The Limits of Federation-wide Political Parties in Ensuring Federal Stability: Nigeria under the Peoples Democratic Party

Abstract

Since Nigeria's return to electoral rule in 1999, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) ruled the country as the majority party at both levels of its federal system until 2015. However, despite this dominance, the relationship between presidents and governors was often so divisive that the instability within the party threatened the stability of not only the ruling governments, but also the federation as a whole and undermined its productivity. This article examines this anomaly against the background of scholarship emphasizing the crucial role of federation-wide parties in fostering smooth intergovernmental bargains and in facilitating federal stability. It argues that Nigeria's recent experience provides counterevidence of this theory and discusses the mutually reinforcing contextual factors that might have influenced this development, focusing on the PDP's norms and the country's intergovernmental fiscal structure.