The Labour Party has accused the ruling All Progressives Congress of undermining Nigeria’s democracy through deliberate attempts to weaken and destabilise opposition parties.
Speaking at the African Democratic Congress Global Award and Dinner Night held Monday, in Abuja, the acting National Chairman of the Labour Party, Senator Nenadi Usman, accused the APC of consistently deploying state institutions to harass and manipulate opposition voices to consolidate power.
In a speech delivered on her behalf by her Senior Special Adviser on Media, Ken Eluma Asogwa, Usman claimed the APC was weaponising national institutions and state resources to suppress political dissent.
The National Secretary of the APC, Senator Ajibola Basiru, however, dismissed Usman’s position.
Speaking with The PUNCH correspondent via a phone chat, he described the alliance of the opposition figures as an association of “internally displaced persons.”
He said, “They can’t work together. The so-called planned coalition is the figment of the imagination of some individuals who thought that they were big. What coalition are you talking about?
“It’s just an association of internally displaced politicians.”
Usman, in her remarks at the event, emphasised that dissent and alternative viewpoints were vital to the health of any democratic political system.
She said, “Since the emergence of the APC as the ruling party, there has been a deliberate and relentless campaign to undermine the opposition. Tactics range from infiltration and co-optation to judicial manipulation and intimidation through state institutions.
“The ruling party has become adept not just at consolidating power, but at weakening every form of challenge to it. This is not democracy; this is domination masked as governance.”
She argued that crippling the opposition opposed the tenets of democracy.
“Without a strong and functional opposition, we cannot claim to be practising democracy — only a shadow of it,” she warned.
While criticising the APC tactics, Usman also acknowledged the internal challenges plaguing opposition parties.
She urged political actors within the opposition to set aside personal ambitions, greed, and internal divisions and instead unite to offer Nigerians credible and visionary alternatives.
“But let me also be brutally honest,” she added. “While external interference from the APC has played a role, it is not the only culprit. The opposition has too often been complicit in its weakening. No amount of external sabotage can succeed if there is no internal decay.”
She, therefore, called on opposition leaders to embrace a higher sense of patriotism and responsibility, arguing that Nigeria’s political system needs more than just complaints.
“It requires action and concrete solutions.
“It does this country no good to operate a system where one party dominates unchecked.
“Even the APC, if it is wise, should understand that democracy dies not with a bang but with the silence of dissent. Once the people are left with no real alternative, the legitimacy of the entire system is at risk,” Usman said.
The PUNCH
