Nigeria and South Africa - PDP and ANC Cooperation?

Nigerian politics have always been different, and more complex than most other countries in Africa.

Most countries in Africa came to "Independence" with either:

(a) One giant "liberation" movement/party which dominated politics until the first coup or until the 1990s (or beyond the 1990s in a few cases like Tanzania and Botswana); or

(b) One giant "liberation" movement/party and a smaller regional- or ethnic-focused rival movement/party, either centred on a large ethnic group that is not the largest ethnic group (e.g. Kenya, Zimbabwe) or is centred on the largest ethnic group where the largest ethnic group is smaller than the combined number of the other ethnic groups (e.g. Ghana, Uganda).

In Nigeria, this basic post-Independence political pattern was replicated but was multiplied by three, with all three facsimiles compelled to interact politically on a fourth, federal stage.  And even that is a simplification, as the internal politics of the Northern Region and of the Western Region were more complicated internally than the usual post-Independence pattern, and the Eastern Region would seem to fit the normal pattern only if you disregard the excision of the Bamenda and Buea provinces, an event (and a preceding political timeline) that was not replicated anywhere else in Africa (the separation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, and the on-going issues in the Comoro Islands, are both different events driven by a different set of political realities).

But even if you considered the separate internal political dynamics of each of the three regions as being straightforward replications of the basic post-Independence political pattern, you would have to acknowledge that the alliances between the "minority" parties in each Region and the "majority" party of one of the other Regions created a political dynamic absent from the rest of Africa.

In their own ways, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and, to a certain extent, General Abacha's United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP), represented efforts to create the one-party-dominant political model that characterized much of the post-Independence political history of the African continent. But the People's Democratic Party (PDP) is the first political party in Nigeria to really approach that status.

I use the word "approach", because even now Nigeria's political system (and especially our federalism) differentiates us from the rest of the continent. Rival parties like the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) control several states. And when I say control several states, I mean those states are effectively one-party states in the classic sense. Almost all of Africa's countries are "unitary", meaning whoever rules at the centre rules all the provinces. Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan are theoretically federal, but in practice the party that controls the centre makes sure it controls the constituent states as well.

South Africa is not federal per se, but their system allows for an opposition party (the Democratic Alliance) to run one of their nine provinces, though the DA's influence over the Western Cape is not even close to the unquestioned (often unconstitutional) control exercised by Nigeria's emperor-like governors. In some cases, notably Kwara State and ACN-controlled States, the "emperor" is a political godfather who pulls the puppet governors' strings from behind a curtain. Similarly the African National Congress is stronger as an opposition party in the Western Cape than the PDP is in, for example, Lagos State.

Anyway, the point of this long introduction to a short video is to point out that Africa's dominant political parties tend to be friendly towards each other, and supportive of each other's continued, permanent and perpetual reign as the unchallenged power in their respective countries. Indeed, ruling parties in Africa tend to be as hostile towards the opposition parties in other African countries as they are to their own opposition parties. These alliances of convenience are cemented by certifying each other's rigged elections as being free-and-fair, as well as signing meaningless treaties banning coups (while simultaneously working very hard to make it impossible for their citizens to change their governments by any means other than coups).

Anyway, having put you through a long set-up to a short video, watch this report from Channels Television on a conference between the Peoples Democratic Party and the African National Congress in Abuja.



You might accuse me of cynicism, but I would counter by suggesting that I am a realist. You and I have both seen hundreds of these types of meetings, producing hundreds of these type of statements afterward. I really doubt anything different will be the outcome this time around. Whatever it is you think of the PDP or ANC, good or bad, both organizations are fairly set in their ways are are unlikely to do things differently going forwards.

The economic and political relationship between Abuja and Pretoria since South Africa's "Independence" in 1994 has been .... odd. There have been signficant investments, and a few South African corporations do make more money from their Nigerian operations than they do from their South African business, but in many respects the two countries have little in the way of real, practical cooperation outside of empty rhetoric.

I have no intention of fully discussing why this is, but a part of it, a petty part of it, probably includes Nigeria's discomfiture with the idea of South Africa being the "leader" of Africa (rather than Nigeria), and South Africa's discomfiture with the idea that Nigeria's economy will surpass theirs in the next two or three years, eroding their claim to be the "leader" of Africa. It is interesting that the people who actually created the term "BRICs" did not include South Africa in it, though South Africa has joined the BRICS group that formed subsequent to the creation of the term, whereas the creators of the BRICs term did include Nigeria in their "Next Eleven", while again explicitly not including South Africa.

If you think I am being petty or nationalistic in pointing this out .... I am not. Take my words exactly as they are: That question of who is and/or will be perceived the "leader" of Africa by the rest of the world has both countries eyeing each other a bit like the stereotype of the British and the French.

African Business News and CNBC-Africa created a pan-African cable/satellite business-focused television/online channel. The two videos below are the first and second parts of a discussion on the complex economic and political relationship between Nigeria and South Africa. At the risk of being politically correct, I am not sure the panel is necessarily representative of what Nigerians and South Africans think about the relationship.

Part One

Part Two

The sad thing is .... there is no leader of Africa. Not in any practical or productive sense, anyway.  Our continent is more or less politically adrift, with external global powers treating us as though we were chips on the table of their poker game. Frankly, Nigeria and South Africa both have much less influence over events in West Africa and Southern Africa respectively than their self-promoting propaganda would have you believe.