ADC faces war on many fronts

Historians generally explain the fall of empires by citing internal and external factors. Until a week or two ago, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) falsely gave the impression that its troubles were limited to the external machinations of third parties, mainly the All Progressives Congress (APC). Narrowing the explanation down more specifically, the party accused President Bola Tinubu of detesting rival political parties constituted by bigwigs capable of narrowing his re-election chances. Still pursuing that strain of argument, and unsure whether blaming the president was potent enough to convince the electorate that ADC leaders were not the architects of their own misfortune, they have seized upon the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman's administrative decisions to reinforce their allegations that external forces were behind their travails.

The ADC has so far been unable to manage or solve its self-inflicted external troubles. It has been unable to prove conclusively that both President Tinubu and the INEC chairman have individually or in combination promoted discord and disaffection within the opposition coalition party. In fact, blaming the president or the ruling party has remained tenuous and unconvincing. Nevertheless, if the president and INEC wish to foment rebellion in the opposition, they will have to find a cinch in the opposition's armour and exploit it. In the circumstances, both the president and his party have been so preoccupied with managing the behemoth of about 32 parties which they forged in a matter of months to have time to plant and nurture discord in the coalition opposition. But as part of their explanation to explain their foibles and missteps, the ADC has gone on to focus on INEC chairman, Joash Amupitan, a Law professor, in order to make sense of their troubles. But the eminent professor had merely reacted as best as he could to the legal conundrum generated by the opposition coalition's clumsy takeover of the ADC. That legal tango was continuing fiercely – and is still continuing apace – to the point that the party needed a constitutional arbiter to moderate its internal turmoil. That process of dispute resolution was nearing completion when suddenly and needlessly the ADC escalated the fight by proceeding to the Court of Appeal over a judge's instruction, not judgement.

Legally and administratively speaking, the ADC does not have a cat in hell's chance of making headway in the suit. The party has proved that its controversial leaders are all hot on activism, short on democracy, opaque on the law and the rule of law, and deeply averse to common sense. Rather than attend to their own inept approach to politics and refine and realign their methods, they have once again exposed themselves to deep internal fissures far worse than the constraining legal labyrinth they met on their entry into the ADC. Firstly, they created an internal lacuna for themselves when they proceeded to hold their convention without resolving their foundational distortions. Next, they weakened and soiled their party's image when they proudly announced their defiance of judicial orders. And finally, having assembled a mixed multitude of disaffected politicians far worse than the multicoloured behemoth fashioned by the APC, they must now contend with internal discord more virulent than anyone has known in Nigerian politics. Nearly all the known leaders of the party are gearing up for a presidential run, and have begun to denigrate one another with clever sarcasms, deploying puerile and damning phrases that lead observers to question both the integrity and refinement of the aspirants.