Does APC Deserve Another Ten Years?

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June/July 2025Nigeria
APC

Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: AfDB Group / FLICKR.

THE MINISTRY OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS

Does APC Deserve Another Ten Years?

As Nigeria’s ruling party, All Progressives Congress, marks ten years in power, Nigerians should assess the performance of the party and decide the political trajectory of the nation.
APC

Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: AfDB Group / FLICKR.

THE MINISTRY OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS

Does APC Deserve Another Ten Years?

As Nigeria’s ruling party, All Progressives Congress, marks ten years in power, Nigerians should assess the performance of the party and decide the political trajectory of the nation.

In 2008, a former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Vincent Ogbulafor, declared that PDP would rule Nigeria for 60 years. It was a bold statement flavoured with arrogance, but the pompousness that provoked such a statement was not built on wishful thinking. Then, PDP was the ‘largest party in Africa’. It had control of the presidency, the National Assembly and 31 of the 36 states in Nigeria. Everything pointed to the possibility of the party being in office for a very long time. After all, when Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999, PDP was already the party of choice for many political bigwigs and former top military personnel. The party was poised to control the reins of Nigeria for 60 years, or so it seemed.

Seven years after Ogbulafor made his boastful prediction, PDP lost its control of Nigeria to the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party that was a coalition of opposition parties formed in 2013. The campaign and election that brought APC into office was a memorable one, as Muhammadu Buhari, a former military head of state and three-time presidential candidate, became a symbol of change. Buhari rode on the promise that he was going to tackle the insecurity that was ravaging the country, while his running mate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, was meant to manage the country’s economy. Before the Independent National Electoral Commission formally declared Buhari the winner of the election, Goodluck Jonathan took the high road and called Buhari to congratulate him on his victory in the election. Nigerians were ecstatic that change had finally come. Ten years later, has it?

THE END OF PDP’S 60-YEAR DREAM

On 26 May 2025, Nigeria’s minister of the federal capital territory, Nyesom Wike, released a statement addressing the crisis within PDP and pointed accusing fingers at some party executives. Despite being a registered PDP member, Wike currently serves in an APC government, a situation that points towards his contribution to the ruling party’s victory in Rivers State during the presidential election in 2023 against his own party. 

At the moment, everything points towards an easy victory for President Bola Tinubu in 2027, except that the main opposition party, PDP, puts its house in order and marshals a formidable and united front. It does not seem so at the moment, as PDP’s current detriment has become a trend that has continued since it lost power in 2015.

Anyone who followed Nigeria’s political trajectory ahead of the 2015 general elections would have predicted that PDP was likely to lose its political control in Nigeria. Economically, Nigeria was doing well, and even the most ardent opposition would admit that the party had managed to improve Nigeria’s economic indices. In 2014, following the rebasing of Nigeria’s economy, Nigeria overtook South Africa as the largest economy in Africa with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of over $500 billion. In the same year, global management consulting firm, McKinsey’s Global Institute released a report titled: ‘Delivering inclusive growth in Africa’s largest economy’, where it predicted that by 2030, Nigeria’s ‘annual GDP could exceed $1.6 trillion in 2030 and the country could be a top-20 economy.’ 

Despite the economic progress being recorded, insecurity was ravaging the country, especially in the North East, where Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped and killed residents amid regular face-offs with security operatives. In the first half of 2014, an estimated 2,053 people were killed and more displaced by insurgency. The infamous kidnapping of 276 girls from Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok, Borno State, further indicted the PDP government and exposed its weakness in curtailing the growing insurgency.

Corruption was a major problem that PDP failed to curtail in governance. Jonathan’s national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, was ultimately arrested in 2015 by the Department of State Services for allegedly stealing $2.1 billion shortly after Buhari was sworn in as president. The allegation of corruption was one of the causes of the 2012 Occupy Nigeria protest, as Nigeria felt that with rampant corruption, fuel was the only thing citizens could benefit from the government directly, and the removal of subsidy was to their detriment.

APC capitalized on this deep crack and launched a massive campaign built on the promise of change. Buhari’s image as a former military head of state sold the promise of an end to the insurgency. Also, Buhari and his running mate, Osinbajo, projected the image of frugality as an antithesis to the corruption-stamped image of the ruling party. Following the 2015 general elections, APC won power, dominating the National Assembly and having the most state governors. PDP, for the first time in 16 (not 60) years, relinquished political authority.

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10 YEARS OF APC

It has been ten years since APC became the major party, dominating three election cycles (2015, 2019 and 2023). Yet, some who bought the ‘change’ dream have experienced disappointment in how the party has managed the affairs of the country. The Buhari government championed an anti-corruption crusade with little result to show for it. Transparency International’s Corruption Index showed that Nigeria achieved little result in its anti-corruption war in ten years, with recent statistics showing it is getting worse, as Nigeria currently ranks 140 out of 180 countries. In ten years, the economy has suffered two recessions and has seen Nigeria fall to fourth position in Africa’s largest economy, with South Africa, Egypt and Algeria leading the pack. 

Insecurity, which was one of the biggest criticisms against the Jonathan administration, became multifaceted during the Buhari government. While Buhari brought extra rigour into the fight against Boko Haram—going as far as to approve the withdrawal of $462 million from Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account for the purchase of fighter jets without the National Assembly’s approval—banditry went on the rise and spread to other parts of the country. Kidnapping for ransom has also become rampant. In 2023, 7,568 people were abducted with kidnappers demanding the equivalent of over US$6 million, according to an SBM Intelligence report.

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The Buhari administration and the successive Tinubu government have been accused of nepotism, with both accused of filling key positions in their government with Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba appointees, respectively. This has exacerbated ethnic tension and brought the subtle disunity within the country to the fore. The APC Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023, an unprecedented alliance in the country’s democratic pairing, has also raised allegations of Christians being sidelined. One cannot help but ask: Is Nigeria in a better place ten years after APC took over the political power of the country?

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THE ROAD TO APC’S 60-YEAR JOURNEY?

Unlike PDP’s bold declaration of wanting to rule Nigeria for 60 years, APC is silently making strong moves that will see it dominate the country’s political terrain for years. When the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, was asked by young Nigerians at a programme in Abuja in May 2025 how he intends to solve Nigeria’s diverse problems if he was struggling to solve his party’s own, he blamed the ruling APC for the problem in his party. He went further to claim that APC was also responsible for the crises in PDP. Obi’s concern is valid. In the past few months, Nigeria’s opposition has continued to weaken as Tinubu silently marshals a strong, formidable party not through governance but through politics. For example, in April 2025, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State and members of the state assembly defected to APC. Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom is also set to move to APC with his commissioners. This has raised concerns about whether Nigeria is inching towards a one-party state due to how members of the opposition party are defecting to APC. 

The question is: Is APC eyeing the possibility of its own 60 years in office? Has the party done enough to win Nigerians’ support for the long term? I don’t think so. Instead, politicking and not governance has become the dominant interest of the party. While Buhari displayed little interest in improving APC’s political worth, even struggling to manage the party properly at some point, Tinubu, in two years, has dedicated his effort to making APC a formidable party that will take a lot to unseat. Tinubu’s political dexterity is legendary as antecedence shows he built the Action Congress of Nigeria brick by brick from Lagos and expanded its political relevance to states in the South West before the coalition that birthed APC. Opposition members have been scrambling, trying to create the semblance of a coalition force ahead of the 2027 general elections. How formidable that will be before then is doubtful.

Knowing Tinubu, he is not just thinking of 2027 but the next electoral cycle of 2031 and that of 2035. Time and time again, he has shown that he is the master of Nigeria’s political long game. If any party can rule Nigeria for 60 years, it will be APC with the current political trajectory. However, how does that benefit Nigerians? How does it make the lives of the over 23 million unemployed Nigerians better? Does it improve the 23.51 per cent food inflation rate or better the chances of the 18.3 million out-of-school children?

With insecurity claiming the lives of Nigerians and threatening food security, and rising ethnic tension rapidly dividing Nigerians, the ten-year mark should offer APC an opportunity to reflect on whether the Nigeria of today is what it envisaged or planned for when it took power from PDP. Nigerians, too, have to come to the realization that political power is not a given but earned from the conviction of the electorate. As political bigwigs are defecting in droves to APC, the ultimate power lies in the hands of ordinary Nigerians who must make the defining decision at the polls and decide the political trajectory of the nation⎈

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