In 1977, as Nigeria prepared its cautious return to civil rule, a constitutional conference convened to midwife a new political order. What emerged in its aftermath, particularly in the transition to the Second Republic, bore the unmistakable imprint of history. Political formations were not conjured from thin air; they were, in large measure, reincarnations. Birds of the same feather, long scattered by the military interregnum, instinctively flocked together.
The old Action Group (AG) found new life in the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). The Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) elements gravitated toward the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The towering legacy of Nnamdi Azikiwe ensured that the Nigerian National Congress (NNC) tradition fed into what became the NPN’s broader coalition. Aminu Kano’s radical populism re-emerged almost intact in the People’s Redemption Party (PRP). Even the Great Nigeria People’s Party (GNPP) was not without genealogical links to the First Republic.
These were not merely administrative arrangements; they were ideological continuities. The Second Republic, for all its faults, possessed a discernible political spectrum. There was a left, a right, and a centre—however imperfectly defined. Parties stood for something. Members, by and large, subscribed to a set of core beliefs that transcended mere electoral convenience. Politics, in that era, retained at least a veneer of philosophical seriousness.
Then came the rupture.
The Third Republic marked a decisive break from organic political evolution. Its parties were not born; they were manufactured. Engineered by the military, they lacked the natural cohesion that comes from shared struggle or ideological alignment. They were, in essence, special purpose vehicles—designed for the acquisition of power, and little else.
That ethos did not perish with the Third Republic; it metastasised into the Fourth.
Today, Nigeria’s political parties are, to a striking degree, indistinguishable. They are carbon copies in structure, rhetoric, and often even in personnel. Ideology has been supplanted by personality. Loyalty is not to a set of ideas but to individuals. Politicians and their supporters migrate between parties with remarkable ease, carrying no burden of contradiction because there is, in truth, little to contradict.
Party membership no longer signals conviction. It signals alignment—temporary, strategic, and frequently transactional.
This is the crux of the problem: our parties are not organic. They lack roots, and therefore they lack soul.
For meaningful political development, this trajectory must be reversed. The formation of political parties must be encouraged from the bottom up, not imposed from above. Parties should emerge from communities, interests, and shared convictions, gradually coalescing into broader coalitions. This is how durable political institutions are built.
Equally important is the introduction—and protection—of independent candidacy. The current over-reliance on party structures, however hollow, stifles political innovation and excludes credible actors who may not wish to submit to the patronage networks that dominate party machinery.
Financing, too, must be rethought. Parties sustained by their members are more likely to be accountable to them. When funding flows primarily from powerful individuals, parties inevitably become instruments of those individuals.
There is, of course, a familiar objection: that such a system would entrench ethnic politics. The historical record suggests otherwise. While First Republic parties did exhibit strong regional and ethnic identities, there was already evidence of ideological and strategic convergence before the military truncated the process. Samuel Akintola’s alignment with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, culminating in the NNDP’s evolution, was one such instance of cross-cutting political synthesis.
Political parties, by their nature, are broad churches. They are arenas of negotiation, compromise, and internal tension. That tension is not a defect; it is the engine of political growth. It forces disparate groups to find common ground in pursuit of power and, in doing so, fosters a more integrated political community.
Nigeria was on that path once.
Had that organic evolution been allowed to mature, the sterile uniformity of today’s parties might have been avoided. Instead, we are left with structures that resemble parties but function as vehicles—empty shells animated by ambition rather than anchored by ideas.
Until parties recover their roots, Nigerian politics will continue to drift—restless, unmoored, and perpetually in search of a soul.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 