By Tony Adibe, Enugu
A former Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has warned Nigeria’s opposition political parties against “sustained scaremongering and attempts to demonise” the country’s democracy.
Although a good number of the governors and their supporters have defected to the APC, thereby increasing speculation of a one-party system of government, Okwuchukwu also said there is no grand plot by the ruling APC to turn Nigeria into a one-party state.
Okechukwu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), made these known while speaking with newsmen on Sunday in Enugu. He appealed to opposition leaders to desist from utterances capable of discouraging voter participation and undermining democratic institutions.
Democracy becomes the ultimate casualty when political actors deploy negative and alarmist narratives that dampen citizens’ confidence in the electoral process, according to the APC chieftain.
He said rather than resorting to blame games, opposition leaders should emulate the strategic political organisation demonstrated by President Bola Tinubu, whom he credited with investing time and resources in nationwide mobilisation of supporters.
According to him, Tinubu demonstrated party loyalty and internal democracy by stepping aside for former President Muhammadu Buhari from the outset. Okechukwu described such an act by Tinubu as “obedience to the zoning convention and the spirit of internal democracy”.
On the new Electoral Act 2026, Okechukwu acknowledged that the legislation might have shortcomings but argued that “it would be illiberal to throw our baby democracy away with the bathwater.”
He quickly added: “Whereas the Electoral Act 2026 has its downside, the truism is that it is significantly closer to achieving real-time transmission of election results than the repealed Electoral Act 2022.”
He explained that under the Electoral Act 2022, the law required presiding officers to transfer results “in a manner as prescribed by INEC” but did not legally mandate electronic transmission itself.
By contrast, he said, the Electoral Act 2026 mandates electronic transmission of polling unit results to the IReV portal after Form EC8A is signed. He further said: “However, it also provides a fallback mechanism where transmission fails due to communication issues, the hand-signed Form EC8A becomes the primary legal source of results.
“The framework strikes a balance between technological advancement and practical realities on the ground. “My dear compatriots, we are not in Cameroon or Uganda, please; as Nigeria’s democracy, though imperfect, remains resilient and competitive.”
On allegations that the APC is plotting to establish a one-party state, Okechukwu dismissed the claim, attributing such fears to what he called anti-democratic tendencies within the leadership of the opposition parties.
He accused the PDP of arrogantly breaching the long-standing zoning and rotation convention during its 2022 presidential primary, a move he claimed sparked the party’s internal crisis and eventual disintegration. The material conditions that birthed what some describe as a looming one-party state stem from the PDP’s internal implosion rather than any grand design by the APC, Okechukwu said.
