Since
2014, the All Progressive Congress and People’s Democratic Party have been
dominating Nigeria’s political space with their members engaging in different
political permutations using different tactics ahead of 2015 general elections
and bye elections held across the country between 2016 and 2017. This year, the
two parties will slug it out in Ekiti and Osun states in the South-West region
for the governorship elections, which many has been described as litmus test
for the ruling All Progressive Congress in preparation for 2019 general
elections.
Like the
People’s Democratic Party that crisis divided in 2014, the ruling party
recently had its splinter group, mostly of the nPDP members extraction who
joined then CPC, ANPP and ACN in 2014 to form the merger party that unseated
the PDP during presidential election.
In his
14 paragraphs speech,
Alhaji Buba Galadima, national chairman of the splinter group dubbed Reformed – All Progressives
Congress (R-APC), said: “The APC has run a rudderless, inept and
incompetent government that has failed to deliver good governance to the
Nigerian people. It has rather imposed dictatorship, impunity, abuse of power,
complete abdication of constitutional and statutory responsibilities,
infidelity to the rule of law and constitutionalism.”
Buba
Galadima noted that the R-APC includes
all the progressive forces in APC, including most of the leading members of the
defunct nPDP, CPC, ANPP, ACN and others.
From
members of the ruling party to the People’s Democratic Party, the key
opposition, different views have trailed the emerged division in the APC. Adams
Oshiomhole, the newly elected chairman of APC claimed
that the R-APC members were mercenaries hired to destabilise the APC, assuring President
Muhammadu Buhari that the party will be victorious in 2019 without the group. Some members who reacted to the chairman’s comment on the group believe
that the group comprised genuine members of the party
interested in retrieving the party from usurpers.
As the 2019 election approaches, Infoprations
examined Nigerians especially voters level of trust in the political parties
and electoral umpire. Analysis shows that public trust in the Independent National
Electoral Commission from 2014 to 2017 was discouraging while it was neither
encouraging nor discouraging for the two political parties. Nigerians’ level of
distrust in the electoral body was 98.9% during the period. Analysis reveals that
the level of distrust is lower in 2014 than 2015. In 2016 and 2017, Nigerians’
distrust level increased.
By 1.4% and 19.3%, Nigerians were neither
trusting nor distrusting the two parties. However, the two parties had lower
negative distrustful perception in 2014 and 2015 than in 2016 and 2017. Surprising
insight from the analysis is that Nigerians usually have minimal distrust in
political parties and politicians when general election approaches than after
the election. It has also emerged that Nigerians do not believe in the
electoral body when it is expected to conduct elections for elective offices
across the country.
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