APC and the politics of exhaustion

Power, when held for too long without results  breeds arrogance, denial, and eventually rejection. As Nigeria approaches another electoral season, the All Progressives Congress (APC) stands at precisely that dangerous point. After more than a decade in power, the party no longer campaigns as a movement of hope but governs and seeks re-election as a fatigued establishment weighed down by its own contradictions.

The APC’s biggest problem today is not the opposition. It is the living reality of Nigerians.

For most Nigerians, politics is no longer ideological it is transactional. Can you eat? Can you move? Can you survive? On these basic questions, the APC faces a hostile electorate.

Food inflation has turned staples into luxuries. Transport costs have crippled workers and traders. The naira’s volatility has wiped out savings and planning. These are not abstract economic indicators; they are daily humiliations. And in politics, pain has a memory.

The APC may argue that reforms are necessary, global shocks are real, and sacrifices are temporary. Voters are unimpressed. Incumbent parties across the world lose elections not because they are wrong on policy, but because they are in power when suffering peaks. Nigeria will not be an exception.

The APC was born as a coalition, not a coherent party. That reality is now haunting it. What once passed for “big tent politics” has degenerated into endless factional warfare. Across states, the party is fractured by rival camps, imposed candidates, unresolved congresses, and bruised egos. In many places, APC members speak more bitterly about fellow party members than about the opposition. Internal democracy is routinely sacrificed at the altar of expediency.

This is a dangerous illusion of strength. Parties do not collapse on election day; they rot long before when party loyalists feel cheated, they do not need to defect openly.

Silence, apathy, and quiet sabotage are enough.

In 2015, the APC rode into power on a powerful moral narrative: integrity versus impunity. today, that narrative lies in ruins.

Corruption did not end. Instead, it became complicated by excuses, selective outrage, and political calculations. High-profile allegations involving APC figures coexist with loud silence. The public has noticed.

Nothing kills a political movement faster than moral hypocrisy. A party that campaigned as a corrective force now struggles to explain why corruption still feels entrenched only differently distributed. Once the moral advantage is lost, incumbency becomes a curse.

Nigeria’s youth are not apathetic; they are angry. And anger is politically volatile.

For a generation battling unemployment, underemployment, and rising costs, the APC increasingly represents a distant elite class insulated from consequences. Social media has become a courtroom of public opinion, and the ruling party rarely wins cases there.

Token appointments and hashtags cannot substitute for real inclusion. Young voters are not asking for miracles; they are asking for sincerity. So far, the APC’s response has been largely tone-deaf.

Security is where governments earn legitimacy or lose it completely. Despite claims of progress, large parts of Nigeria remain gripped by fear. Kidnapping has become a business model. Rural communities feel abandoned. Urban anxiety is growing. For voters, explanations do not matter as much as outcomes. A government that cannot guarantee safety struggles to justify continuity. Each incident of violence reinforces the perception of a state overwhelmed and reactive rather than decisive.

After years in power, the APC sounds tired and Nigerians sound tired of the APC.

Campaign slogans now feel recycled. Promises feel defensive rather than visionary. What once sounded like reform now sounds like justification. Governance fatigue is a silent killer; it creeps in slowly and erupts suddenly at the ballot box. The ruling party may still have structures, resources, and incumbency advantages. But elections are not won by structures alone, they are won by belief. And belief is in short supply.

The opposition no longer needs to be brilliant; it only needs to be credible. In a climate of hardship and fatigue, the ruling party carries the full weight of blame. Every mistake now costs more. Every internal quarrel is amplified. Every broken promise is remembered, the APC’s margin for error has shrunk dangerously.

Power is slipping, whether APC admits It or not

The APC enters the forthcoming elections not as a party of destiny, but as a party on trial by hunger, insecurity, internal decay, and public impatience. History is unforgiving to ruling parties that confuse power with popularity.

If the APC continues to underestimate public anger, ignore internal fractures, and rely on old narratives in a changed Nigeria, the coming elections may deliver a verdict far harsher than expected.

In politics, exhaustion is often more lethal than opposition. And today, the APC looks exhausted.

Toro resides in Abuja

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