Politics

APC and the Power of Party Supremacy

Published by Akinwale Fakinlede on December 11th, 2025.

APC and the Power of Party Supremacy

By: Bolaji Olabode

One of the enduring weaknesses of Nigerian political parties has been their inability to manage ambition without implosion. The All Progressives Congress appears determined to be an exception.

For years, critics predicted that the APC would unravel under the weight of its own diversity—particularly during moments of high-stakes candidate selection. Nowhere were such predictions louder than ahead of the August 2026 Osun State governorship election, where many expected the party’s aspirant management to descend into crisis.

Those expectations were not formed in a vacuum. They were shaped by recent political history. Since the 2023 general elections, the Peoples Democratic Party has struggled—almost hopelessly—to resolve its internal contradictions. Factionalism, unresolved congresses, leadership disputes and mutual suspicion have rendered the party largely paralysed. It has become a political platform where ambition finds no structure, and where even credible aspirants hesitate to invest their political future.

The situation in Osun State is emblematic. The inability of the PDP to guarantee internal fairness and cohesion was so severe that the sitting governor of the state found it safer to seek refuge outside the party, settling with Accord rather than attempt to navigate the PDP’s fractured machinery. That single development said more about the state of the party than any opposition rhetoric ever could.

The Labour Party has fared little better. Since the enthusiasm of the 2023 presidential election, it has failed to transition from a movement into a disciplined political organisation. Despite Peter Obi’s popularity, the party has been unable to rally itself around a unified post-election agenda. Internal disputes, leadership tussles and ideological vagueness have left the LP struggling to function as a coherent opposition platform.

It was against this backdrop that many observers—and opposition actors—assumed the APC would suffer a similar fate in Osun. Some openly taunted the party, confidently predicting electoral victory. But beneath the bravado was a quieter, more desperate hope: that APC would be unable to put its own house in order. That internal collapse, more than any superior strategy, was what they truly counted on.

That collapse never happened.

Instead, the APC executed what Nigerian political parties have historically struggled to achieve: a disciplined consensus process without rancour. Aspirants were consulted, interests were weighed, decisions were reached, and once those decisions were final, the party line prevailed.

This outcome did not come easily. It required a level of internal discipline that is increasingly rare in Nigerian politics. Multiple aspirants, each with structure, followership and ambition, submitted to the authority of the party. That alone speaks volumes. It is one thing to preach party supremacy; it is another to see it enforced—not through coercion, but through collective buy-in.

Opposition actors, particularly within the PDP, misread the APC’s internal logic and leadership culture. They assumed that any mode of candidate selection—direct, indirect or consensus—would end in division, litigation or defection. They were wrong.

The clearest public signal came on national television. Amid speculation that Senator Iyiola Omisore would reject the consensus arrangement, he instead pledged his support for the party’s candidate on *TVC Politics Tonight*, stating plainly that since the party leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had spoken, he would align.

In Nigerian politics, that is no small declaration. It reflects an understanding of a simple but powerful rule: disagreement is allowed; defiance is not.

This distinction matters. Parties do not collapse because of disagreement; they collapse because disagreement is allowed to degenerate into rebellion. The APC’s ability to draw a clear line between the two this time around in Osun deserves acknowledgment—particularly given that it failed to do so during the 2022 governorship election, when unresolved internal frictions weakened the party’s cohesion. The lesson appears to have been learned. What is evident now is a wiser, more deliberate party that understands the value of resolving its internal battles before the campaign begins, rather than during it.

A party that settles its disputes early enters an election with clarity, cohesion and momentum. If the APC sustains this unity in Osun, the task of winning the governorship becomes significantly less chaotic—not necessarily easy, but orderly and focused.

Beyond Osun, the APC continues to absorb defectors without triggering the internal crises that often follow such movements elsewhere. New entrants are integrated through structure, not suspicion. The recent entry of Governor Siminalayi Fubara into the APC further reinforces its growing reputation as a stable and predictable political platform in an otherwise volatile system.

This is not to argue that the APC is without flaws. No political party is. But it is to acknowledge a political reality that even critics privately concede: the APC has institutionalised decision-making in a political environment long dominated by impulse, ego and personal grievance.

In doing so, it has set a standard—whether its rivals choose to learn from it or continue hoping for its collapse.

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Bolaji Olabode is a public affairs analyst and commentator on governance, democracy and national cohesion. He writes on political accountability, institutional reform and the intersection of leadership and national unity in Nigeria.