What is the point of voting for an opposition party if the people elected under its banner eventually help the president they opposed to secure another term? A voter may understand that a governor must work with the president, regardless of party affiliation. What is harder to understand is why that governor should also help organise the president’s re-election campaign while continuing to draw political authority from a different party. At some point, the question ceases to be about political strategy and becomes one of democratic honesty. What exactly were voters being asked to choose in the first place?
Nigeria’s preparations for the 2027 presidential election have brought this contradiction into focus. The All Progressives Congress’s revised presidential campaign council list reportedly includes Nyesom Wike, a prominent Peoples Democratic Party figure, Chukwuma Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance; and Ademola Adeleke, who won the Osun governorship under the Accord Party, in campaign coordination roles associated with President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid. The precise appointments and designations should be checked against the original list, but the political questions they raise are too important to dismiss as another round of routine horse-trading.
Why should a party ask citizens to support it as an alternative to the ruling party if its leading figures are prepared to help that ruling party retain power? What happens to the promise of opposition when those entrusted with sustaining it begin lending their influence to the incumbent?
These questions do not arise from the naïve expectation that politicians must remain enemies forever. Democracy requires cooperation as well as competition. Governors must negotiate with the federal government, political parties must sometimes work together, and public responsibilities do not disappear simply because elected officials belong to opposing camps. A governor who works with Abuja to secure roads, improve security or attract investment is doing what the people expect of someone entrusted with their welfare.
But there is a difference between working with a president and working to return him to office. One is part of governing, the other is a choice about who should govern. The distinction is not difficult to grasp, yet political convenience often encourages leaders to blur it.
A political party is more than a name on a ballot paper. It asks voters to believe that its approach to government offers something worth choosing over its competitors. It presents candidates, makes promises, criticises the incumbent and claims that the country or state would be better served by a different direction. Opposition is therefore not an ornament to democracy. It gives public dissatisfaction a political home and provides citizens with a peaceful means of seeking change.
When opposition leaders help build the incumbent’s re-election machinery, that responsibility comes under scrutiny. Their parties may retain their offices, flags and membership cards, but the public is entitled to ask whether they still offer a credible alternative to the government they are helping to sustain.
Consider a voter who supported an opposition governor because the ruling party’s economic policies had become unbearable, because insecurity had destroyed confidence in government or because the country seemed to be heading in the wrong direction. That voter chose an alternative, perhaps imperfect, but one that promised a different political voice. If the governor later becomes a coordinator of the president’s re-election campaign, the voter must now reconcile the original promise with the new alliance.
The governor may have reasons for making that choice. Perhaps he believes cooperation with the president will benefit his state. Perhaps he has changed his assessment of the president’s performance. Perhaps he has concluded that a different political arrangement serves his interests. The public should not have to guess which explanation is correct.
This is where the familiar defence that politics is local falls short. Yes, politics is local. A governor must consider the needs of his people, and refusing to cooperate with the federal government simply to preserve an opposition image could be irresponsible. But the welfare of a state cannot become a convenient explanation for every political bargain. If supporting the incumbent’s re-election is genuinely in the public interest, the politician making that choice should be prepared to explain precisely how.
There is no contradiction in demanding cooperation in government while expecting honesty in politics. A governor can work with the president without joining his campaign. He can acknowledge achievements without endorsing every policy. He can negotiate for his state without asking his supporters to abandon the political choice they made under his party’s banner.
The distinction matters because an endorsement is not an administrative necessity. It is a political decision, and political decisions invite scrutiny.
Nor does every alliance across party lines amount to a betrayal. A politician may leave a party because it has abandoned its principles, and an individual’s endorsement does not automatically represent the official position of the party to which that individual belongs. Wike, Soludo and Adeleke occupy different political positions, and their circumstances should not be treated as identical. Their reported appointments do not, by themselves, establish that their parties have formally endorsed Tinubu or that the 2027 election has already been decided.
But these qualifications do not remove the larger concern. Prominent politicians possess influence beyond their formal party memberships. They command networks, shape political conversations and can mobilise local structures. When such figures outside the ruling party are recruited into the incumbent’s campaign, voters are entitled to ask what the arrangement means for the strength of the opposition and the choices available to the electorate.
The ordinary party supporter understands the imbalance at the heart of this arrangement. During elections, supporters are urged to defend their parties, resist rival camps and stand firm behind their candidates. They carry political arguments into their homes, workplaces and communities. They defend their choices against criticism, endure electoral disappointments and continue to identify with their political camp long after the campaign posters have faded.
Then the calculations change at the top.
Yesterday’s opponent becomes today’s ally, and the leaders who demanded unwavering loyalty explain why old differences must now be set aside. The supporters who were expected to treat party identity as a matter of conviction are asked to accept that their leaders can treat it as a matter of convenience.
The foot soldier is expected to regard party loyalty as sacred; the leader treats it as something to negotiate.
Different party cards, same pocket.
That is the insult buried beneath the language of political pragmatism. Ordinary Nigerians are asked to invest their hopes in parties and candidates, yet the leaders who solicit their support may redirect that political loyalty without adequately explaining themselves. The public is expected to take party differences seriously when votes are being sought, then accept that those differences matter less when influential politicians decide to cross the divide.
Of course, politicians have the right to change their minds. A party can betray its manifesto, abandon its founding principles or become so compromised that leaving it is the more principled decision. But changing political allegiance should not exempt a leader from explaining the decision. What has changed? Which principles remain? Why should supporters accept the new direction? And how does the arrangement serve the people whose mandate the politician continues to exercise?
These are ordinary questions of accountability. They should not be treated as unreasonable demands merely because the answers may be politically inconvenient.
The consequences extend beyond individual parties. Nigerians struggling with high living costs, insecurity, unemployment and the daily pressure of providing for their families need credible ways to register dissatisfaction with the government. They need opposition parties capable of examining policies, exposing failures and presenting alternatives that can be judged against the incumbent’s record. An opposition that loses the capacity or willingness to perform these functions leaves citizens with fewer meaningful ways to translate frustration into political change.
When the people who should challenge the government become invested in its continuation, the voter is left wondering who will speak for those who want a different direction.
That is how democratic disillusionment grows. It does not always begin with the suspension of a constitution or the cancellation of an election. Sometimes it develops more quietly, as citizens watch political leaders who once presented themselves asĺll9l9llll opponents discover that their differences are negotiable when power is at stake. The parties continue to exist, campaigns continue to be organised, and politicians continue to ask for votes. Yet the public begins to wonder whether the competition is as meaningful as it appears.
A democracy cannot thrive on the appearance of competition alone. Citizens must be able to identify credible alternatives, understand what those alternatives propose and hold their representatives accountable when they abandon their commitments.
The APC may regard the recruitment of prominent opposition figures as a sign of President Tinubu’s expanding political influence. Its strategists may see an opportunity to strengthen the president’s re-election machinery and complicate the opposition’s efforts to build a united challenge. From the standpoint of electoral tactics, such an arrangement may be useful. But assembling influential politicians is not the same as persuading the electorate that the government deserves another term.
An incumbent should have to defend his record before the public. He should explain what his policies have achieved, what they have cost and why Nigerians who remain dissatisfied should give him another opportunity. That is the substance of democratic competition. Political endorsements may help a campaign, but they cannot substitute for a convincing argument about the direction of the country.
Nor should elite agreement be mistaken for popular consent. Politicians may negotiate alliances, settle old differences and assemble an impressive network of supporters. None of this establishes what ordinary Nigerians think or how they will vote. A governor’s endorsement is not a deed of ownership over the electorate. Voters retain their judgment, and no political leader can assume that the people will follow wherever he chooses to lead.
That is why the response of the electorate matters as much as the calculations of political elites. Citizens can listen to endorsements without accepting them. They can judge alliances by their consequences rather than their presentation. They can ask whether the politicians involved have explained their decisions and whether those decisions reflect the interests of the people they represent.
The opposition, for its part, has a responsibility that extends beyond keeping its name on the ballot. It must offer a credible programme, scrutinise the government’s record and demonstrate that political change can produce a different approach to governance. It cannot expect voters to take its promises seriously if its leading figures appear more interested in negotiating access to the incumbent than in making a compelling case for an alternative.
The public does not demand that politicians never compromise. It demands to know what they are compromising, why they are doing so and whose interests the compromise serves.
The Judases of democracy do not merely betray their parties, they betray the very idea that citizens should have a choice.
As the 2027 campaign gathers momentum, Nigerians will hear plenty about unity, pragmatism, experience and the need to work together. Some of those arguments will be sincere, and political cooperation can certainly serve the public good. But unity among political elites is not necessarily unity among citizens. An alliance assembled by powerful politicians is not proof that the electorate has been persuaded.
The real test comes when a Nigerian who has lost faith in the incumbent looks for a credible alternative. Who will scrutinise the government’s record? Who will organise public dissatisfaction into a competing programme? Who will make the case for a different direction if those who should be leading the challenge are helping to organise the incumbent’s return?
These are questions that no campaign list can answer. They require political leaders to explain their choices and accept that the people who elected them have the right to judge those choices. They require opposition parties to demonstrate that their differences with the government amount to more than the identities they display during campaigns. Above all, they require a political class that understands that public mandates are held in trust, not owned outright.
The test of democracy is not how many powerful politicians an incumbent can gather around a campaign table. It is whether the citizen who rejects the incumbent can still find a credible alternative and use the ballot to pursue a different future.
When those entrusted with offering Nigerians a choice begin organising the return of the incumbent, the question is no longer simply who has changed sides. It is whether the people who still want change have anyone left who is prepared to fight for it.
Stephanie Shaakaa shaakaastephanie@yahoo.com
08034861434
