Politics

ABIA’S OPPOSITION UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: BETWEEN PRINCIPLED CRITICISM, POLITICAL AMNESIA AND THE STRUGGLE FOR RELEVANCE Every serious democracy needs an opposition, but not every opposition automatically earns credibility. Credibility is accumulated slowly: through consistency, intellectual honesty, institutional memory, willingness to acknowledge progress and the courage to subject friends and foes to the same standards. Abia State today presents an interesting political laboratory because its opposition is neither completely frivolous nor completely coherent. It contains principled critics, experienced former public officers, partisan combatants, former defenders of governments now reinvented as accountability advocates, and politicians struggling to redefine their relevance in a…