Zero-Sum Politics: Ruling Parties and Political Opposition in Nigeria

Abstract

Political parties are the gatekeepers of democracy. This is because it is almost impossible to operate a representative government without the instrumentality of political parties. Mutual toleration by parties as legitimate rivals and resisting the temptation to use a temporary control of state apparatus for partisan advantage are the hallmarks of liberal democracy. This chapter highlights the key drivers of zero-sum politics and interrogates the underlying factors that make Nigerian political parties unable to fulfil this normative ideal. The Nigerian elites who dominate both governing and opposition parties have been socialised into a martial culture which reflects in their bellicose language and disposition to politics. When operatives of national governing parties boast about winning elections with "federal might", it is usually a signal of their intention to use the security agencies as the enforcement arm of their party and rigging their opponents out of the electoral contest. This is beside the large swath of youths and political thugs mobilised to serve as an informal enforcement army by ruling and opposition parties during campaigns and elections. Fuelled by a prebendal context of the Nigerian state, gladiators within the political parties develop a mercantilist mindset towards politics, where votes are bought and sold in a quest to win at all cost. The electoral systems that prescribe minimum procedural thresholds for attaining power are also facilitative of a winner-take-all mindset. The First-Past-The-Post electoral system oftentimes makes it possible for elected officials at both the national and sub-national levels to emerge without popular support cutting across diverse and broad spectrum of groups, thereby creating a sense of alienation within groups who feel excluded. This chapter concludes by contending that reversing the negative narratives of zero-sum politics must go beyond speechifying on the need for internal reforms within the parties to addressing the underlying structural drivers of the pathologies of Nigerian politics. The methodology is qualitative in approach, relying on observation and secondary data from textbooks scholarly journals, newspaper commentaries and editorials.KeywordsDemocracyDecision-makingPolitical partyOpposition partyZero-sum politics