This phrase was coined by Yogi Berra, a famous American baseball player who is remembered for many iconic phrases now known as “Yogi-isms.”
Of this particular construction, Yogi, who died 10 years ago, meant to illustrate a repetition that feels like deep familiarity.
When I learned of the African Democratic Congress political coalition last week emerging to challenge President Bola Tinubu for the presidency in 2027, it seemed to be that feeling as diagnosed by Yogi.
Remember early 2013 and the All Progressives Congress? It was the enunciation not of an ideology but the cobbling together of the ambitions of the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, and elements of the All Progressives Grand Alliance.
The objective was to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party, which had been in power since the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1999.
The PDP loved power; it did not like the idea of democracy so much. It was an arrogant, filthy, filthy-rich, and irresponsible outfit, which bragged about being Africa’s largest party and, depending on which day of the week it was, it was all about how it would rule for up to 100 years.
In 2004, I derided it as the ‘Profoundly Decadent Party.’ A party which stole from the people, from the government, and from the constitution, never seemed to notice the tears on the faces of the people.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, who led its floundering and forgetful power train, even wanted a third term in office. When the people were frustrated by that effort, he handpicked his successors, who continued the party’s freewheeling ways for eight more years.
APC capitalised, enticing Nigerians with its “Roadmap to a New Nigeria” and the APC Manifesto, perhaps the most deceitful documents in Nigeria’s political history.
Desperate for relief from the PDP, I joined Nigerians in February 2023 to welcome the new party. But observing that the sins of the PDP were many, I stressed that the nation’s sinners numbered far more.
“The PDP has become the symbol of Nigeria’s decay only because of its carnage in the centre, but none of the parties that have held power in the states in the past 14 years are innocent,” I wrote.
“In other words, the real issue is not the PDP; it is the Nigerian politician. The question is whether the Nigerian politician of the APC is different, or will be.”
I challenged the new party to demonstrate character, including setting standards that were higher than partisan politics, and higher than the APC itself, to subordinate itself to something greater and better.
“The PDP must go,” I concluded. “But the APC must prove that it is the answer.”
Within months of its founding, alarmingly, it became evident that something was wrong; so wrong that I headed a column, “Is APC Less Dangerous Than PDP?”
Nonetheless, Nigerians were sufficiently disenchanted with 16 years of the PDP that they were willing to embrace the devil. As a result, in 2015, power fell to the APC.
Sadly, that was a chance that APC set ablaze within two years. Nigeria is now in the 11th year of the nightmare.
To that end, then, the ADC coalition is strategically correct in its timing and adoption of the APC’s civilian coup method.
“We have never seen a government so much at home with corruption, a government that disdains accountability in all ramifications,” declared David Mark, the group’s Interim National Chairman, last week.
“We have never seen this level of insecurity across the length and breadth of our nation. Bandits and kidnappers kill Nigerians at will and on a daily basis. Yet, this ongoing tragedy has not moved the government to any action that would stop these mindless killings and stem the tide of needless bloodshed…”
He described the coalition as being “for all Nigerians who share in our belief that all of us, the young and the old, man and woman, rich and poor, living with disabilities or not, town dwellers or villagers… all suffering Nigerians who are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet; for whom the next meal is not guaranteed… all those citizens who believe that Nigeria’s democracy is worth fighting for… all youth who face an uncertain future and have questioned the value of their education and their certificates…”
Actually, Mr Mark, we have seen that kind of government before. It was your very own PDP, in which you played a central role, including as Senate President for eight years.
Your PDP designed the very template with which the APC has made Nigeria ungovernable enough for you to now seek to “rescue” her. But it is always a strange moment, is it not, when the arsonists return as firemen to combat the fire; when the serial murderer returns as a policeman hunting for the killer.
This illustrates the immediate problem before the ADC: credibility. In 2019, when Mr Mark left the Senate, I reviewed his dismal record.
But now, he is an outraged democrat? Has he ever apologised for saying, “Whoever does not have a military background should not be made president”?
Do we forget that he led the Obasanjo bid for a third term in 2007, or that as Senate President in 2009, he publicly demanded automatic tickets for all 80 PDP senators for the 2011 election?
Do we forget his considerable ethical baggage? In June 2007, Sahara Reporters detailed, among others, his inexplicable lifestyle of limousines, private jets and golf courses, and a court’s freezing in London of six million pounds (£6,000,000.00) in one of his accounts.
The Nigerian government, later in 2017, accused Mr Mark of having illegally purchased his Senate President’s residence.
It paralleled the curious buying by Charles Soludo, now the Anambra State governor, who, during his tenure as the Central Bank governor, reportedly acquired the official CBN governor’s residence in Abuja for N200m, and also purchased a £2.1 million mansion in a London suburb.
And which of the opposition’s brightest minds invited Abubakar Malami, far and away Nigeria’s most ignorant and corrupt Minister of Justice since 1960, as a symbol of credibility or hope?
To be sure, I support the challenging of the APC in the next elections. But it must be a grounded, ideological, and robust charge, led by people who in no way look, sound, or smell like the APC or its leadership.
Deploying old, dated, and outdated PDP or even APC pillars and beams as alleged figures of renewal and hope is an insult to the Nigerian voter.
In 2013 and 2014, such a “coalition” brought Nigeria the current collapse and shame. To ask Nigerians to buy the same ruse in 2025, without the ADC’s top figures putting down an appreciable philosophical, political, and practical down payment, is nonsense.
What would such a down payment look like? A clear ideology, an unprecedented public declaration of assets by all senior party officials, and a published, actionable code of conduct would be a beginning.
So would the withdrawal from all key positions by top ADC coalition figures, followed by their open endorsement of unencumbered political youth and women across the country for party and electoral positions.
Because the enemy is neither the APC nor the PDP. It is the shameless, reprobate, and jaded Nigerian politician.
By Sonala Olumhense
