leadership crises and decline of opposition parties in

ABSTRACT
Political parties in general and opposition parties in particular are viewed as essential
institutions for organizing political competition, and they are expected to play crucial roles
in aggregating societal interests, linking political leaders to their constituents and recruiting
future generation of political leadership. The re-introduction of multiparty electoral politics
in Nigeria in 1999 was widely hailed as a promising beginning after decades of failed
transition programs under different military regimes. The optimistic assessments of the
Nigeria democratic future initially engendered by the return to democratic rule has,
however, steadily given way to a resurgent pessimism, as the largest opposition party, the
ANPP, has fallen short of the hopes of providing credible and virile alternative with a view
to consolidating Nigeria’s democracy. This study investigates the reasons why, after a
decade of multipartism in Nigeria, the largest opposition party, the ANPP has been
constantly mired in crises of many dimensions and there seems to be little or no chances of
acceding to power at the national level despite having a promising beginning in 1998.In
order to generate data the study employed in-depth interview method to get the opinions of
some of the founding members of the ANPP, as well as its other major stakeholders. Also,
content analysis method was used to complement the interviews, within the theoretical
framework of Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy. The study reveals among other things that it
is not impossible, rather difficult for opposition parties to accede to power, it has happened
in Ghana, Japan, UK and the US .However, the ANPP during the period under study
grappled with severe challenges perpetuated by the insistence of some oligarchic groups
and individuals to lay claims to the leadership structure of the party. Also the inability of
the party to have a distinct identity, programs and ideology, set a high standard in terms of
party discipline and internal democracy for other political parties to emulate and to earn
public confidence, had severely compromised it survival, legitimacy and effective
operations as a major opposition party. These challenges had resulted in undesired
outcomes in the form of declining membership, electoral losses, lack of cohesion shrinking
organizational and structural capability, proliferation of factions and poor state of finance.
These ultimately undermined the effectiveness of the ANPP and as such the party lost
credibility before the electorate.
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