APC convention, reforms, and noise of those who should know better

By Ali Abare

There is something remarkable about the way Nigerians gather when the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) holds its national convention. Beyond the pageantry, beyond the colourful attires and the thunderous chants of party faithful, these gatherings carry a deeper meaning.

They are moments of political reckoning — a time for a ruling party to look inward, to assess its direction, to renew its vows to the people it governs, and to signal, clearly and loudly, where it intends to take the country.

The ongoing APC national convention is no different. If anything, it is coming at one of the most politically charged moments in Nigeria’s recent history — with the 2027 general elections casting a long shadow over every conversation, every policy debate, and every public statement made by any politician of note in this country.

And so, as expected, the opposition has stirred. The noise has begun. The theatrics are in full swing.

Let us be honest about something first. Nigeria is not the only country on this earth facing difficulties. Across West Africa, from the Sahel to the coast, governments are wrestling with insecurity, rising food prices, fuel costs, unemployment, and the painful aftershocks of global economic disruptions.

Mali is under military rule. Burkina Faso is fighting for its survival against jihadist insurgents. Niger has expelled its Western partners and is still searching for stable ground. Ghana not long ago was on its knees before the International Monetary Fund. Senegal, long celebrated as a model of African democracy, went through its own turbulence.

The entire region is under pressure. The world is under pressure. And yet, if you listen to a certain segment of Nigeria’s opposition, you would be forgiven for thinking that every other country on earth is a paradise, and only Nigeria — specifically under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu — is suffering.

This is the manipulation that Nigerians must be wise enough to see through.

The Tinubu administration came into office in May 2023 inheriting an economy that had been held together, for years, by little more than sentimentality and a dangerous unwillingness to face hard truths.

Fuel subsidies that gulped hundreds of billions of naira every year, money that should have gone into roads, hospitals, schools, and security, were kept in place not because they were good policy, but because past leaders were afraid of the people’s reaction.

The foreign exchange system was a maze of multiple rates that benefited only the privileged few who had access to cheap dollars at the expense of everyone else.

These were not secrets. Every economist, every development institution, every credible voice in the country had for years pointed at these structural problems and said — this cannot continue. Yet administration after administration looked at the political cost and chose to do nothing.

Tinubu chose differently. He removed the fuel subsidy. He unified the foreign exchange market. These were decisions that came with immediate and sharp pain. Nobody is pretending otherwise. Prices went up. The naira went through a turbulent period. Ordinary Nigerians felt it.

But the question that must be asked — and answered honestly — is this: was there ever going to be a painless way to fix decades of economic distortion? Was there ever going to be a moment when structural reform would feel comfortable?

The answer, as any serious student of development economics will tell you, is no. Reform hurts before it heals. That has been the experience of every country that has ever successfully turned its economy around.

The APC convention, in this context, is significant. It is not merely a party event. It is a reaffirmation of a governing philosophy — that Nigeria must be fixed from its roots, not from its surface.

It is a signal that the party and its leadership are prepared to stay the course, to defend the difficult choices that have been made, and to continue on the path of genuine structural change rather than the comfortable road of temporary relief that eventually leads to permanent ruin.

Now, let us speak plainly about the opposition and their current obsession with the North.

The insecurity across Nigeria’s northern region is real. Nobody is trivialising it. Farmers are being killed. Communities are being displaced. The threat of bandits and insurgents remains a source of deep anguish for millions of ordinary people. This government, like the ones before it, has a responsibility to address it, and it must do more.

But what is happening right now is that a collection of politicians — many of whom sat in positions of power for years and did precious little to address the root causes of northern insecurity — are now travelling from one northern state to another, microphone in hand, telling ordinary people that their suffering is Tinubu’s fault.

They are stoking ethnic and regional sentiments. They are framing an economic reform programme as an attack on a particular group of Nigerians. They are doing this not because they care about the North, but because they understand that emotion, particularly the emotion of a people in genuine pain, is the most powerful political currency there is.

Nigerians must ask themselves: where were these voices when the security architecture of the North was being systematically weakened over a decade? Where were these advocates when the money meant for arms procurement was being stolen? Where were they when governors of northern states ran their states into the ground, leaving young people with nothing — no education, no opportunity, no future — and making them easy recruits for those who prey on desperation?

The same individuals who presided over or enabled the neglect of the North are now presenting themselves as its saviours. It would be almost amusing if the stakes were not so high.

The fuel price issue deserves a direct response as well. The recent spike in petrol prices across Nigeria is not happening in isolation. It is directly connected to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which has disrupted global oil supply chains and driven up the cost of crude on the international market.

Nigeria, despite being an oil-producing nation, imports the bulk of its refined petroleum products. When global crude prices rise, the cost of those imports rises with them. This is not a uniquely Nigerian problem.

Drivers in Europe, commuters in Asia, and traders in other parts of Africa are all feeling the same pressure. The opposition knows this. They know that the president does not control the price of crude oil on the world market. But it is election season, and the truth is always the first casualty of political ambition.

What is more honest and more useful is to look at what the government is doing to reduce Nigeria’s long-term vulnerability to these global shocks. The Dangote Refinery, which has begun operations, represents perhaps the most consequential development in Nigeria’s energy sector in decades.

When it runs at full capacity, Nigeria will no longer be at the mercy of the international refined products market in the way it currently is. That is a structural solution to a structural problem. It did not happen overnight, but it is happening.

The APC convention, amid all the noise, must therefore be seen as an opportunity. It is an opportunity for the ruling party to speak clearly and directly to Nigerians about the journey the country is on.

It is an opportunity to acknowledge, without apology but with genuine empathy, that the reforms have been painful. It is an opportunity to show Nigerians a credible picture of where the country is headed — more investment, more infrastructure, more security collaboration across the West African region, and a economy that is being slowly but genuinely repositioned for growth.

Nigerians are not naive. They know that no government is perfect. They know that there are things this administration must do better, faster, and with greater urgency. But they are also a people who have lived long enough to recognise a familiar pattern — the same faces, the same promises, the same manipulation dressed in new clothes, appearing every four years like clockwork, offering nothing but noise and sentiment in place of substance and solutions.

The 2027 elections will come. Let them come. But between now and then, Nigerians owe it to themselves and to their children to look beyond the drama, to judge by deeds rather than declarations, and to refuse — firmly and collectively — to be used as instruments of political vengeance by those who had their chance and squandered it.