2027 Alliance: Should We Trust These Politicians Again? -By Aliyu Baba Mohammed

Nigeria will go to the polls again in less than a year. The major political parties have held national conventions in preparation for the contest ahead.

Meanwhile, the main opposition parties from the 2023 presidential election — the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), and New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) — have decided to combine their strengths in an alliance to repeat what happened in 2015, when the sitting president was voted out.

However, the question remains: should we trust these politicians again?

In 2015, people poured out their support and backed the opposition merger, the APC, wholeheartedly. But twelve years later, the outcome feels like jumping “from frying pan to fire.” Apart from worsening insecurity, especially in the northern parts of the country, the cost of living has drastically increased. Nigerians are going through a lot as a result of stringent government policies introduced after the 2015 election.

I personally put my trust in the president elected then, hoping that things would get better both security-wise and economically. Instead, we were hit by increased banditry, kidnapping, a harsh economy, and delays in university graduation due to the longest strike in the history of university education in Nigeria.

My trust issues stem from the fact that the same people we once trusted, who took the center of governance years ago and later lost relevance, are now resurfacing in this new proposed merger.

I have always believed that, all over the world — not only in Nigeria — there are no bad political parties, only bad political candidates. It is not about bringing a political party to the center of governance, but about who we are bringing to pilot the affairs of the country. I expected the APC to make life easier for Nigerians beyond what was obtainable during the PDP era, but that hope has been completely dashed. Now, a section of those who left the PDP and other parties to form the APC still want us to believe in and embrace the ADC in the coming election.

I read El-Rufai’s book _The Accidental Public Servant_, and the description he gave of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar gives me more reason to fear this merger. I never imagined that El-Rufai and the former VP would share the same political ideology, given the corrupt portrait he painted of Atiku in his book.

Still, if we are tired of the current situation and have no trust in the new merger, what other options do we have that will eventually favour us? Frankly, I have thought on several occasions that Nigeria needs a break from democracy, even though I do not believe the military would do better. But this is the kind of thought that ongoing bad governance plants in our heads.

Even countries like Ghana, which started rising far behind Nigeria, now see that Nigeria is retrogressing instead of progressing. “We want Nigeria to do well so that one million of them won’t come running to a small country like Ghana. Every day I wake up, I pray for Nigeria to get their act together” — Ghanaian President John Mahama. Those are the words of the Ghanaian president, from a country we derided with “Ghana Must Go” in the late 80s and early 90s.

Whatever the case, one thing is certain: we don’t necessarily need a change of political parties, but a change of political candidates. Every political party has the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is left to us to elect individuals who will put the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians first, before their personal pockets. We need those who will make our communities safer and every sector of our economy more friendly. Enough of this suffocation — Nigerian masses must reject the norm of vote buying and rice sharing by politicians, because we deserve better.