PENDULUM BY DELE MOMODU, Email: delemomodu@thisdaylive.com
Fellow Nigerians, please permit me to make a few clarifications before
going into the real juice of this missive. This article is not about
President Goodluck Jonathan but about the party he represents. I
willingly accept that he is not the architect of the many problems
bedevilling Nigeria today even if I think he’s the poor artisan who’s
not able to erect a straight stanchion for reasons so obvious to those
not blinded by power, wealth and fear. Unfortunately most of the dismal
architects and terrible builders are in the same party. I must again
confess that I’m a proud member of one of the opposition parties, the
National Conscience Party, and hoisted its flag at the highest level.
I’m convinced that all parties in opposition plus those rejected,
victimised and oppressed in PDP must come together, repent and atone for
the sins we’ve all committed against our country. PDP has become a
dangerous behemoth that must be dislodged and dismantled for Nigeria to
move forward.
I never supported the birth of PDP from Day One because I saw it as
child of deceit and conspiracy. The midwives had played a fast game on
unwary and unsuspecting Nigerians. The idea was to hijack the labour
room and kidnap the beautiful baby delivered on June 12, 1993 and then
cleverly swap it with a monster, after the hell many Nigerians went
through to deliver Democracy. I was never enthusiastic when the PDP went
after General Olusegun Obasanjo and brought him back from the oblivion
of retirement to contest the Presidential election. A few of us saw
through the smokescreen and chicanery of pretending to compensate the
Yoruba people for the death of June 12 and its true custodian, Chief
Moshood Abiola.
I chose to support the candidacy of Chief Olu Falae with my modest
might as well as widow’s mite. As a matter of fact, I was so serious
about having two distinguished and cerebral leaders as President and
Vice President that I pleaded with Chief Olu Falae in his campaign
office at Ogundana Street, off Allen Avenue, and later at his Ahmed
Onibudo home in Victoria Island, to grant me permission to approach Dr
Rilwan Lukman to be his running-mate. My belief was that never again
must Nigeria be left in the hands of hard-core politicians but in the
care of capable technocrats. Chief Falae did not dismiss my suggestion
like many in his big shoes would have done but he embraced it.
I bought my own ticket to Vienna, Austria, where Dr Rilwan Lukman was
OPEC President. I met a man who sat atop one of the most powerful
institutions on earth and was excited that he had agreed to meet me for
whatever it was worth. We drove to his official residence which was
under renovation and had dinner. I was very humbled when this great man
jumped into his car and personally drove me to the Intercontinental
Hotel which he had already booked for me to stay. We later sat in the
hotel to discuss the main reasons I came to see him. I gave him the full
background to my mission and how Chief Falae would love to have him as
his Vice Presidential candidate.
Dr Lukman was very surprised that a young man like me (I was 38 at the
time) would have the idea, nay audacity, to suggest his name and even
persuade a Presidential candidate that he was the way forward. He was
even more astounded that I had spent my own money to travel. He said
many would have used the opportunity to extort money from him and Chief
Falae. I told him I would have lost respect of both of them if I did. He
went on to thank me and also told me to express his profound gratitude
to Chief Falae for his faith in him. He said he had no doubts about the
competence of Chief Falae and the consolidated benefits of his
stupendous knowledge, experience and expertise in Economics and Banking.
He said all the nicest things before adding a caveat, like my old
Principal, Reverend Father F. Cloutier, would have done. And it was a
bombshell.
Dr Lukman said if not for the renovation going on in his residence, he
would have preferred that I stayed with him at home as this would have
made it possible for us to interact more and demonstrate how Nigeria is
controlled by some powerful forces who do not sleep at night. He
confirmed that the Nigerian Mafia had decided that General Obasanjo must
return to power. To say I was stunned and shocked is an understatement.
As sleepy and narcoleptic as I felt, my eyes cleared immediately. I
asked what the whole purpose of holding elections was, if results had
already been predetermined, sealed and delivered! The look on his face
was that of a man who saw through my plain naiveté, simple ignorance or
both. He told me the godfathers and kingmakers would erect all the
structures needed to select and coronate the king at the appropriate
time.
I left Vienna a sad man. And landed in Nigeria a dejected soul. I was
confronted with the reality that those who killed June 12 were not yet
in retirement. They were not going to embalm and keep it in a mausoleum
as a lesson to future generations. June 12 would be cremated and its
ashes scattered to the winds. Those promoting Obasanjo had done their
research well. They wanted a Yorubaman who was neither a fan of Abiola
nor a believer of June 12. They got the added bonus of a man who was
also not vehemently interested in his kinsmen but was keen to shout to
anyone who cared to listen that he is a detribalised Nigerian – as if
there was any such Nigerian in practice after Abiola!
Meanwhile, some of our friends, such as Onyeama Ugochukwu, Chris Mammah
and Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, who worked on the Obasanjo team, could swear
by Jove that prison experience had sobered and changed Obasanjo to a
less tempestuous soul. Even if I wasn’t convinced, I filed their
conviction away. I knew the true test of the allegedly Born Again
Obasanjo would soon come. My worst fears were soon confirmed when PDP
couldn’t retain the symbolic date of June 12 as Democracy Day or at the
very worst pick the Independence Day on October 1 for Obasanjo’s
swearing-in ceremony. As if that wasn’t already bad enough, President
Obasanjo studiously ignored any reference to the crisis that produced
him and failed to salute our fallen heroes led by Abiola.
That was the beginning of the elongation of our intractable troubles.
That regime was in power for eight years and was nearly extended by
another four years. Trillions of Naira was pumped into Defence,
Education, Police, National Assembly, Works and so on but without
commensurate results. Governance became a one man show and opposition
within and without was hounded and hunted with incredible venom and
velocity. Several Governors were impeached in hotel rooms or legislative
houses at gunpoint and by far less than constitutionally required
number of Assembly members. A foundation had been laid for future
vindictiveness. Subsequent administrations would copy such bad manners
and witch-hunt opponents with impunity.
Obasanjo left power grudgingly and incredulously chose to hand over to a
man whose health condition was already known to be suspect. To compound
matters he handpicked a deputy for him whose claim to governance was
his name and place of origin. Obasanjo also positioned himself as
guardian angel for the party when he became the Chairman of its Board of
Trustees, a position some of us considered demeaning and belittling for
a man who had just completed two terms as maximum ruler.
But strange are the ways of the Lord. The house built of spittle soon
collapsed as the falcon refused to obey the falconer. Party intrigues
replaced governance as different camps jostled for supremacy. Amidst the
decay, Nigerians continued to wallow in poverty. The ultimate kingmaker
could not tolerate the level of rebellion against him and he dropped
the chairmanship of BOT.
The death of President Umaru Yar’Adua brought in President Goodluck
Jonathan who helped to complete his term between 2010 and 2011. Soon it
was election time and President Jonathan naturally presented himself for
the presidential race. He was packaged by his spin doctors as a pious
and meek leader with extremely humble background. There was sufficient
support for him by those who saw the miracle of his emergence as nothing
but the work of God. There were also a handful of us who knew a man can
never deliver beyond his capacity and capability. I did not subscribe
to the ability of PDP and its candidate to produce good results. So I
chose to offer myself. The idea was to give our citizens enough options
at the polls so that when tomorrow comes no one would dare say they had
no choice but to vote for the only man that showed up. I was also
expectant that all youthful agents of hope would come together to pick
and promote one of them.
The prospect of this was rekindled when Mallam Nuhu Ribadu visited me a
day after being nominated as ACN candidate and asked that we joined
forces. I had also reached out to different people in all the parties
about the possibility of forming a powerful alliance to dislodge the old
warlords who were making Nigeria retrogressive and ungovernable.
Unfortunately, Nuhu Ribadu did not have enough power to influence his
party elders to reach out to modern elements from all works of lives. As
a matter of convenience, his own party chose to work against him by
aligning with the PDP candidate. Had ACN worked harder at mobilising and
mopping up all the opposition forces including CPC, Nigeria would have
been spared the present horrific existence. But we lost Paradise, or the
possibility of catching a glimpse of it, on that terrible note. What
APC is now attempting to do is like the case of the antelope that failed
to fight the hunter in the bush but raises up its hands in the market
place.
What Nigeria has lost in the past four years is better imagined. We
have moved from one of the peace loving countries to one of the most
violent. The ruling party has clearly lost the wind and the sail and
ours has become a rudderless and defenceless nation. What is worse,
while Nigeria is burning and Nigerians are roasting our leaders are
fiddling remorselessly. It is amazing that in the scorching heat of this
conundrum all our leaders can think of are election and re-election.
The ruling PDP has gone completely neurotic and power-drunk. Its major
strategy is how to weaken opposition and not about taming the scourge of
Boko Haram. Systematically, it has started the annihilation of
opposition by removing all enemy Governors before the race begins. I
have no doubt that they will remove some while a few might escape. But
is that what power is all about?
I’m hoping and praying that the opposition would wake up from its
self-induced coma by whatever act of miracle. Those saying there is no
difference between PDP and APC are not exactly correct. It is easier for
an APC to poach majority of members of Nigeria’s Floaters Party who
constitute over 70 percent of the electorate but they need to see some
semblance of seriousness on the part of the opposition leaders. The
current body language is ominous and many are worried that we may be
abandoned once more in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean after raising
our hopes again. Nothing is worse than a leader not trusted.
For the sake of Nigeria and our unborn generations, something has to be
done about this cycle of madness. Elections have been turned into mere
rituals of selecting and re-selecting all manner of shady and dodgy
character. Anyone can become Minister or Head of a parastatal no matter
how abysmal his record or personality.
No nation can make progress with such callous indifference to morality,
integrity and competence. The essence of Democracy is how to change a
failing government and not to entrench oligarchy in power. It has
nothing to do with the turn of your zone or the religion you practise.
As a former teacher, the President is well-equipped to know that no
university ever promotes students and their lecturers without meeting
certain merit based conditions. There is no sympathy, no discrimination!
If you like burn down the entire campus, but you will never proceed to
the next class if you fail.
Let our politicians bear this in mind.
ThisDay.
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