Very early 2014, I had just begun to understudy most working democracies, their makeup, their weaknesses and much more importantly, their strengths. My focus was essentially the parliament as that was where the policies and the laws that govern such societies emanate from.

The beautiful thing I found out which essentially went on to define my prayers for Nigeria and my predictions for the next elections, was the nature of the opposition.

For every major breakthrough in a democracy in terms of policies and bills and laws and in fact execution always required a large percentage of support or otherwise from the opposition which had to be strong and viable, else there would be no progress.

In the absence of opposition however, what we witness is something like the Hitler days in Germany or the PDP days in Nigeria – A continuous movement in a direction (most times, bad) without the hope of a u-turn until destruction beckons or an opposition emerges. Singapore would be an exception.

This like I said formed my thesis and my prayers, APC needs an opposition for it to be on its toes, an opposition that is ready to take up its position at any time on any day and tackle issues head on. The proverbial “it’s now our time to rule/eat” politics would not just do it if anything close to development is going to happen in this country.

Today, what we have is a manifestation of something different from what I had hoped. The APC is indeed in itself a viable and a strong opposition. This happens to be a situation that is perfected to ensure that nothing tangible happens close to development in the next four years of the country which now appears as the promise of Africa in the 21^st century.

The political tone that has been set as is currently been experienced in the National Assembly is one that is strong enough to define not just the next four years of our democracy but also all the years of APC’s nomenclature as the ruling party. It is obvious that the PDP is not in any way a viable opposition figure if only for the record that they set while they ‘ruled’.

However, what APC seems and is seen to represent is a party that was built for the purpose of opposition and structured to do only one thing – serve as an opposition. Sooner or later, would we be surprised to see a nAPC emerge the same way nPDP did?

The fears of implosion within the APC before the elections has all but waned but the reasons for those fears still exists and it is from within this framework that the recent divisions in the APC has manifested.

There are talks of rejecting the ministerial list that is to be sent to the already divided red chambers by loyal senators while those who are against are threatening to impeach the senator while some others are passing a vote of confidence every two months.

The divide and conquer tactic in waging wars I always knew to be an external measure of winning battles, APC has decided to adopt it in conquering itself. Lying in wait is a PDP that is not capable of leading an opposition and if the last 16 years is anything to go by, also lacking in abilities to rule.

In the end, the citizens are the losers, because like it or not, these people to which we have entrusted power will walk away at the end of the month with their basic salaries, their allowances and more perks while the ordinary citizen lies in wait for dividends of democracy.

Tomorrow, when the spoils of this political war has been determined and the winners and the victims have been claimed, what APC would have left is a divided house that is not strong enough to either wage true anti-corruption wars, execute brilliant economic policies that could drive inclusive growth and if things go weary, secure the people of the Federal Republic.

Those that argue that the enraged battle the Senate President is a good place to start the anti-corruption crusade assume that waging a war on corruption is about making scape goats of the past. It is not! For every Saraki that was alleged, there are other political office holders that are as ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

As canvassed in some quarters, It appears that the journey to change promised Nigeria is a far higher ideal than APC can aspire and Nigerians will have to wait for another four years to see it manifest. However, the journey to CHANGE is wrought with a lot of obstacles and difficulties that needs to be overcome.

Whether APC as a party is able to overcome these obstacles is something we are going to have to wait and see. And then, am I the only one asking Where is KOWA Party and Co?

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Article written by Jude Feranmi