DISTURBANCE THEORY AND OPPOSITION POLITICS IN NIGERIA

AN APPRAISAL OF ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS (APC) PERFORMANCE IN THE 2015 GENERAL ELECTIONS

Abstract

Elections have followed a particular trend in the political history of Nigeria with the ruling party (party-in-power) rarely ever losing elections. Character of Nigerian politics had inadvertently snowballed into one party system where there is either no opposition or it is fractionalized into insignificance. This paper studies in extenso the dynamics and issues giving rise to the prevalence of opposition in the 2015 general elections wherein for the first time in the annals of elections in Nigeria, an opposition party waxed very strong and garnered great force to unseating a 'ruling party'. After a detailed literature review, it is observed that imposition of candidates, internal wrangling, factionalization and lack of internal democracy laced with docile character cum personality of the defeated president form the fulcrum for the supremacy of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The paper further opines that overt inability of the outgoing president to assert himself firmly and demonstrate greatest personal drive to handling headlong national issues like insecurity, economic depression coupled with his lackluster disposition to galvanizing and welding federal cabinet into a usual 'cult' made his house to exist in disarray. The study adopted extensive use of secondary data which were analyzed content wise along postulations of disturbance theory as put forward by David Truman. It finally submits that lack of coordinated drive to handle issues knitted in the fact that Jonathan never planned to be a political leader created great opportunities for emergent crass of opposition politicians to thrive.