These funny soldiers of multipartysm

And what was General Mark's response?

He leads a protest to INEC headquarters together with 79 - year old Atiku, who probably sees 2027 as his last chance, in spite of the hole being dug around him in the party by Obi and Kwankwaso. Not done yet, Rotimi   Amaechi, Tambuwal and, wait for it, Dino Melaye, also join, singing the old national anthem “in an act of defiance,  accusing INEC of partisanship.

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The man who once threatened a President-elect now demands that INEC protect “our democracy?”

This, certainly, isn't evolution; it is rebranding without a thought. The soldier in our Brigadier obviously didn't retire—he merely changed to Baba riga.

And Nigerians are being asked to believe their joke?

In what may likely come to be known as VP Atiku's Democratic Epiphany,

he stood, ramrod

beside Mark, his hand picked party Chairman, now about being tossed out since the process was allegedly inchoate. Atiku had posted on X that they were “peacefully protesting against the partisanship of the electoral umpire in order to prevent the enthronement of a dictatorship".

Atiku has contested every presidential election since 2007, losing each. In 2023 he ran under PDP; today he fronts ADC.

And what is his complaint? INEC is siding with APC to block ADC's 2027 chances. Yet his own history with INEC is transactional. As Vice President in 2003 and 2007, he benefited from the same electoral machinery he now calls compromised. As a perennial candidate, he has filed petitions, lost in court, and returned to the ballot. The ADC crisis he protests, is internal: INEC stopped recognising both Mark and Bala factions after an Appeal Court ruling. Rather than being a dictatorship, any rational person will see that as an umpire declining to take sides in a factional brawl.

But, of course, partisanship allegation sells better on a placard than 'our party can't obey court orders'.

To any objective observer, the optics of Wednesday's demonstration were curated for mere symbolism. Protesters sang “Arise, O Compatriots!” even though the National Assembly has replaced that with the 1960 version on May 29, 2024. The ADC confirmed that as an act of defiance, showing their total unseriousness. Placards read “Tinubu, let our Democracy breathe” and “Falle daya ce, one term president”. Amaechi told Nigerians to “resist any attempt to undermine democratic institutions or pave  way for authoritarian tendencies”. Of the lot, he is the one Nigerians pity the most after all he did for President Muhammadu Buhari's Katsina state to make him the annoited candidate in 2023.

Strip the slogans bare and what you find is a turf war. INEC's offence, according to them, is refusing to recognize Mark's NWC. The commission says it is obeying a Court of Appeal judgment. The protesters say that is a restriction on party autonomy. So these brand new soldiers for multipartysm are demanding that INEC ignore the judiciary to affirm their faction. That will never be democracy but forum shopping with drums.

But they are not naive. Rather, they are trying to deploy gullibility as strategy.

They know very well that Nigerians have not forgotten June 12. They know that General Mark's quote, rather than die down,  circulates brightly every Democracy Day. They also know  that VP Atiku's six defeats are memes. They still decided to march, anyway, because they are betting on two factors, namely, short memory and shared anger. Let's dive into these:

Inflation bites, just as Insecurity lingers. If you are clever enough, and can dress personal ambition as democratic rescue, Nigerians, they believe, will forget who is wearing the costume, that is, forget their individual past.

Peter Obi - the man who, to be  seen as clean and poor, claims he 'doesnt give shishi', told the rally, “We say NO to a one-party system”. Kwankwaso's supporters filled Maitama. Tambuwal posted that the protest was to ensure that the process “remains credible, fair, and transparent” - all very noble words.

But credibility should start with them telling their supporters why INEC delisted them: a court order and two chairmen claiming one seat. Transparency would mean admitting that  partisanship here means “the umpire won't endorse our side of a split.”

Instead, the ADC coalition frames an administrative response as authoritarianism - a clever inversion, meaning that an institution that refuses to break the rules becomes a threat to democracy, while politicians who once threatened to shoot a President-elect become its guardians.

They conveniently forget that without memory, Multipartysm is nothing but Noise.

Without the slightest doubt, Nigeria sure needs a virile opposition. A country where the ruling party faces no pressure drifts towards complacency.

The ADC is right in saying that 19 registered political parties mean nothing if INEC can be manipulated. But opposition cannot be led by men whose democratic credentials begin the day they left power. David Mark was Senate President for 8 years with his Benue state hardly seeing any dividend of democracy. Atiku was Vice President for 8 years.

Both presided over electoral cycles now described as very badly compromised. Their new faith in multipartysm would have been far more convincing if it had come with an audit of their old faith in raw power.

June 12 teaches us a simple lesson - that mandates matter, and so does memory. Abiola died in detention on July 7, 1998, the day he was due to be released. He was killed, some say, “instalmentally until he eventually gave up the ghost”. The men who enabled that era are now carrying “Save Democracy” banners, parading Abuja streets. If that is not funny, it is tragic.

These funny soldiers for multipartysm are funny because they expect absolution without apology, and loyalty without logic. They demand INEC Chairman's sack while ignoring the court judgment that necessitated INEC's action. They invoke Abiola while embodying the politics that annulled his election. They warn against dictatorship while asking an umpire to dictate in their favor.

Nigerians may be angry, but they are not amnesiac. Democracy is not defended by men who once swore to shoot it, and multipartysm is not proven by staging protests each time a faction loses a memo war.

If Mark, Atiku, and company want to be taken seriously as democrats, their first act of defiance should be against their own past. Until then, they are not soldiers for multipartysm. They are actors in its longest-running comedy, and the audience is by no means amused. Rather, they say they will not go into a second slavery.