It was a new dawn for democracy Wednesday as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) registered the All Progressives Congress (APC), a coalition of Nigeria's major opposition parties.

Since the rebirth of democracy in 1999, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has remained the dominant party, with feeble challenges from the opposition parties. The opposition parties were weakened by internal squabbles, lack of cohesion, a common purpose and clash of interests of party leaders to pose a serious threat to the behemoth that the PDP had become.

Despite its myriad of crises that a well-organised opposition could have latched unto to dislodge the ruling party from power in the last three general elections after the military-supervised 1999 polls, PDP has remained victorious in the said elections. Notwithstanding its many shortcomings that would have robbed it of victory, its electoral strength lies in the fact that it remained, until yesterday, the only truly national party in Nigeria. Others were either regional groups masquerading as national parties or inconsequential players in the polity.

The opposition, realising that they would not be able to dislodge the PDP without coming together, had made efforts in the past, albeit unsuccessfully, to team up to give the ruling party a run for its money. However, such efforts had been frustrated by insincerity of purpose and an unwillingness to make sacrifices by participating parties.

Some of these factors were responsible for the death of the alliance that the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) were forging in the run-up to the 2011 general election.

From the rubble of their defeat in 2011, rose a new hunger for victory. This made them see the imperative of the synergy of coming together to wrest power from the PDP.

Their surefooted determination led to the series of multilateral negotiations among the leading opposition parties that eventually gave birth Wednesday to APC.

With the birth of APC, whose constituent parties comprise the ACN, CPC and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the opposition now has a formidable platform, what can be regarded as the next truly national party, to challenge PDP's dominance in the 2015 elections and beyond.

The registration of APC has brought Nigeria closer to a two-party system as obtains in mature democracies such as Britain and the United States and as it was practised in Nigeria in the aborted Third Republic when the military decreed into existence the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC). Although other parties will still exist just as they do in the US and Britain, PDP and APC in the years ahead will be expected to emerge the dominant players in the polity.

APC's emergence will sharpen the ideological bent of the parties as the political parties strive to present an alternative to the electorate not only through manifestoes, but their approach to issues and policy formulations that could only be defined by ideology.

As the political space becomes more competitive, there will be a realignment of forces in the run-up to the next general election. APC is expected to pose a serious challenge to PDP in the 2015 polls and this can only happen if the party embarks on a vigorous membership drive and sensitisation campaigns to sell itself to the electorate ahead of the polls.

The extant political map in which the PDP, with 23 states in its kitty and control of the presidency and the two chambers of the National Assembly, remains dominant would certainly be redrawn in the realignment of forces that would take place in the months ahead. The PDP, a party with an entrenched centrifugal tendency because of its composite make up, may end up losing more members to its newborn rival than any of the remaining 30 parties in the system.

Already, no fewer than 10 PDP "renegade" governors, who remain the beautiful brides in the polity and are on the fringes of the ruling party, will be wooed and courted by both the PDP and APC, which presently controls 11 states across the six geopolitical zones. The ruling party may also be hit by a spate of defections in the National Assembly, especially in the House of Representatives, where the opposition lawmakers are influential.

The litmus test of APC's popularity will happen in November when voters in Anambra State go to the poll to pick a successor to the governor, Mr. Peter Obi. Although controlled by the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Anambra is regarded as a fringe PDP state because of the perception that Obi, like his counterpart in Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party, is a PDP sympathiser. A victory for APC in the state will help it make inroads into the South-east and boost its chances in the 2015 polls in the state and possibly others in the region.

All said and done, the birth of APC is a reward for the commitment, doggedness and the unflagging determination of its promoters to give Nigerians a viable alternative come 2015, thus making the political landscape more competitive.