When Power Becomes Too Comfortable: The Danger of a One-Party State – Terver Akase
Between 2011 and 2013, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appeared not merely dominant but unchallengeable. The party controlled almost every lever of power in Nigeria: 25 sitting governors, overwhelming majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, and a sitting President, Goodluck Jonathan. From the outside, the PDP looked like the fulfilment of every ruling party’s dream, a near-total grip on the country.
Earlier in December 2008, the then National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor declared that the party would rule the country for 60 years!
Yet, history would prove that moment not as a peak of strength, but as the beginning of decline.
What followed was not just electoral defeat but implosion, a slow, then sudden, collapse driven by internal arrogance, exclusion, and the fatal belief that power, once secured, could never be lost.
In 2013, many of the same political heavyweights who had sustained PDP’s supremacy defected, midwifed a merger, and birthed what would become the All Progressives Congress (APC). By 2015, PDP was no longer the party that once bestrode Nigeria’s political landscape like a colossus.
The revolt of G-7 Governors (later G-5) and the formation of New PDP in 2013 dealt a devastative blow on the PDP. There were futile attempts to win back Governors Rabiu Kwankwaso, Murtala Nyako, Aliyu Wammako, Abdulfatah Ahmed, and Rotimi Amaechi. The same governors later defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) which is in power to this day.
In its day of glory (pre-2015), PDP was less a political party than a political universe. Ideological differences were irrelevant. Personal ambition found shelter under its umbrella. Elections were often formalities. Internal dissent was suppressed, postponed, or ignored. Party supremacy replaced democratic debate.
And that was the problem.
When a party becomes too large to challenge, internal democracy dies first. Decisions are no longer negotiated; they are imposed. Power shifts from institutions to cliques. Loyalty is rewarded over competence. Dissent is framed as betrayal. Over time, the party stops listening to its members, to the public, to reality.
PDP did not lose elections in 2015 because it lacked numbers. The party failed because it lacked humility. This is the paradox of dominant parties:
The stronger they appear, the more fragile they become.
This arc, from dominance to disintegration, offers Nigeria a powerful warning: a one-party system is not strength; it is political decay in disguise. It only smacks of the zenith of power and the seeds of ruin
Why One-Party Dominance Is Dangerous
A one-party system, whether formal or informal, creates conditions that are hostile to democracy.
1. When opposition is suppressed and it becomes weak or absent, power no longer fears scrutiny. There is zero accountability. Mistakes go unpunished. Corruption grows bold. Governance becomes complacent.
2. Democracy thrives on choice. A dominant party reduces elections to rituals, not contests. Citizens vote, but outcomes feel predetermined.
3. In the absence of external opposition, battles shift inward. Factions fight viciously, not over ideas, but over access to power and resources.
4. Institutions are captured. Public resources serve party interests. Loyalty to the party becomes more important than loyalty to the constitution.
5. Without release valves for dissent, pressure builds. When the break comes, it is usually catastrophic. Nigeria witnessed all of this between 2011 and 2015.
PDP’s Fall as a Democratic Lesson
The fall of PDP in 2015 is not merely a partisan story; it is a democratic lesson. It shows that political monopolies are unsustainable in a plural society like Nigeria. Ethnic diversity, regional interests, and ideological differences cannot be permanently contained within one political structure, no matter how powerful.
A one-party state does not unify differences; it buries them alive. And buried conflicts do not disappear, they explode.
Nigeria does not need a perfect party. The country needs competitive
Hon. Terver Akase is a former CPS and Special Adviser on Media to former Benue State Governor
