By: Umar Aliyu
There is a tired ritual in Nigerian politics that no amount of fine speech can disguise. It reappears with mechanical precision every election cycle: neglect first, arrogance second, panic third and reconciliation last. The recent inauguration by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of a Committee on Strategy, Conflict Resolution and Mobilisation within the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the country inches toward the 2027 general elections, is not a novelty. It is a replay. A familiar script dusted off whenever the ruling elite begins to sense the ground shifting beneath its feet.
Let us dispense with sentimentality. Reconciliation is not the problem. Hypocrisy is. What is offensive is not the idea of healing internal party rifts, but the timing, the motive, and the history that precedes it. For years, grievances festered across party structures national, state, and ward levels while those in authority looked the other way. Loyal members were sidelined, party organs weakened, internal democracy reduced to a slogan, and dissent criminalized. Now, suddenly, reconciliation has become urgent. Not because justice demands it, but because elections approach.
President Tinubu’s words in Lagos about tolerance, accommodation, and resilience sound elegant. He warns that democracy must not fail, that the party must be bigger than individuals, and that hearts must be accommodating. These are fine words. But politics is not judged by quotations; it is judged by consistency. One must ask, bluntly and without apology: where was this accommodation when party faithful were humiliated? Where was this tolerance when internal elections were manipulated, party congresses imposed, and loyal structures dismantled to satisfy narrow interests?
For too long, power within the APC—as with other dominant parties before it has been exercised with a sense of entitlement. Victory at the polls became a license to ignore, exclude, and discard. Those who worked, mobilized, defended, and sacrificed were treated as expendable once the dust settled. Complaints were dismissed as noise. Appeals were treated as rebellion. Constructive criticism was labeled anti-party. This was not leadership; it was political recklessness dressed up as authority.
Now comes the familiar scramble. As 2027 looms, the same voices that once preached discipline now preach tolerance. The same hands that pushed people aside now reach out in the name of unity. Reconciliation committees are inaugurated, envoys dispatched, promises whispered, and olive branches theatrically extended. It is difficult indeed impossible for any serious observer not to see this for what it is: reconciliation by convenience, not by conviction.
This pattern is deeply corrosive. It sends a clear message to party members and the wider public: you matter only when your vote is needed. Your grievances are irrelevant until they threaten electoral arithmetic. Your loyalty is disposable, but your numbers are indispensable. Such a message does not build parties; it hollows them out. It breeds resentment, cynicism, and quiet rebellion that no committee can fully contain.
Let us be honest: many of the conflicts this committee now seeks to resolve were manufactured by arrogance and exclusion. They did not arise spontaneously. They were the predictable outcome of a leadership culture that prioritizes control over consensus and patronage over participation. When party leaders refuse to respect their own rules, marginalize internal stakeholders, and impose outcomes from above, conflict is inevitable. To then act surprised by the fallout is either self-deception or deliberate dishonesty.
The President’s appeal that the party must be “bigger” and “taller” rings hollow when measured against lived experience. A party cannot claim greatness while practicing smallness in its internal affairs. It cannot preach tolerance while rewarding intolerance. It cannot demand loyalty while offering contempt. Size is not measured by the number of offices controlled, but by the depth of inclusion practiced. Height is not measured by rhetoric, but by moral posture.
There is also a deeper democratic concern here. Political parties are the engines of democracy. When they are run as private estates where decisions are centralized, dissent suppressed, and reconciliation postponed until elections democracy itself suffers. Citizens watch these internal dramas and conclude, rightly or wrongly, that politics is a game of deceit. Voter apathy grows, cynicism hardens, and the distance between leaders and the led widens.
This is why the seasonal nature of reconciliation is particularly dangerous. It teaches politicians that problems can be ignored until the last minute, then managed with committees and speeches. It discourages institutional reform and rewards short-term tactics. It creates the illusion of unity without addressing the substance of division. Once the elections pass, the committees quietly dissolve, promises evaporate, and the old habits return. The cycle continues, each time more bitter than the last.
If the APC—and by extension the Nigerian political class were serious about reconciliation, it would not wait for election seasons. It would build permanent mechanisms for conflict resolution, enforce internal democracy, respect party constitutions, and treat members as stakeholders, not tools. It would understand that loyalty is sustained through fairness, not fear; through inclusion, not intimidation.
There is also a moral reckoning that cannot be avoided. Politics is ultimately about trust. When people feel used ignored after victory and courted only before the next contest they respond in ways that are not always visible but are always consequential. Some withdraw quietly. Some sabotage subtly. Some defect openly. Others remain but disengage, doing the bare minimum. These are not accidents; they are reactions to betrayal.
Reconciliation, to be meaningful, must involve accountability. Who caused these conflicts? Who benefited from exclusion? Who ignored warnings when there was time to act? Without answering these questions, reconciliation becomes a performance loud, public, and empty. Healing requires truth. Unity requires justice. Anything else is cosmetic.
The harsh truth is that Nigeria’s politics has perfected the art of last-minute contrition. Leaders behave as though apologies and committees can erase years of neglect. They underestimate memory. They misjudge anger. They assume that power automatically commands forgiveness. History suggests otherwise. Electorates may be patient, but they are not forgetful.
If this newly inaugurated committee is to avoid becoming another footnote in the long history of political tokenism, it must defy expectations. It must challenge the very behaviors that necessitated its creation. It must recommend reforms that reduce the concentration of power, protect internal dissent, and institutionalize inclusion. It must be willing to offend powerful interests in the service of genuine unity. Without this courage, it will merely manage symptoms while the disease spreads.
Ultimately, the question is not whether reconciliation is good—it is. The question is whether reconciliation that arrives only when elections approach can ever be sincere. A skeptical observer would say no. Unity that is conditional on electoral necessity is not unity; it is strategy. And strategy, unlike principle, expires once its objective is achieved.
Nigeria deserves a politics that is less cynical and more honest. Party members deserve respect that is consistent, not seasonal. Democracy deserves leaders who practice what they preach when it is inconvenient, not just when it is expedient. Until then, reconciliation committees will continue to appear like harmattan dust—thick before elections, gone immediately after leaving behind the same unresolved fractures and the same bitter taste of political insincerity.
If democracy must not fail, as the President rightly insists, then it must be nurtured daily, not revived periodically. Anything less is not leadership. It is survival politics. And the nation has paid too high a price to keep pretending otherwise.
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