NPN

[Jibrin Ibrahim]

What the National Party of Nigeria Taught President Tinubu

Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 22nd May 2026

Nigeria politics is about the acquisition of political power not to
serve the people but for self-service, for the primitive accumulation
of capital. In an incisive article, our recently deceased mentor, Dr.
Segun Osoba correctly identified 1952 as the critical threshold in the
naissance of the Nigerian ruling class. That was the year a “Nigerian
power elite” came into power and;

“All the governing parties, committed to a ‘free enterprise’ economic

system used their control of fiscal policies in the regions and in the

centre to create conditions favourable to the evolution of a Nigerian

capital-owning class.”

From that time on, the awards of government contracts to Nigerians
with connection to the power elite. This pivot broke the monopoly of
European and Levantine firms previously enjoying a monopoly of major
contracts. The next step was the systematic expropriation of peasant
surpluses through the marketing board system, done either directly by
the state or indirectly via the licensed buying agents system. Other
methods were real estate deals, government and bank loans for Nigerian
businessmen and gradual infiltration of some Nigerians into
multinational corporations.

In the 1970s’ the era of the oil boom, the centre for appropriation
shifted from the regions to Lagos and the scale was also multiplied
with the phenomenal increase in petroleum revenues. The consequent
rapid growth of public expenditures tended to surpass the capacity of
absorption of the nascent Nigerian bourgeoisie in favour of foreign
commercial and construction firms. The state therefore had to
intervene in their favour with the 1972 Indigenisation Decree which
was further amended in 1977. The roles of banks and development
corporations in promoting this indigenisation became even more
significant. Thus in 1978 when the process of party formation for the
Second Republic started, Segun Osoba was correct in renaming his 1952
“Nigerian power elite” as a “Nigerian National Bourgeoisie”.

This was the context in which the transition to the Second Republic
started in 1978. Maybe the three most important political parties that
sought registration were ridiculed, dismissed and denied registration
in the short period allowed for party registration, October to
December 1978. The first party was the Movement of the People (MOP)
led by the radical philosopher and musician, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. He
wanted to galvanise the Nigerian youth into a mass movement that will
transform government policy into people-centred development. Fela
would have turned Nigerian politics into a serious policy debate
between the interests of the people and the interests of the
“International Thief-Thief Bourgeoisie”. The military were in charge
of the transition and Fela had exposed their corruption. They said he
smoked weed and must not get power.

The second party was the Nigerian Advance Party (NAP) of Tunji
Braithwaite. He said Nigerians were in deep misery and lived in
squalor amongst rats and mosquitos, which must be eliminated. He was
ridiculed as the man of rats and mosquitoes. No one read his manifesto
so Nigerians did not get to understand the serious policy proposals he
made about combating mass poverty, improving public health and
creating jobs for the youth. Cartoonists had a great time depicting
him as the man surrounded by rats and mosquitos. His party was
eventually registered in 1983 but by that tie the dame to his
political image had been done.

The third party was the “party of truth.” It was called “You Chop I
Chop Party” and was led by Akukalia Asika. The party made the argument
that all Nigerian politicians were corrupt and seek power for
self-gratification. Nigerians should simply accept the principle and
ensure the “chopping” was distributed equally. It would have been
fascinating watching policy debates between these three-party leaders
on the way forward for Nigeria’s Second Republic.

What happened was that the military registered five parties that were
all led by the leaders of the First Republic they had sent packing
from power in 1966. The National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was led by
Shehu Shagari, Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria, the Nigeria Peoples’
Party of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Aminu Kano’s Peoples’ Redemption Party and
the Great Nigeria Peoples’ Party of Waziri Ibrahim were registered.

All five leaders were originally in one political movement known as
the National Movement as the military wanted to establish a
single-party “democratic” party as was the case in most African
countries at that time. These leaders had therefore been working
together but they broke up over presidential ambitions as they all
wanted the presidency. The founding fathers of the National Movement
had systematically waxed a coalition form the segmented and disparate
fractions that constituted the Nigerian ruling class. In the North,
they were able to form what former NPN party secretary, Uba Ahmed,
described as a “victorious troika’ of political coalitions around
Aliyu Makama Bida, deputy leader of the NPC, Aminu Kano, leader of the
NEPU and Joseph Tarka, leader of the UMBC. Zik demanded presidency as
a precondition and left when it was denied, Aminu Kano left when they
offered him Publicity Secretary of the party and Awolowo left when he
was offered treasurer, (if I remember correctly). Waziri Ibrahim never
believed he could get leadership from the group and never took them
seriously.

The political project of the NPN was not different from that of the
You Chop I Chop party. It was the development of a national system for
the distribution of the ‘national cake’. That cake refers to federally
generated resources made available for political appropriation by the
Nigerian state.

The leaders of the NPN never abandoned the idea of single-party rule.
The set out to destabilise the other parties that had left them. They
funded factions in the NPP, PRP and GNPP. The most terrible thing they
did was to use state power to declare the illegitimate factions they
secretly supported as the legitimate officially recognised ones. In
the inaugural campaign rally of the NPN for 1983 elections, President
Shagari declared: “You cannot defeat the NPN. Join the NPN”. They made
it clear that would be no viable opposition after the elections. The
opposition however remained mobilised and fought on. NPN became very
concerned that it could not break Awolowo’s UPN. They developed what
was known as the Omoboriowo plan in Ondo, to take over the
gubernatorial power by force. As the Babalakin Commission discovered,
the Nigeria Police Force, the National Security Organisation, today
DSS and party thugs rigged the election by declaring fictitious votes
for the NPN. They had massively rigged the elections to take control.
They were confronted by a massive public outcry and violence. The
conclusion of Nigerians was that the elections were not free, fair or
credible. The military intervened and the NPN failed in its political
objective of eliminating the UPN, NPP, GNPP and PRP from power. State
power has always been ephemeral and those trying to impose a one-party
state in Nigeria today should take time to study the story of the NPN
and the Second Republic.



Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17