By Hassan A. Saliu
Background and Introduction
Politicking is now in the air, especially with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) lifting the ban on political campaigns. We are beginning to see what the parties have in store for Nigerians to improve their welfare. This author, however, speaks for many Nigerians when he observes that what is currently on offer does not match the desperate situation on the ground. Perhaps we should give the parties and their candidates more time to turn the tide.
What is observed at the national level is also being replicated in Kwara State. The parties are active but offer little that people need to turn their lives around. Amid the state’s worrying development trajectory, the old rivalry is being revived, pitting Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, the incumbent governor, against Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, former governor, though not directly as in 2019 and 2023. This familiar contest has excited some stakeholders, but it has also turned off many voters who see little need to participate in a power contest between two tendencies that appear to move in the same ideological direction, hinting at low voter turnout.
The Political Survival Thesis
The political survival thesis is anchored on the understanding that, most of the time, Nigerian politicians spare little thought for the people and their welfare. Occasionally, their policies or pronouncements may suggest a populist leaning, but such gestures are often deceptive and temporary. Their subsequent actions rarely follow through. Sooner or later, they will revert to a Machiavellian approach to politics, in which what accrues to the political class at the expense of the people remains a major consideration.
At times, politicians embrace the phraseology of servant leadership. That rhetoric, however, often obscures their real motives. Their ultimate concern is retaining control while in power and exercising influence when out of power. Their surrogates often mistake their anointing for genuine interest. It is not, a fact some only realise late in the day.
As events in Kano, Enugu, Gombe, Rivers and other states have shown, considerations of political and economic survival, coupled with the desire to erect a thick wall against future inquiries, shape the kind of politics we witness. In pursuit of relevance, politicians can literally move mountains, ensuring undue access to public funds, either directly or by proxy, under the rubric of the political survival game. This orientation sometimes conflicts with that of their successors. The experience in Kano is illustrative: on two principal occasions in recent times, political fights between the godfather and his godsons over sharing formula have arrested the state’s rapid growth and development. In such contests of strength, people become cannon fodder, their interests counting only insofar as they can be deployed as a resource to win the fight. In the process, they suffer bruises, including injuries and death.
This is where citizens often get it wrong, assuming that their concerns command sustained attention in official circles. That assumption is mistaken. Engrossed in the survival game, leaders spare little thought for the people, whether in or out of power, except for handouts designed to keep them in check and to obscure their understanding of the game being played. This attitude is reinforced by a deeply entrenched business orientation and an undisguised class inclination. The political survival framework, in essence, does not fundamentally care about the toiling masses. Its goal is to keep elites politically relevant at all times and in all seasons, no matter whose ox is gored.
The All Progressives Congress (APC)
I have written a couple of pieces on this subject, raising critical issues affecting political parties in Kwara State as they warm up for the 2027 electoral cycle. I even assessed the African Democratic Congress (ADC), which I considered a struggling party in the state. While nationally visible, the ADC has yet to establish a commensurate presence on the ground in Kwara, and currently generates little awareness among the voters. It needs to do more to complement the wave it is making nationally. For now, the APC and the PDP dominate the electoral space in the state, and, all things being equal, the contest is essentially between them. I begin with the ruling party.
I have observed some changes within the APC since my last piece. The party now appears to appreciate that reconciliation is its only viable path to victory. It has established a main peace committee led by ex-military officer, Colonel Lawal, and another initiative on volunteerism championed by Prof. Oba Abdulraheem. The establishment of these committees suggests that the party has finally come to terms with the numerous pieces of advice it earlier ignored, having relied on electoral strategies anchored on incumbency. That reliance may count, and may not, for a party that has shed considerable weight, as high-net-worth members have left its platform for other parties, including its arch-rival, the PDP.
Some senior members have not formally left the party but have shown diminished commitment due to cumulative grievances. Leading lights of the Otoge movement have been outwardly nonchalant but inwardly pained by what has become of the party they laboured to bring to power. The reconciliation net must therefore capture these elders, whom the electorates still trust to guide them. It may therefore be wishful thinking to wave the flag of retirement before them. Their touted replacements may lack the experience and clout to win elections. Their services remain needed.
At one point, the party tried to use Nyesom Wike’s name as a scapegoat instead of addressing its internal crisis. He was accused of meddling in APC-controlled states, including Kwara, by absorbing aggrieved APC members into his PDP faction. Mr. Wike has rejected the accusation, arguing that he has done the ruling party a favour by absorbing them rather than letting them defect to more hostile platforms. This Wike dimension, however, ignores the fact that the PDP has always had a strong presence in the state and remains the main challenger to the ruling party even without the Wike factor. He cannot single-handedly determine electoral outcomes in Kwara State from his base in Rivers State, especially with the APC in power for over seven years, unless something is not adding up with the party. At best, Wike can donate money and strategy to his wing of the party, which may impact the PDP’s fortunes given the suspected downturn in its resource flow. Interestingly, a new twist suggests that the tension between the Kwara APC and Wike has eased, with the state APC toning down its rhetoric on the Wike phenomenon.
The party now seems to have recognised the need to look beyond the paraphernalia of state power and pursue reconciliation with open arms. This approach appears to be pacifying aggrieved members and bringing them back into the fold, especially in Kwara Central, where street opinion does not currently favour the party. This should worry the APC, given the huge votes the district can deliver. Given the party’s current standing, it may need to mobilise enormous financial resources to change the electoral climate.
Observers will also note that its gubernatorial candidate has been largely silent. This may be strategic, but it does not position the APC well. He should be allowed to make public appearances and engage citizens on his agenda, even if it is to consolidate the outgoing administration’s achievements. He should be given latitude and empowerment to do so as the party’s flagbearer.
As things stand, the PDP has an edge in Kwara Central, albeit not a comfortable one. It can easily lose it to the APC if it is not careful, through a combination of factors, some of which the APC is already exploiting. I understand more resources are being mobilised through party structures to address long-standing complaints about resources not trickling down. The challenge is that the deployment has yet to be strategic, given the depth of thirst created. Ordinarily, the ruling party should not be facing what is essentially a self-inflicted crisis that has made it a struggling party in Kwara Central, if not the entire state. Its style of governance may be partly responsible.
Not everything is working against the party, however. Some aggrieved members are returning to its fold, a significant development to note. It has a scorecard it has been trumpeting at every opportunity, including a rash of initiatives that should have been announced much earlier but are only now being unveiled, which still makes it the party to beat. While it has lost some members due to some actions and inactions, it has also successfully poached members from other parties, swelling its ranks. Whatever obstacles it faces, other parties face them too.
Significantly, opposition parties in Kwara face formidable problems; chief among them are finance and overly simplistic assumptions. While no one denies the reality of hardship, it is a potential vote driver that requires electoral processing, which the opposition is not undertaking. It is unclear whether they will get it right with less than eighty days to the elections. Admittedly, the ruling party will also benefit from a more nuanced reading of the environment to assess how far its permutations tick the boxes, and the same applies to the PDP. From this end, more work is needed on vote-diverting issues that are preventing the party’s messages from reaching the grassroots, most notably in Kwara Central.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
On the PDP side, the street pulse suggests it is in relatively good standing, as we say at the University of Ilorin, at least in Kwara Central for now. Whether it can hold that ground until January next year, when the first round of elections will hold, remains uncertain, especially given the ruling party’s resolve to surmount all obstacles to retain power. I make this point cautiously, given developments on the political turf. The ruling party is appealing strongly to the electorate, deploying a mix of strategies. Will the PDP be lucky not to lose ground in the district to the APC, especially if stories about dwindling resources are anything to go by? Time will tell.
Meanwhile, its governorship candidate is showing commitment, thanks to the latitude he enjoys to engage constituencies, although his messages remain too broad. This latitude is lacking in the APC, perhaps for strategic reasons, as its candidate is being overshadowed by the outgoing governor’s personality. While that may be strategic, it deprives the voters of the opportunity to engage the candidate directly. Whether the PDP can leverage its candidate’s engagements to swing substantial votes remains to be seen. The party needs to do more, given the state’s electoral geography and the fact that its candidate is relatively new to Kwara politics, which imposes strategic limitations.
Three factors make the PDP a sort of darling of the Kwara Central electorate, though with disturbing concerns. First, its primaries were conducted relatively peacefully, although two contenders lay claim to its ticket on the surface. The main faction tends to dismiss this, but the question of who will be the eventual candidate remains in court. Its main flagbearer is a new face who presents both opportunities and obstacles. A graveyard silence still hangs over the party’s electoral machinery regarding some internal issues. Dismissing them would be unwise, as it could invite sabotage on election day, as it has happened in the recent past.
Second, it is capitalising on the perceived ineffectiveness of the current state government, fuelling the erroneous belief that it has already won the elections. At best, this is wishful thinking. Reflecting on the matter, the party does enjoy a somewhat positive image in the Central. However, I am less certain about other senatorial districts where developments suggest the party must return to the drawing board. In Kwara South, for instance, the strong opposition to the party is rooted in past events and comparisons of regime performance in the zone. The district is also said to have benefited disproportionately from federal patronage under the APC. The party’s main candidate has tried to address some of these concerns through conventional and other means, but fears remain about his low name recognition, with no one to fill the gap. The plain truth is that he cannot win the gubernatorial election on his own; he needs support from party veterans.
Third, there is an easy assumption, based on the party’s relative appeal to more of the Kwara Central people, that the party only needs to sustain the legendary tradition of lukewarmness and absenteeism among its major figures to win. We have seen that before, and it remains the norm. While it may superficially produce the desired result given prevailing circumstances, it must be stressed that dislodging a sitting government with an elastic resolve to retain power will not be easy. Sending directives from Paris and London to opposition members carries some risks. The PDP’s back-to-back defeats in recent elections should have underscored the need to occupy the political space more effectively and match the APC strength for strength, but that has not happened, perhaps because some of its leaders are being distracted by the preaching of the party’s inevitability of victory, as it was the case in the past, which proved untrue.
The PDP shares this trait with one or two other parties in the state. For a struggling party to be steeped in this tradition is regrettable, as it has little well-oiled ground operation to rely on. The party it is copying at least has incumbency resources and access to cash to mitigate the negative repercussions of that approach. Winning an election in our climate requires painstaking planning and strategy. Painfully, the PDP has yet to appreciate this, perhaps because of distractions.
I have focused more on Kwara Central in this piece. However, information from other areas suggests that the party has considerable work to do to convince the voters who remain nostalgic about its past mistakes. Politicians often forget the past, but voters do not. Notwithstanding, prevailing circumstances seem to be shifting in the party’s favour, reflecting changing perceptions. Undoubtedly, the party has issues to address before the elections. The elections, however, remain open, and any party that adopts strategies that resonate with the people will likely carry the day. Kwara is one of the states tilting towards the APC in the presidential election, as leaders of both the APC and the PDP in the state have indicated. The real contest will be for other levels of elections.
Concluding Remarks
Overall, with a few weeks to the elections, the parties have ample time to review their strategies and position themselves for victory. Evidently, the elections are not easy to call. The APC has issues to examine closely, and the PDP equally has issues to re-examine if it intends to win. Although not covered here, the ADC also has issues to address. Based on my observations, the elections, minus the presidential contest, can go either way between the PDP and the APC. I urge the parties to do more in the time remaining to improve their chances. One piece of advice that cuts across the board is that both parties should come down from their Olympian heights, acknowledging that they have hurt feelings in the build-up to the elections, and seek forgiveness from members as they go into the polls. This is not a sign of weakness but a necessary step in electoral politics that can improve their prospects. Their leaders, not their proxies, should take this step.
They also need to worry about the people’s material existence. It is in their self-enlightened interest to stop deceiving them and work out something concrete for the people during this campaign season instead of the tokenism and cosmetic concerns that have deepened poverty, not alleviated it, in the state.
Saliu is of the Department of Political Science
University of Ilorin
