APC/ ADC Solving for 'P': A Nation Lost in Equations - By Abioye Tosin Lawrence

 

Younger Nigerians have heart, but no headquarters. Vision, but no vehicle

APC drops formulas, ADC draws graphs, everyone’s busy trying to solve for ‘P’. Policy blueprints are being drafted, coalitions are being formed, and political blocs are realigning. It all looks like a serious academic exercise. But outside the boardrooms and hotel halls, the real problem walks the streets barefoot.

What is this mysterious ‘P’ everyone wants to solve? For the elites, it could mean Power, Position, Privilege, or maybe even Perpetuity. But what it rarely means is People, the very essence of the democratic idea. In the Nigeria we live in, “P” is never truly about progress for the common man. It’s about chess moves. It’s about structures that keep the same names at the table while the rest of the nation watches from behind the glass.

Some say there’s a wind of change, new faces forming new parties, elite defectors crossing lines, and a few young leaders getting drawn into these political experiments. But if history has taught us anything, it’s this: elite consensus in Nigeria rarely leads to people-centered change. It leads to redistribution of access, not redistribution of hope.

What we’re seeing now is a familiar political equation. APC, is still calculating how to stay in power. ADC, and a few others, parade as alternatives, bringing graphs and coalition math to the table. But in all this calculation, no one is solving the real problem: the broken connection between power and the people.

For millions of Nigerians, daily life is not abstract. It’s concrete, cemented in hunger, joblessness, insecurity, and despair. These are not numbers. They are names. They are faces. They are dreams deferred or destroyed. They are children out of school, young people migrating not for adventure, but for survival. So when politicians come to us with graphs, theories, and alliances to “solve P”, we must ask: what exactly is the equation, and who benefits from the answer?

Some young people, weary from activism and protest, are quietly drifting into these elite formations. It’s understandable. Hope is a heavy thing to carry alone. But hope without structure becomes fatigue, and fatigue becomes compromise. Meanwhile, others, those without political platforms or money remain stuck in the comment sections. Passionate, vocal, and fragmented. They have heart, but no headquarters. Vision, but no vehicle.

And so we continue in cycles. Every four years, the country is invited into a new political math class. We're told this time it’s different. That the new formula will work. That the right alliance will deliver the goods. But formulas without humanity are just cold numbers. Graphs without justice are just lines on paper. Political equations that don’t factor in the lived experiences of ordinary people are not solutions, they are schemes.

Nigeria doesn’t need more parties. It needs more purpose. It doesn’t need another calculation. It needs compassion. Until political movements begin with the people, and build with the people, they will always end up governing for the few.

So yes, APC is pushing formulas. ADC is carrying graphs. And everyone is solving for ‘P’. But until ‘P’ stands for People, not Power, not Profit, not Privilege, then all we’re doing is math without meaning.

Abioye Tosin Lawrence is the publisher of OrionTimes Online Newspaper and the author of the forthcoming memoir, Voices from the Fire: My Journey Through a Hollow Empire.