JOSHUA J. OMOJUWA argues the differences between both political parties
In my early years as a secondary school student in an all-boys school, I deployed one of the holidays into getting myself this girl. Then, writing her a letter seemed like an effective idea because she was gated 24/7. I wrote one and got someone to deliver it. The bearer had reported to me that a girl I used to like back in primary school now lived closer to our house. It felt natural that since he had an interest in the matter, he had to deliver it. He did. Job done, at least, so I thought.
The following Christmas, I paid an unsolicited visit to this girl and was introduced to her mum. I made that visit with another primary school mate. If you are wondering why we already liked girls at that time, please wonder. As children, we all had different levels of awareness. Ours just happened to be that we noticed beautiful girls. During the visit, the girl told her mum that, “the letter that was sent the other day? Joshua sent it!” pointing at me. Argh, that was probably the first time in my life I wished it was possible to make a disappearance without moving one’s legs. But I could not disappear. I mumbled words, part disclaimer, part what-did-I-do-wrong? Somehow, I survived that episode. I always remembered that girl as the one who took my letter and went to give her mum. My remembrance had no evil intent or anything of sort, it just was how I remembered her. It took almost three decades for me to realise I was wrong.
As I was later to find out, the bearer had delivered this letter to the gateman and the gateman handed the letter to the mum. To this day, the girl never saw the letter. If you had asked the girl in question, she would have told a different story from mine and it wouldn’t have meant that any of us was lying. It would simply reflect the different ends we saw the story from. History can sometimes suffer from people witnessing different ends of the same story, but the differences in reflections must not be on account of people doing their best to misrepresent publicly verifiable facts.
A number of people are desperate to see similarities between the formation of APC in 2013 and the evolution of ADC in 2025. Without speaking to the context of the incumbents both parties played or is playing against and the political environment, which are themselves major factors, the APC and the ADC could not be more dissimilar in their stories of formation.
Everyone who joined the APC burnt their previous boats. They were all in. There are ADC bigwigs today that their followers can’t really say whether they are ADC members or members of another party. I call them Schrödinger members. They are ADC but they are also not ADC. Some of their members want you to believe that it’s some strategy but even they can’t be that bereft of common sense to believe that themselves. No politician craves uncertainty for themselves.
There are ADC members you know for certain, if they manage to stay that long there, they won’t be there after they lose its primaries. Here again, APC was all in. APC was immediately the second major political force once it got formed. Today, PDP is the second political force, even if ADC didn’t suffer the aforementioned ailments. APC enjoyed a free shot at being the main challenger to the then incumbent. ADC must negotiate being the main opposition, to start with.
Once the APC was formed, everyone aligned and formed into the strength of an unbreakable broom. Today, ADC’s biggest battles are within. “Members” see themselves as something else first before they see themselves as ADC members. If at all they do. Even online, you see the fights. In chemistry, you’d say APC at its formation was a sort of homogeneous mixture. The ADC is an immiscible one. A heterogeneous mixture. They have been combined but they have refused to mix.
The main players in the APC weren’t facing a last dance election. They could play again in 2019 if they missed out on 2015. In the ADC, the main players are in a situation where if they miss out on 2027, they are more or less done. At least the top two suspects. In essence, they must run. That leaves the ADC with a mutually exclusive situation the APC never had to deal with. Two things must happen that cannot both happen inside the ADC. Nigerians who were pissed off with the then incumbent party immediately aligned with the APC at the time. Now, even ADC members are yet to fully align with them. All the above are in the context of the parties. It doesn’t address the type of presidents in both contexts, the states of the incumbent parties, the local and international political context, Chibok girls, Boko Haram, Occupy Nigeria, etc.
The above aren’t even the most contrasting bits. The APC was formed to accommodate a coalition of parties that in some cases completely disappeared as soon as the alliance was formed. The CPC disappeared, the ACN ceased to be, ANPP more or less folded, and APGA was greatly dented. In contrast, the ADC had been around for about eight years before even the APC was formed. It has been with us the last two decades. Unlike the APC, it comes with its institutional weights from the past. A lot has been said about the ADC’s poor showing in the recent by-elections. I think the losses were to be expected. But if the ADC must take lessons from the times, it is that the players and its supporters must wake up to a simple truth: the ADC is not the APC. That way, it can face the future knowing their fates cannot be the same. Or they can insist on their version of the past. I went on to meet a lot more girls later, here, there’s only one 2027.
Omojuwa is chief strategist, Alpha Reach/BGX Publishing
