Nigerian leader denies one-party plan after he's accused of clamping down on opposition

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian President Bola Tinubu on Thursday denied that there were plans to turn Africa's largest democracy into a one-party state, pushing back against claims that he's using state mechanisms to convince high-profile opposition politicians to defect to the governing party.

Several governors and federal lawmakers have left opposition parties in recent months to join Nigeria's All Progressives Congress party. Abdullahi Ganduje, the governing party's chairman, has also said there was "nothing wrong" with Nigeria becoming a one-party state, angering many in a region threatened with shrinking democratic space.

In his Democracy Day address to federal lawmakers, Tinubu said that he would be “the last person” to advocate for Nigeria to drop its multiparty structure and adopt a one-party system.

"At no time in the past, nor any instance in the present, and at no future juncture shall I view the notion of a one-party state as good for Nigeria,” he said.

Dozens of youths, meanwhile, staged protests in the nation's economic hub of Lagos, where they accused the government of bad governance and profiting off state resources at the expense of millions of citizens.

The weakening of the opposition membership — despite claims of bad governance — is because Tinubu has gone after opposition politicians with "compromised state apparatus", according to Debo Ologunagba, spokesman for the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, or PDP.

Nigerian law enforcement agencies are commonly accused of a one-sided fight against corruption in favor of members of the country's governing party.

Nigerians should resist "the plot to foist a despotic one-party regime in Nigeria,” Ologunagba said.

Some governing party members have also criticized any move towards a one-party system.

“One-party dominance is a sign of the death of democracy,” Ali Ndume, a governing party senator, told The Associated Press. “We need to have a system that makes it difficult for people to decamp.”