By Aliyu U. Tilde
“When a dynasty reaches the limit of its power, it begins to decline.”
— Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddimah
Power is notorious for its cyclic tradition of growth, maturity, and decay, as enunciated by Ibn Khaldun. History repeatedly shows that when political power approaches saturation, it begins not to consolidate but to rot, a phenomenon equally observed by Polybius in his cycle of constitutions and later by Pareto in his theory of elite circulation.
The APC is now caught on the same track that led to the demise of the NPC, the NPN, and later the PDP. This essay would have been unnecessary but for the faith, eagerness, and speed with which the party appears determined to repeat that pattern. My simple advice is this: a little restraint would add to its longevity beyond 2027.
At the conclusion of the 2023 elections, the APC controlled 15 governorships. Between then and now, 2025, that number has risen through defections to 26—some say 28—the latest being the governors of Plateau and Taraba States. With some still reportedly on the line, the party is projected to go into the 2027 elections with about 30 governors.
The President may understandably feel pleased with an achievement that seems to guarantee him a second tenure. The APC, however, should worry rather than celebrate, because this configuration places it exactly where the PDP stood after the 2011 elections: dominance over 30 of the 36 states. To the discerning mind, this is not triumph but a warning—the classical danger of overconcentration of power.
After the brim comes the spill—to put it philosophically. Aristotle warned that excess, even of strength, invites instability. No political party in Nigerian history has yet defied this rule. None.
In 2007, the PDP swept even the Southwest and initially left the Alliance for Democracy with only one governor, Lagos. The ANPP, which had nine governors in 1999, was reduced to only three by 2011. At its height, the PDP boasted of being the largest party in Africa and of ruling Nigeria for sixty years, merely echoing the language of permanence that often precedes collapse. Many citizens felt defeated and helpless. Yet the tide began to turn in 2015. Today, from a position of 30 governors, the PDP is left with only four. As a Sudanese poet once said, “Whenever a climax is reached, a descent sets in.”
The ANPP itself was far from innocent. It was the political structure into which Abacha’s indomitable UNCP—an archetype of authoritarian consolidation—was transformed, later becoming the APP. After his death, it managed to remain relevant in nine states before being reduced to three by 2011, and eventually disappearing into the APC merger—a textbook case of elite survival through reconfiguration.
The most dramatic illustration, however, remains the NPN experience of 1983. The party called it a “landslide victory.” It entered the contest not with eleven players but with fifteen, including the electoral body, the police, the central bank, and the judiciary—what political theorists describe as institutional capture . When the dust settled, Kaduna was taken, leaving the PRP with only Kano. Borno and Gongola were seized, leaving the GNPP with no state at all. Plateau and Anambra were taken from the NPP, leaving it with only Imo. In the Southwest, Oyo was captured, while Ondo was controversially awarded. Altogether, of the nineteen states in the federation, the NPN rose from seven in 1979 to twelve in 1983. Nigerians felt overwhelmed and helpless, unaware that the sun of the NPN was already setting—the illusion of invincibility at its peak.
What the NPN failed to learn was the lesson of the First Republic. It forgot how the incursions of the NPC into the Western Region—through the excision of the Midwest and the creation of a proxy NNDP out of the Action Group—generated political instability severe enough to prepare the ground for the 1966 coup, confirming Hannah Arendt’s warning that domination erodes legitimacy.
The lesson has remained consistent throughout contemporary Nigerian history. When politics shifts from persuasion to capture, the result is not stability but cynicism, delegitimization, and eventual collapse. In each instance, opposition forces were subdued, citizens felt powerless, and the ruling party appeared indomitable—what Gramsci would describe as coercive dominance without consent. Dominance became the objective, while the means ranged from territorial and party balkanization to elite defections, exploitation of state resources, electoral manipulation, and judicial overreach.
It was therefore natural for citizens to become disenchanted and, in moments of despair, to welcome the termination of republics in 1966, 1983, and 1998, or to support the coalition that brought down the PDP in 2015. Once political saturation is reached, the conditions for defeat—or abrupt exit—become inevitable. The incumbent may complete his tenure, but the party itself begins its descent—a recurring pattern in post-colonial political systems.
In the end, it is not the President who pays the price. He will likely enjoy his two terms, as Obasanjo did. It is the party and its political class that are consigned to irrelevance. Ironically, the very President who benefited most from the era of domination often distances himself from the party afterward. In February 2015, Obasanjo publicly tore his PDP membership card at the very moment the party needed him most—the final act of elite withdrawal.
These are my fears for the APC. The party appears headed into the 2027 elections with overwhelming gubernatorial control, a team of fifteen players, and a weakened, fragmented opposition, making electoral victory likely. What follows such victories, however, is usually a deep sense of public despondency—the erosion of democratic contestation. The ruling party becomes the sole repository of national anger and frustration. From there, the ground is prepared either for decisive defeat in the next cycle or for a crisis of a magnitude reminiscent of 1966 or 1983—outcomes the contemporary world may be more tolerant of than it was in the early 2000s.
I had hoped that my President would be satisfied with a modest improvement on his 2023 performance and resist the temptation to open the gates to a flood of power-seeking defectors. But, as history repeatedly shows—from Rome to modern Africa—modesty is often absent whenever everything appears within the grasp of a politician. In the end, the President will not bear the cost of this excess. His party and its members will. The APC merger has yielded him his turn, just as it yielded one to Buhari. It is the APP faction that, short of divine intervention, may yet lose its own.
Like Julius Caesar, the President has crossed the Rubicon. The only window of modesty that now remains for the APC is the conduct of the 2027 elections. Will the ruling APC enter the field with eleven legitimate players, or with fifteen, as did the NPC, the NPN, and the PDP before it? This article would come too late if the party does not restrain itself from pursuing a so-called “landslide.” In that case, the fear that it would become yet another Khaldunian statistic in the annals of Nigerian history would materialize sooner rather than later.
If, on the other hand, the APC shows restraint in the conduct of the elections, its modesty may yet buy it an additional tenure or two.
20.12.25
