leadership crises and decline of opposition parties in

the party, Ume-Ezeoke and some executive members of the ANPP supported the
participation of the party in the GNU. This misunderstanding and other several internal
problems have become almost irreconcilable as such; have impacted negatively on the
ANPP’s credibility and performance in providing a credible alternative to the current
PDP regime.
This study attempts to unravel the reason why the ANPP has failed to
effectively perform it duties as an opposition party rather the party is constantly mired in
crises and upheavals of many dimension, a situation which has prevented the party from
providing a credidle alternative to the ruling PDP by acceding to political power at the
national level despite having a promising beginning in 1998.
1.3 Research Questions
The questions that arise therefore are:
(i) How well has the ANPP organized itself as a credible political party in
general and as an opposition party in particular?
(ii) In what ways have the leadership crises within the ANPP affected its
organizational capacity, party discipline and credibility as an opposition
party?
(iii) Why has it become increasingly difficult for the ANPP to provide credible
alternative to the ruling PDP?
1.4 The Significance of the Study.
There are remarkably few studies on opposition parties in contemporary Nigeria as
well as Africa in general.Studies on political parties have typically focused on the parties
in power (e.g Van de Walle, 2003) on party systems (e.g., Kuenzi and Lambright,
xxiv