Storms are forming currently in Nigeria’s political landscape and these are expected to occur as the nation inches towards national elections that will usher in a new administration come May 29th, 2023. Politicians across all political divides and of different ambitions with varying persuasions have started jostling for a foothold in the next administration. This period as usual is a season for renewing political alliances and loyalties just as it offers an auspicious occasion for political betrayals, conspiracies and deception. Unsurprisingly, these are familiar stocks of trade of politicians all over the world and Nigeria is no exception. About this time in 2015, a foundation was laid for the prevailing political and socio-economic atmosphere in our country. Around this season of political horse trading in 2015, a groundswell of a grand political alliance cum conspiracy couched in voluble propaganda, outright lies and deceit by a group of strange and desperate bedfellows with vengeful lust for power was about to burst. That period marked the emergence of a political party called the All Progressives Congress or APC in short. Riding on a populist discontent with the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at the time, the APC wrestled power out of the hands of PDP in 2015 with loafty promises that remain largely what they were till the end of that era.
The APC blamed its inability to deliver on the promises it made to Nigerians on the PDP. The cycle was repeated in 2019 with many Nigerians believing more lies and deceits not only because they were ashamed to admit openly that things were not going as they expected, but also because of an enduring hope of the citizenry that we shall soon reach the promised land. Here we are in the same season of politicking in 2022 and Nigerians are still languishing in political wilderness. Our economy is shambles while the country’s social capital that defines our standards of living have deteriorated beyond abyss. Trust politicians, we seem not to be bothered by the suffering of the masses. Rather, we are up in tools and arms playing our usual games for power and positions. I enjoin Nigerians not to worry or despair as it is once again, a season of politicking.
The question however is, must we as Nigerians continue to tolerate the many shenanigans of politicians willy-nilly that subject most of us to severe hardship simply because that is the way of politicians? Certainly not, and not for the sake of the suffering masses that live in perpetual poverty and abject squalor. The last 7 years or more of political leadership in Nigeria under the APC will particularly go down in the annals of this country as Nigeria’s worse era. Like the inexperienced Captain and crew that they turned out to be, the APC has ran the ship of State aground completely and almost beyond salvage. Nigeria currently needs a strong redemptive leadership with vision and strong will to pull the nation back from the dangerous precipice that the APC government of President Muhammad Buhari has dragged it.
This is why many Nigerians are looking up to the PDP for redemption and rightly so. Did I hear someone ask what makes me say rightly so? Well, whether we admit it or not, Nigeria has transformed into a two party State of PDP and APC. The remaining bunch of political parties so called only exist in the register of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and perhaps on some dumb and idle spaces of street walls. Also, a little bit of retrospection on what our nation looked like before May 29th, 2015 could justify my position. As I said previously, politicians are the same all over the world irrespective of party affiliations or ideological persuasions. Their shenanigans whether under conservative or progressive mandates have long ceased to surprise many. What matters mostly now are living conditions of citizenries and once majority of a country’s population earn qualitative and decent living, the antics of politicians matter less.
The shenanigans of PDP politicians while in power were countless. But the party paid attention to one critical sector of our national life that ensured Nigerians earned decent living standards at least. That sector is our national economy. Fully aware of the impact of sound economic governance on the citizenry, successive governments of all former PDP Presidents; starting from Chief Olusegun Obasanjo through late Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’Adua to Dr Jonathan Ebele Goodluck, hired and retained best and experienced hands to manage the nation’s economy beyond political considerations. This was what assisted the country to withstand some global economic meltdowns occasioned by the crash of capital markets around the world in 2008 and the global financial sector crisis that occurred four years later.
The eyes of the world were fixated on Nigeria during those trying times to witness the catastrophic consequences of the global economic crises on Nigeria and perhaps collapse of our government and country, given our famed tardiness and corruption in governance. Surprisingly, those crises went by without notice by majority of Nigerians because the PDP governments had sound economic policies and management in place. Fast forward to current era under the APC led government and see where the nation has been especially since the outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic. Not only was our leadership clueless in the face of a debilitating global pandemic that affected humanity negatively but Nigeria nearly crumbled socio-economically due to absence of vibrant economic policies and management. I doubt if we have recovered from the effects of COVID 19 pandemic with its ever mutating variants before the current crisis in Eastern Europe emerged with no less destabilizing effects than those of COVID 19. The resultant fuel scarcity and national blackout in addition to run-away inflation in Nigeria are part of effects of the war in distant Eastern Europe that are threatening to become the final nail on the country’s socio-economic coffin.
So, one can understand from these few examples why Nigerians are looking up to the PDP to redeem the nation from the ineptitude, maladministration and evil grip of the APC, come 2023. Now to the main gist of this article which is, how ready is the PDP to take on the challenge of redeeming Nigeria from the precipice? Is the house of PDP in order or is it currently in crisis like that of the APC? I doubt if the crisis in the house of PDP is of any significance but may not have put its house fully in order judging by the deafening silence from its ranks while beholding the sheer incompetence, misgovernance and invidious corruption of APC led government in Nigeria. As I have said many times previously to whoever cared to listen, the sins of PDP government under former President Goodluck Jonathan were not up to one hundredth of those of current APC government led by President Muhammad Buhari.
Yet, while the APC’ strange bedfellows were vociferous about PDP’s sins in the market places, on the streets, in worship centers, in the homes etc, in 2015, the PDP has remained largely quiet and submissive about current woeful performance of the APC. Similarly, whereas the APC which as a political contraption that emerged from an amalgam of some Nigerian political parties subsumed individual and group aspirations into a single vision behind a standard bearer with a certain clout in order to win the 2015 elections, the PDP house is currently threatening to bottom-out from the subtle power and influence contestations of some political gladiators within its ranks.
This will not augur well for the PDP on the long run and may prove a huge disappointment for many Nigerians that think that the party has learnt its lessons and is now ready to provide credible and purposeful leadership to the nation. The contestation as we are witnessing currently is between PDP governors and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. These very important PDP personalities no doubt are collectively the soul and spirit of the party. If these can unite and agree on a common agenda to drive the shamelessly pretentious APC out of power and restore Nigeria on path of political and socio-economic progress once again, they will be able to achieve the dream of rejigging the country positively.
As I said previously, all current PDP gladiators are formidable in their individual rights but none can single-handedly bring victory to the party. They must therefore unite, agree on a common vision of restoring the PDP back to the saddle of Nigeria’s political movement and work together to bring it to fruition. We all as members of PDP must remember how the various ethnically biased political parties realized that their various attempts to defeat the PDP from 1999 to 2015 failed on the alter of their individual and narrow interests. Consequently, they dropped their egos, forged their individual interests into what resembles a collective interest of Nigerians and chose a person whose nebulous personal qualities at the time appealed to Nigerians the most as their standard bearer for prosecution of a political putsch against the PDP.
The APC strategy held and it defeated the PDP ultimately. Today, history and nature have both offered a similar political climate and circumstance to the PDP and it is left for the party to either seize the opportunity or let it slip through its fingers. The PDP governors have no doubt demonstrated resilience and rugged staying power before an discriminatory and intolerant central power. They also bring formidable political experience and capital to the table. Former Vice President Atiku on the other hand is an old war horse that has seen and known it all when it comes to Nigerian politics. He is among the courageous architects of Nigeria’s fourth republic having paid his dues in previous dispensations under the tutelage of certain notable politicians. Like the PDP governors, he brings vast political experience, a huge and diversified political base and sellable personage to the round table.
I believe that if the PDP governors and former Vice President Abubakar Atiku clamber down from their Augean heights and forgo their egos for the sake of our dear nation and party, they can give hope to Nigerians. Like the knights of APC, they can forge their individual ambitions into a collective desire that puts our nation first and queue behind one whose clout offers more promise for wider acceptance by the electorate across the length and breadth of the nation. Importantly, it behoves on PDP’s hierarchy to drive the process of building consensus among these great gladiators and their teeming followers if the party is to rise to the clarion call of majority Nigerians for alternative solution to governance in the country. As I have said times without number, I have confidence in PDP’s ability to resolve internal crisis and individual differences amicably for common good. I am therefore optimistic that the PDP, its gladiators and members are currently working assiduously behind closed doors to ensure victory in the 2023
elections, God willing!
USMAN OKAI AUSTIN
WRITES FROM ABUJA.