Wednesday 16 January 2013

Is There Alternative To PDP?

Iyobosa Uwugiaren's picture

I thought the impending political implosion and balkanisation of the self-styled largest political party in Africa, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), would begin to manifest at the end of 2013 or, latest, in the first quarter of 2014. But it is coming sooner than expected. It is not shocking anyway. Sound political minds have always believed that, going by the accidental emergence of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, after the death of former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, which denied the north of its eight-year tenure, the political hawks would fight to the finish in order to have the soul of the party, and, if they cannot have it, dismember it.
The PDP wants to rule for 60 years -- so we have been told by the party’s gang. And the fixation of many political actors or players in the country is that nobody can see the kingdom of Aso Rock unless he passes through the PDP. This erroneous belief is swelled by a notorious fact that the opposition would never be able to organise themselves to wrestle political power from the PDP gang. To be sure, the seeming crisis or conflict that has enveloped the party, especially in the last few days, allegedly being spearheaded by the Owu high chief, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, will be an interesting political script in the next few weeks. It has been established beyond reasonable doubt that Obasanjo and Jonathan have fallen apart. And for those who know Obasanjo’s strategy very well, if he cannot control you, he destroys you.
Maybe Obasanjo wanted to control Aso Rock from his farm in Ota, Ogun State, but met a stumbling block on his way. His former Man Friday, Malam Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, has revealed in his book released recently that after Obasanjo failed to secure a third term in office, he boasted to him that between 2007 and 2011 would be a transition period, as he would run the affairs of the nation from his Ota farm, irrespective of the fact that there would be a sitting president. All those plans appear to have failed. Now, Obasanjo’s ploy is to discredit Jonathan and perhaps make it impossible for him to get a second term, which the president will seek anyway.
In the last few weeks, the ferocious former president has suddenly put up a white garment of a social crusader, anti-corruption champion and human rights activist. He has been telling those who care to listen to him, both at home and abroad, that “the stealing in Jonathan’s government is too much”. He has become a prophet of doom in the estimation of many political observers, consistently predicting impending violent revolution if the federal government did not take urgent actions to tackle the high rate of poverty in the land. With seeming wavy brain symptoms, the Owu high chief has been contradicting himself over the best possible approach to tackle the lingering problems of Boko Haram. Today he would suggest the Odi approach (using naked force) and the next day he would be talking about dialogue.
For those who know the inner working of the “ruling party”, it is Obasanjo’s current move to undermine Jonathan that recently created friction that is tearing the PDP apart. Just on Monday, the crisis rocking the party nosedived with the national chairman of the party edging out Obasanjo’s man, former governor of Osun State Olagunsoye Oyinlola as national secretary of the party. A fiat released by Tukur through a terse press release said the deputy national secretary, Solomon Onwe, was ordered to resume the office as “acting national secretary” immediately. Onwe was deputy national secretary of the PDP prior to his appointment by Tukur.
In the days ahead, I am sure the party will come under a heavier attack both from within and outside. Why not? Only naïve people see the party as the only strong structure for recruiting the almighty president of Nigeria. Many people are expecting that the major opposition parties - the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) - would capitalise on the interminable squabble within the PDP to provide alternative platform for Nigeria: for recruitment of our political leaders. But opposition parties, especially the CPC, are too disorganised. I was told that the two factions within the party – el-Rufai and Buba Galadima’s groups - could not even agree on the selection of a representative team for their current merger talks with other political parties and groups. Insiders said that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari had to personally intervene by picking neutral persons: Prof. David-West and others. For the ACN, the seeming colonization of the party by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is said not to be helping the party within the context of internal democracy. So, how can parties divided against themselves snatch power from a cult group like the PDP? It is near-impossible.
For those dreaming of a change in 2015, at the level of the presidency, ACN and CPC may not be able to provide the alternative platform. They are too divided for personal political interests to do that. The best strategy would have been to sustain the ongoing crisis in the ruling party and possibly liquidate it before 2015. This is where Obasanjo would have been very useful. But he would rather die than allow Buhari/Tinubu to form a central government. For him, “the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know”.
Imagine Buhari as president of Nigeria in 2015! Obasanjo could be shot the next day for corruption. This is the situation we have found ourselves in Nigeria: the politics of “Chop and I Chop”, the politics of patronage and the politics of turn by turn that we practise, even among the younger generations. It will not allow any change for now. And it will remain so until Nigerians decide otherwise.
What is happening to us as a nation is not surprising. We have a very disruptive political culture, going by our historical developments. Unlike most countries of the world, ours have been very different indeed. We were not united right from the word go, especially since the first military coup in 1966 and it took the 1967-70 civil war for us to remain as one united fragile nation. Right from the beginning, we have not been able to enjoy life according to the most modern political rules developed in line with the ideas on enlightenment. A huge factor in the development of many developed nations was the way in which they were free to develop without wars; immediately the violent struggle to settle this large continent was completed. They utilized their lands. In the US, for example, agricultural society was transformed into industrialized society and urbanization was able to flourish. Yet, instead of these large-scale processes taking place simultaneously, they deliberately allowed it to take place one after another, concentrating their energy on each stage of development. In our case, we want to do everything at the same time. I believe if we get our leadership recruitment process right, every other thing shall follow. This is the challenge we face today as a people. Can we move right now?
Leadership

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