By Salihu
Moh. Lukman
Party politics
in Nigeria is for all comers where identity and values mean nothing. Members
don’t need to have any special attribute. As a result, for instance, the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is for everybody including the corrupt,
ex-convicts, questionable Nigerians, etc. just as it also has a good mix of
some of the good and positive citizens. The party doesn’t have to respect its
members and make itself available to the Nigerian people. Democratic values
mean nothing to the party. Elections hardly take place and when they do, the
results can be vetoed by party leaders. It has gradually emerged as a party
without democrats and permanently antagonistic to Nigerian people. At the same
time, it proudly bears the name Peoples Democratic Party.
The fact of
PDP’s control of the Federal Government and most state governments, which
conferred on it the commanding control of the resources of the country since
1999 mean liberalised access by corrupt Nigerians and geometric rise of the
problem of mismanagement, looting and theft of public resources. The outcome is
that virtually every PDP functionary at party or governmental levels is
contaminated with varying degree of the public treasury loot allergy. The
absence of democracy and being antagonistic to Nigerian public has also
resulted in very high membership turnover. The consequence is that the Nigerian
political landscape at all level is littered with ex-PDP. Sadly, Nigerian
politics is yet to acquire any capacity for healing or quarantining ex-PDP
members, especially those that have proven cases of public loot allergy or
public evidence of authoritarian amity.
Largely on
account of combinations of lack of internal party democracy, high membership
turnover and absence of values in our polity, almost all our parties have been
infected with the public loot allergy in varying degrees. As a result of which
both in terms of the different parties and the government they produce, poor
services and contempt by officials to public outcry for good governance is a
recurring characteristic. This is the progressive lethargy that today
represents a major source of public frustration, cynicism and democratic
inertia. It has in significant ways reduced democratic governance in Nigeria to
a state of joke and clamour for national development to rhetoric. Nigeria is
therefore a country without national development targets, a country where
public officials govern with impunity, where citizens’ lives are at best
statistical expressions, where the rise of anarchy and relapse to Hobbesian state
of nature is the commandment.
Is this our
national destiny? Is there any way to remedying this ugly situation? Do
Nigerians have any hope that anything positively different can come out of any
of today’s initiative? In terms of politics, is there a way to introduce some
values and character to any of our parties? Can the effort towards introducing
values and character also take on board the need to cure the public treasury
loot allergy?
Almost every
Nigerian is asking these questions with special interest mostly based on the
hope that Nigerian politics can be refined such that public frustration,
cynicism, democratic inertia, absence of national development, culture of
impunity, loss of lives and property, anarchy and relapse to Hobbesian state will
no longer be our defining feature. In response therefore our Nigerian
opposition politicians have taken up the challenge and since January this year
(2013) commence national negotiations to merge our opposition parties, notably
ACN, ANPP, CPC and Okorocha-led APGA and have since February 6 announced
agreement to form All Progressives Congress (APC). While for many Nigerians
this is a welcome development, it is also being received with doubt given that
many leaders of these parties involved in the merger negotiations are to some
extent ex-PDP with varying levels of contamination and public treasury loot
allergy.
This may
only serve to reinforce public frustration, cynicism and democratic inertia. It
demand for a conscious response from the merging parties, at least to stimulate
public confidence that the new party, APC, will be founded with the capacity
to, at the minimum, to provide healing for public treasury loot allergy and/or
authoritarian amity. Somehow, perhaps on account of over confidence arising from
the perceived high public support for the merger, our opposition leaders have
almost ignored this expectation completely. Issues of leadership selection
process for the merger, at best, insult public sensibility given the decision
to vest the leadership of the merger negotiation in the hands of Chief Tom
Ikimi.
Not even the
choice of the name, All Progressives Congress (APC) and the fact that by any
parameter, Chief Ikimi will never qualify as progressive moderated our
opposition leaders. If anything, he is a conservative through and through who
never hid his preference for private accumulation, private enterprise,
capitalism, etc. Although, it can be argued that given the state of things in
Nigeria, private accumulation, private enterprise and capitalism if founded
based on application of rules, liberalised environment and equal access could
represent progress. However given the antecedent of Chief Tom Ikimi, it is
doubtful if his choice of private accumulation, private enterprise, capitalism,
etc. is located in application of rules, liberalised environment and equal
access. Besides, his democratic credentials as the foreign Minister of Gen.
Sani Abacha’s administration and his role in the international defense of the
criminal state murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1996 were certainly a huge mark that
meant anything but progressive. Perhaps his role as PDP returning officer in
the sham contest between Chief Obasanjo and Chief Alex Ekweme in 2003 is
progressive credentials.
Nigerians
have lived with this ‘progressive’ assault for about four months. Some
commentaries, critiques and public opinions have drawn attention to this. In
virtually all cases, the response is some subtle rationalisation, stubborn
silence and meek arrogance. This could be a way of highlighting the
prerogatives of our political leaders to take all decisions without worrying
about public expectations including wrong choices of party leaders. This can
only further fuel public frustration, cynicism and democratic inertia and
consequently make APC to emerge only as a vehicle to entrench our progressive
lethargy. With this kind of disposition, conservatives with strong
authoritarian streak such as Chief Ikimi or any other person can emerge as
leaders of APC.
Therefore,
instead of emerging as a progressive party, one founded based on a commitment
to social welfare services especially education and health, like the case of
‘people’ and ‘democratic’ in the name of PDP, ‘progressive’ identity will just
be another taxonomy meaning virtually nothing to APC. With the presence of many
ex-PDP, some with advanced signs of the public treasury loot allergy, problems
of national development targets, impunity, anarchy and relapse to Hobbesian
state of nature will remain our national commandment.
Our leaders
in the Nigerian opposition parties negotiating the APC merger need to take
urgent steps to redirect affairs so that APC truly emerge as a progressive
party. Progressive loosely defined based on a strategy to develop APC as a
party that can guarantee steady incremental positive changes in our political
life. These incremental changes should take their bearing from good
demonstration of commitment to develop a party that can regulate the conduct of
every member. The starting point may have to proceed with strong commitment to
guarantee fairness within the party. Progress in this respect will assume a
reverse order and the calamity facing the nation will continue.
What should
our opposition leadership do in order to guarantee fairness? There are three
principles that can be recommended to guide APC negotiations especially the
process of leadership formation. The first should be the need to address
problem associated with combination of treasury loot allergy and authoritarian
amity. The second will be the need to ensure fair representation of the parties
in the merger process. And the third is the need to come with strong commitment
to ensure equal representation of all parts of the country and interests in the
leadership of the party.
It is
important that the party begin to use the issue of principles as a guide moving
forward given that by May 11, once ANPP and CPC successful hold their merger
conventions, the next stage will be that of leadership formation. Given the
reality of Nigerian politics largely being driven by personal aspirations, the
democratic and progressive outlook of APC risked being sacrificed. This
underlines the need to urgently appeal to our opposition political leaders so
that they don’t recklessly squander the huge democratic opportunity the APC
merger process present.
With respect
to the principles highlighted above therefore, the first task before our
opposition leaders is to take all the necessary steps to ensure that as much as
possible all those holding principal position in the party can be adjudged to
have tolerable levels of ex-PDP symptom, public treasury loot allergy or
authoritarian amity. Principal Officers in this case should include National
Chairman, National Secretary, National Treasurer and Chairman BOT. The process
of leadership formation must factor a strategy for comprehensive due diligence,
including public scrutiny. A situation where the approach is blind to ex-PDP
symptom, public treasury loot allergy and authoritarian amity, can only result
in creating a shadow PDP in APC.
The second
issue is that once the principal offices are agreed, fairness requires that
these offices are equitably shared among the merging parties. The factor that
should determine equity must take into account the need for every party and all
members to make sacrifice for the good of the country and enhance the electoral
prospect of APC. To that extent therefore it may require the need to have an
attitude of let go just so that unity is achieved.
The third
bordering on the need to come with strong commitment to ensure equal
representation of all parts of the country and interests in the leadership of
the party demand that all parts of the country are reflected in the leadership.
Given current perception whereby ACN is perceived as a South West party and CPC
as a Northern party, and against the background of cynicism that the merger is
mainly between the North and South West and ANPP is being relegated to a junior
status in the merger, there will be the need to take conscious measures to factor
a strong presence of all parties and all parts of the country among the
principal officers of APC.
All things
considered, it will appear that options before our oppositions politicians are
limited. Unless our APC want to opt for a complete gamble with untested
individuals for the positions of National Chairman, National Secretary and
Chairman BOT, it will appear that based on current leaders of the parties, the
best choices that would meet all the three conditions are Gen. Buhari, Asiwaju
Tinubu and Chief Ogbonnaya Onu. All the three can be adjudged not to have
ex-PDP symptom, no proven case of public treasury loot allergy and in many
respect tolerable levels of authoritarian amity. Controversial as the
assessment of these leaders would appear to be, it represented about the best
in relations to other possible candidates within the merging parties.
Weighed
against the advantage that with these three personalities – Gen. Buhari,
Asiwaju Tinubu and Chief Onu - in the leadership of APC, three critical parts
of the country are already reflected. The challenge then will be to proceed to
recruit good leaders with, at the minimum, tolerable levels of ex-PDP symptoms,
low cases of public treasury loot allergy and authoritarian amity from other
parts of the country and interests.
Some of the
areas that attention must be paid in constituting the leadership of the party
include the issue of recruiting youths and women leaders. The way things are,
if care is not taken, leadership negotiations leading to the emergence of APC
leaders may reflect dominantly older people and mostly men. Since it is only
logical that the leadership of APC will be constituted from among current
leaders of the merging parties, APC risk coming up with a leadership whose
youngest will be in his/her 50s. And since no age limit has been placed so far
in the harmonised APC constitution for the APC Youth Leader and Deputy Youth
Leader, people in their 60s or 70s may emerge as Youth Leader and Deputy. There
is therefore the urgent need for our opposition leaders to consciously take
steps to ensure the representation of youths (those under 35 years) and women
in the leadership of APC.
Once APC is
able to handle the task of leadership formation based on respect for principles;
public frustration, cynicism and democratic inertia will begin to give way to
confidence, support and participation in party activities. This is the only
guarantee for electoral success in 2015. This demand that, first thing first,
the process of APC leadership formation must get certain things right. It is
must not be driven by purely personal aspirations of individuals, pure exercise
of leadership prerogative, blind recognition for our diversities both with
respect to identity and interests, etc. Our
Nigerian opposition leaders must act based on principles as the qualifying
credential for being a party of progressives!
