Nigeria, May 13 -- When the latest wave of defections began in March, marked by the high profile exit of Mallam Nasir El Rufai from the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria's ruling party, of which he is a founding member, and his open association with "like minds" such as Waziri Atiku Abubakar (PDP) and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party who together promoted the idea of a coalition of the opposition to get President Tinubu and the APC out of power, there had been speculations about whether or not coalition politics would work in Nigeria at this time.

I had reflected on the development in two pieces: "Nasir El-Rufai's Defections: PDP, CPC, APC, SDP" (ThisDay, 11 March) and "The Emerging Coalition Against Tinubu/APC" (ThisDay, 18 Marc...