APC’s proposed institute for progressive studies

The recent disclosure by the National Chairman of the governing party, the All Progressives Congress :APC), Adams Oshiomhole, that his party will establish an institute for progressive studies in Nigeria is welcome development. When it comes on stream, the institute, will, to a large extent, not only deepen the nation’s democratic practices but also entrench progressive politics in the polity. 

Oshiomhole made the revelation penultimate Wednesday when he led members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja.

While briefing journalists at the Villa, he said the meeting was mainly to congratulate the president on his recent victory at the polls. Buhari was declared the winner of the February 23 presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). He scored 15,191,847 to defeat his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar, of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 11,262,978 votes.

Oshiomhole, while explaining the rationale behind the establishment of the institute, said it is mainly to educate its members to know more about the ideals of the party. He said the president was also assured of their commitment to build the institute for progressive studies.

“People belong to various political parties, but they don’t even understand the ideology of that party, if they have any. Some are not even familiar with the manifestos and they don’t have conversations about how appropriate or inappropriate those manifestos are.

“And you will find that people holding very high positions in the government both legislative and executive and even party leaders may not even be aware of what we stand for. And so we told the president we are going to build an institute for progressive studies so that people understand what defines us. What is the essence of progressive politics? Basically, (it) is about social democracy,” he said.

He said his party must be seen as being for the poor, putting policies in place that will lift Nigerians out of poverty and recreate the Nigeria middle class. “Unless you recreate the Nigeria middle class, you are not going to have a stable and a peaceful society.

He also said one of the main purposes of establishing the institute was for everybody elected on the platform of the party to understands dos and don’ts, in terms of politics and policy choices.

“We think this is not something we want to be doing on an ad-hoc basis. We don’t want to go and sleep because we have won election, the fact that we have won election means a call to duty, so we have to work together to ensure these things are done.”

Historically, the APC was formed on February 6, 2013, following a merger of Nigeria’s three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Aliance (APGA) and the new PDP – a faction of the then ruling PDP.

In a watershed in Nigeria’s political evolution, the APC’s candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, won the 2015 presidential election by almost 2.6 million votes, beating incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, who accepted defeat on March 31. It was the first time in Nigeria’s political history that an opposition political party unseated a governing party in a general election and one in which power transferred peacefully from one political party to another.

In addition, the APC won the majority of seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the 2015 elections, though it fell shy of winning a super-majority to override the ability of the opposition PDP to block legislation.

The APC is generally considered to be a centre-left political party that favours controlled market economic policies, and a strong and active role for government regulation. A substantial number of its political leaders are followers of or politicians who subscribe to the social democratic political philosophy of Obafemi Awolowo and the socialist and anti-class views of Aminu Kano. Moreover, the majority of the APC’s base of political support is in South-west and the North, which are dominated by the country’s largest ethnic groups, the Yoruba and the Hausa-Fulani, respectively.

However, since the return of democracy in 1999, party ideology and manifesto have become rhetorics as they are observed more in the breach by political parties and politicians. Members of the Nigerian political class seemed to have reached an unwritten consensus that parties are mere platforms to seek elective offices. This is evident in the ease with which politicians defect from one party to another or simply form their own party, the underlying philosophy being simply to capture power at all cost devoid of any ideology.

Blueprint, therefore, on the backdrop of the dearth of ideology in the nation’s political firmament, welcomes the establishment of the institute of progressive studies being mulled by the APC. This is quite germane as it will help to mould party faithful along the ideology of their party which will be replicated in good governance. It will also  eliminate the incidence of various arms of government working at cross purposes, which has been the bane of Nigeria’s development.  

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