Jibril:
Your last paragraph is the key. They won’t agree.
TF
Get Outlook for Mac
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, September 5, 2026 at 3:36 PM
To: 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [UTEXAS: SUSPECTED SPAM] USA Africa Dialogue Series - Opposition Coalition
Date: Saturday, September 5, 2026 at 3:36 PM
To: 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [UTEXAS: SUSPECTED SPAM] USA Africa Dialogue Series - Opposition Coalition
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------------------------- Original Message Below -------------------------
The Feasibility of a Viable Opposition Coalition
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 4th September 2026
The ruling APC knows something about how opposition parties can come
together, overcome their differences, create synergy around a single
candidate, mobilise and defeat an incumbent president. They know the
process very well because they did it between 2013 and 2015, when they
came together, negotiated, agreed on how the candidate would emerge
and then went ahead to agree on a consensus candidate. The said
candidate, Muhammadu Buhari was in a sense an easy candidate to agree
on because the other leading contenders could see possibilities for
themselves in the post-Buhari era. The outcome of the consensus
position that emerged was that for the first time in the history of
this country, a sitting President was defeated at the polls and handed
over power peacefully in 2015. Precisely because they know the script,
the APC was not going to sit and watch what they did to others be done
to them.
There was therefore no surprise with the alarm, indeed panic, within
the APC in June 2025 when the platform of the opposition coalition,
the African Democratic Congress (ADC), was to be launched. A few hours
before the event, the organisers got a rude shock when the hotel they
were to use abruptly cancelled a fully paid reservation. The Wells
Carlton Hotel and Apartments in Asokoro, Abuja, said they had to
cancel the event due to an unspecified “internal compliance matter.”
The very late cancellation could only have meant some powerful people
wanted to stop the inauguration of the coalition because they were
afraid.
On numerous occasions before that time, the then major opposition, the
Peoples’ Democratic Party, had been under sustained State sponsored
harassment. The judicial machinery was effectively used by friends of
the presidency to create legal impediments to party operations through
the instrumentalization of factionalism. In addition, the Nigeria
Police Force was used to stop Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) meetings
or occupy their offices. It was essentially the concern of opposition
parties that the government was crossing red lines in interfering with
opposition structures that created the impetus for unity and the
establishment of the ADC.
The Tinubu political strategy since 2023 has been to apply
slash-and-absorb tactics to opposition parties by actively encouraging
factional crises within them and enticing key members to abandon ship
and join the ruling party. This was not a sustainable tactic because
there were limited positions within the ruling party, and giving the
new entrants would mean depriving those within the party
of these, which would become a crisis generating mechanism for the
ruling party itself. This was indeed the context that encouraged
opposition parties to strategize towards the establishment of a
unified mega opposition platform to face the APC in the 2027
elections, the African Democratic Congress (ADC). By making opposition
parties ungovernable, the ruling party has created the need within
them to opt out and seek unity in another platform.
The greatest challenge to a unified opposition party is not the antics
of the ruling party. It is the fact that many of the leaders of the
opposition parties have presidential ambitions themselves and are not
ready to step down for anyone. The emergence of a consensus candidate
becomes impossible and the coalition breaks down. That scenario has
been played repeatedly in Nigeria’s political history. APC in 2015 was
the exception rather than the rule. There was no surprise when one of
the hopefuls for the presidential candidate of the coalition, Peter
Obi, stepped out and joined the NDC. Other opposition parties believed
it was wiser to try their luck separately. The coalition lost its
strength by removing the threat of a unified front against the sitting
president. The story had come to the end.
But then, my good friend and political mobiliser, Dr Salihu Lukman
never gives up on a good idea. He decided to resuscitate the coalition
movement by setting up the group of 100 to revive the idea. This week,
they convened the National Chairmen of the leading opposition parties
– the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Allied Peoples Movement
(APM), Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and Social Democratic Party
(SDP); with their presidential and vice-presidential candidates to
revive the idea of a unified coalition. He warned them that they must
avoid the errors of 2003, 2007 and 2011, when the opposition went into
elections divided and the ruling party found it easy to come out
victorious. He reminded them that in 2023, the winning APC had just
under nine million votes. One opposition candidate took close to seven
million. Another took just over six million. Thirteen million votes on
one side of the argument, under nine million on the other. And the
side with fewer votes formed the government, lawfully,
constitutionally, and entirely predictably.
He added that it was not only a Nigerian lesson. In Kenya in 2002, a
party that had governed for thirty-nine years was removed, not by a
new idea, but by an opposition that finally agreed to be one
opposition. In Malaysia in 2018, a coalition that had governed for
sixty-one years was removed in much the same way, by people who had
been each other's prosecutors and each other's prisoners. In neither
case did the opposition win because it had become more virtuous. It
won because it had become one. The lesson, he concluded, was not a
moral one, itis an arithmetical one. Will they listen to him? More
importantly, can they act on good advice?
The presidential candidates of these parties have gone through the
nomination processes of their parties and won. Many see themselves
already as presidents in waiting. It is difficult for them to step
down for one person. The problem in Nigeria is that political power is
so concentrated in the presidency that no ambitious person at that
level can feel adequately compensated by anything other than the top
job. Some of the candidates are old and believe this is their last
chance to fulfil their political ambition. The feasibility question is
a tough one for the opposition to solve.
Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
--
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message like it, contact the UT Service Desk immediately at 512-475-9400.
------------------------- Original Message Below -------------------------
The Feasibility of a Viable Opposition Coalition
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 4th September 2026
The ruling APC knows something about how opposition parties can come
together, overcome their differences, create synergy around a single
candidate, mobilise and defeat an incumbent president. They know the
process very well because they did it between 2013 and 2015, when they
came together, negotiated, agreed on how the candidate would emerge
and then went ahead to agree on a consensus candidate. The said
candidate, Muhammadu Buhari was in a sense an easy candidate to agree
on because the other leading contenders could see possibilities for
themselves in the post-Buhari era. The outcome of the consensus
position that emerged was that for the first time in the history of
this country, a sitting President was defeated at the polls and handed
over power peacefully in 2015. Precisely because they know the script,
the APC was not going to sit and watch what they did to others be done
to them.
There was therefore no surprise with the alarm, indeed panic, within
the APC in June 2025 when the platform of the opposition coalition,
the African Democratic Congress (ADC), was to be launched. A few hours
before the event, the organisers got a rude shock when the hotel they
were to use abruptly cancelled a fully paid reservation. The Wells
Carlton Hotel and Apartments in Asokoro, Abuja, said they had to
cancel the event due to an unspecified “internal compliance matter.”
The very late cancellation could only have meant some powerful people
wanted to stop the inauguration of the coalition because they were
afraid.
On numerous occasions before that time, the then major opposition, the
Peoples’ Democratic Party, had been under sustained State sponsored
harassment. The judicial machinery was effectively used by friends of
the presidency to create legal impediments to party operations through
the instrumentalization of factionalism. In addition, the Nigeria
Police Force was used to stop Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) meetings
or occupy their offices. It was essentially the concern of opposition
parties that the government was crossing red lines in interfering with
opposition structures that created the impetus for unity and the
establishment of the ADC.
The Tinubu political strategy since 2023 has been to apply
slash-and-absorb tactics to opposition parties by actively encouraging
factional crises within them and enticing key members to abandon ship
and join the ruling party. This was not a sustainable tactic because
there were limited positions within the ruling party, and giving the
new entrants would mean depriving those within the party
of these, which would become a crisis generating mechanism for the
ruling party itself. This was indeed the context that encouraged
opposition parties to strategize towards the establishment of a
unified mega opposition platform to face the APC in the 2027
elections, the African Democratic Congress (ADC). By making opposition
parties ungovernable, the ruling party has created the need within
them to opt out and seek unity in another platform.
The greatest challenge to a unified opposition party is not the antics
of the ruling party. It is the fact that many of the leaders of the
opposition parties have presidential ambitions themselves and are not
ready to step down for anyone. The emergence of a consensus candidate
becomes impossible and the coalition breaks down. That scenario has
been played repeatedly in Nigeria’s political history. APC in 2015 was
the exception rather than the rule. There was no surprise when one of
the hopefuls for the presidential candidate of the coalition, Peter
Obi, stepped out and joined the NDC. Other opposition parties believed
it was wiser to try their luck separately. The coalition lost its
strength by removing the threat of a unified front against the sitting
president. The story had come to the end.
But then, my good friend and political mobiliser, Dr Salihu Lukman
never gives up on a good idea. He decided to resuscitate the coalition
movement by setting up the group of 100 to revive the idea. This week,
they convened the National Chairmen of the leading opposition parties
– the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Allied Peoples Movement
(APM), Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and Social Democratic Party
(SDP); with their presidential and vice-presidential candidates to
revive the idea of a unified coalition. He warned them that they must
avoid the errors of 2003, 2007 and 2011, when the opposition went into
elections divided and the ruling party found it easy to come out
victorious. He reminded them that in 2023, the winning APC had just
under nine million votes. One opposition candidate took close to seven
million. Another took just over six million. Thirteen million votes on
one side of the argument, under nine million on the other. And the
side with fewer votes formed the government, lawfully,
constitutionally, and entirely predictably.
He added that it was not only a Nigerian lesson. In Kenya in 2002, a
party that had governed for thirty-nine years was removed, not by a
new idea, but by an opposition that finally agreed to be one
opposition. In Malaysia in 2018, a coalition that had governed for
sixty-one years was removed in much the same way, by people who had
been each other's prosecutors and each other's prisoners. In neither
case did the opposition win because it had become more virtuous. It
won because it had become one. The lesson, he concluded, was not a
moral one, itis an arithmetical one. Will they listen to him? More
importantly, can they act on good advice?
The presidential candidates of these parties have gone through the
nomination processes of their parties and won. Many see themselves
already as presidents in waiting. It is difficult for them to step
down for one person. The problem in Nigeria is that political power is
so concentrated in the presidency that no ambitious person at that
level can feel adequately compensated by anything other than the top
job. Some of the candidates are old and believe this is their last
chance to fulfil their political ambition. The feasibility question is
a tough one for the opposition to solve.
Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
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