As desirable as it is that Nigeria sees a change of government in 2015, it is sad that it may not happen as wished. The Peoples Democratic Party has had more than a fair share of the governance of Nigeria since 1999. While I admit that we can point to one or two areas of impact in the PDP’s 15-year-old grip on Nigeria, I know that Nigeria is in an urgent need of more competent intervention.
Nigeria needs quick fixing. We need the fast rebuilding of our collapsed institutions. We need the revamping of our educational and health sectors with the aim of providing qualitative and affordable services to our people. We need to find the soul of our nation and give confidence to our people to see themselves as Nigerians and not ethnic bigots. We need the urgent provision of employment for millions of our youths. We need the restoration of the rule of law with leaders who lead by example, leaders who inspire confidence in the citizenry, leaders who understand the nuances of modern governance. And quite obviously, the PDP is near its wits end in most of these very urgent areas of national need.
When we get to points like this, we may be tempted to look the way of the All Peoples Congress, the opposition party which assured itself to wrest power from the PDP next year. Unfortunately, one year after the conglomeration of major opposition parties to form the APC, hope that there would be any upset when elections hold next February seems diminished, unless of course in the propaganda and talk books of the party.
This time last year, the outlook was totally different. Tired of the federal PDP administration and the myriad of intractable challenges that the nation faced, a lot of Nigerians itched for a change. The registration of the APC gave a lot of hope that the country might indeed have the opportunity to weigh an alternative to the PDP. I am not sure that Nigerians are as still confident currently. Unfortunately, no one but the APC has brought the current situation on itself. I will explain.
From the outset, the APC showed itself to be a party with so much love for talk and an abundance of people who like to hear their own voices. Rather than sell their own proposition on how to get Nigeria out of the woods, this party of our hope mostly engaged the PDP in ceaseless verbal brickbat as if that would put food on our tables. This inadvertently gave publicity to the PDP than it sold the APC.
The APC took a second ill-advised step shortly after it was registered. After several months of pitting tents with seven governors who were disgruntled with the PDP, the opposition party welcomed five of these governors into its fold, elevating the relevance of these defecting governors to be sacrosanct to the survival of the APC. While I agree that there is nothing wrong with the acceptance of these governors into the party, the handling of their membership immediately showed two dangers, the poor management of which is part of the current diminished potential of the party.
The first problem in my opinion is that rather than make the recruitment of governors the lifeline of the opposition, one would have expected the APC to target the mass of the people. I understand that stalwarts like these governors and their godfathers are the quick fix ways to winning elections in Nigeria, but a progressive party would have done better by embarking on aggressive social mobilisation of which the people would be central. What the move of the PDP governors told us about the APC was a confused party which was as desperate to win elections as to court the same people it wanted out of power.
The second very serious problem that the PDP men brought to the APC is the hijack of the party structure in those five states. In an article entitled: “The implosion that the APC should watch out for”, published in sundiatpost.com in October 2013, I argued as follows: “Now that the oil of the former PDP members has mixed with the water of the APC however, leaders of the APC would do well to prepare for some turbulence, which may shake the party to its roots. Unlike the old APC where no governor could boast having absolute control of the party structure in his state, these new members were brought up to be acquisitive. They appropriate and control everything in their state, obliterating any chance that the national executive would have a say in the operations of the state executive. This is the challenge that the APC is very likely to face in the coming months. Indications of this are already evident in states like Kwara, Kano, Sokoto and Adamawa where the new entrant governors have in the way they are used to, made for the “colonisation” of the APC structure… At the moment, the Belgores, Shekaraus and Bafawaras of these world are resisting the takeover of pre-existing structures by the governors with the effect that the APC is already becoming a divided party in quite a number of these states…”
Of course, the APC lost these men and went ahead to describe their exit as good riddance. This to my mind showed not just the insincerity of leaders of the party but the total disrespect for fairness in the fold. Without minding the contributions of people like Ibrahim Sherakau, who was one of the founding fathers of the party, he was thrown into the waiting hands of the PDP.
Even after the initial crisis of confidence that hit the party, its recent convention has created a deeper gulf revealing the dictatorial tendencies of the leaders as well as the obvious lack of internal democracy. Currently, people like Chiefs Olusegun Osoba, Tom Ikimi and Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff might be on their way out of the party. Two weeks ago, one of the few senators of the APC from the South-East, Annie Okonkwo, went back to the PDP after which the APC issued a statement describing him of no value to it!
The above reveals some pathetic complacency borne out of arrogance within the APC. The party has carried on like the failure of the PDP was sufficient to hand over the keys of the Presidential Villa to it, an unimaginable consideration in a complex and developing democracy like ours.
A corollary of the foregoing is the failure or refusal of some APC leaders to appreciate the structural cleavages in our society. This has occasioned brushes like the famed “deportation” of some people from Lagos, an event from which the APC came out really battered.
Although the party flaunts the performance of governors of some of its states as posters for good governance, there are evident discontents resulting from the lack of social inclusion and affinity with the lower class represented by the urban poor in most states it governs especially in the South-West. Most APC governments are associated with demolition of structures which provide shelter for the poor, imposition of bans on cheap and effective means of transport for the poor, astronomical increases in the fees of students in state-owned tertiary institutions and such other policies that have escalated the disconnect between governors and the electorate. While some of these reforms are progressive and ultimately in the interest of the people, the necessary ingredients of consensus building and provision of alternatives and palliatives hardly ever accompany them. This would account for the loss of confidence evident in the party’s loss of the governorship election in Ekiti State.
While I do not honestly see the magic that the APC could do to regain the momentum for any earth-shaking impact in the 2015 elections, I hope the party would consider looking inwards and addressing the myriad of internal problems that it has. As it celebrates the anniversary of its registration, I suggest that the APC could be the party of the future by being honest with itself and finding a deeper congruence between its policies and the urban and rural poor. Only that would mark the APC out as different from the PDP.
Source Punch @niranadedokun
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