The Erosion of Democratic Culture
Nigeria’s most celebrated democratic moment remains the peaceful transfer of power in 2015, when the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat. That moment demonstrated that the ballot could indeed be stronger than incumbency. But that legacy is now under threat. If opposition parties continue to fragment while the ruling party grows stronger—whether by design or default—the country risks sliding into a de facto one party system. Elections may still hold, but their competitiveness will be excavated. This is the essence of democratic backsliding: not the abrupt end of democracy, but its gradual erosion.
In such a system, accountability suffers. Legislatures become less effective as oversight bodies—witness the current Senate under Godswill Akpabio. Policy debates lose depth. Governance becomes insulated from criticism. And corruption, often thriving in environments with weak scrutiny, finds fertile ground.
Perhaps more damaging is the erosion of political ideology. Frequent defections—often driven by convenience rather than conviction—have reduced party affiliation in Nigeria to little more than a vehicle for power. When politicians can move without a glitch from opposition to ruling party, it reinforces public distrust.
The Coming Implosion
The tragedy of one party states is not merely that they destroy democracy. It is that they eventually destroy themselves. A party that absorbs everything becomes accountable to no one. A party that fears competition becomes intellectually lazy. A party that rewards loyalty over competence becomes incompetent. A party that silences dissent becomes deaf. And when the leader leaves; whether by term limit, mortality, or political misfortune, the party collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. Tinubu may believe he is consolidating power. In reality, he is building a Frankenstein; a creature stitched together from defections, coercion, patronage, and fear. It may serve him in 2027. But in 2031, when he is gone, it will turn on itself. And on Nigeria.
Nigerian democracy is not being murdered. It is being smothered with a pillow embroidered with the word “consensus.” Tinubu insists he does not seek a one party state. But intentions matter less than outcomes. And the outcome is clear: Nigeria is drifting toward a political monoculture, a system where the ruling party is the only party that matters, and where elections are rituals rather than choices. The president may win 2027. But Nigeria may lose its democracy. And when the monster he has created finally breaks free, it will not be Tinubu who pays the price. It will be the country.
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