If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources – Francis de la Rochefoucauld.
It is a disease of the mind setting up what one likes against what one dislikes. That is what we are attempting to do in this week’s conversation, comparing the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
There is something many people will hate to hear but it may come to pass unless and until some necessary steps are taken pragmatically to avert it. And that is, that APC, unfortunately, may still be in power in Nigeria in 2023.
Given the FG performance since 2015, APC should not be dreaming of another mandate of Nigerian people again, but truth is that in Nigeria the circumstance is not normal.
This week, our discourse is on these oddities in our polity and why it’s going to hurt our democracy in a long time to come. We are also going to draw some lessons from Anambra State where PDP is labouring under the burden and consequences of losing power and the high hurdle to climb in trying to get it back.
One thing going for APC is that it has enough “fixers” within to handle crooked challenges. Unknown to many except politicians with analytical minds, APC is more endowed with more potentials for political manoeuvre than PDP.
APC operatives are not politically naive, they know and understand the Nigerian polity too well not to repeat any mistake. Another thing going for it is that President Muhammadu Buhari is not going to be on the ballot in 2023.
In southern Nigeria where Buhari is a hard sell because of his nepotism and ethnic jingoism, he would not be on the ballot. Therefore, those hoping to use the mere mention of his name to facilitate a campaign against APC should look elsewhere. And the North, where he is still idolized, despite the harm his regime has done to the region, will still identify with him as one true northerner even by default.
One significant advantage of incumbency that will come to play positively for APC is in using it to prevent an implosion in its fold. The opposition has been praying and waiting for APC to plummet to harvest from its misfortune. But the truth is that as a ruling party, APC has two handy instruments, one of coercion and another of persuasion and it can freely use any of them on its members, depending on the circumstance.
If, for instance, it decides to dispense with the Lagos strong man, Asiwaju Bola Ahmad Tinubu, in 2023 and he threatens to cause damage, APC will apply persuasion; if that fails, they bring in hounding by either threatening to take Lagos away from him or to resurrect the Alpha Beta case. Any of the two or a combination is enough to rein him in.
Recently, APC deployed such a strategy perfectly in Imo State, where Senator Ifeanyi Ararume was leading the ring against the embattled state government and he was given the juicy chair of the new NNPC board and all is now calm in the APC family.
It’s only the tree that will know harm is approaching and wait until it happens. APC, politically speaking, is not compound foolish. It has an attribute that is not available to other parties. It has PDP attributes because most of its major henchmen are PDP brought-ups. It has the real opposition character, a carryover from the defunct Action Congress, one of the founding blocs. Above all, it has the ultra-conservative CPC bloc which currently calls the shots in the present government, exhibiting its well-known hardline tendencies and political erudition which can be misread as timidity or coyness at great costs.
In any case, eight years in power is enough to learn how to harness internal divisions to retain political power at the centre. For anybody to leave APC in frustration and head to PDP, the opposition party must show them that it can provide succour.
So, strategically, APC, more than PDP, appear to have more potentials of realizing its political dream. In the area of strategy and resources, APC continually ups its game in goodwill and sentiment. Though PDP remains ahead, but lacks all it takes to harness divisions and potentials.
All the above permutations on the consideration are premised on the fact that all things will be equal and that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the security agencies will play by the rules, be neutral and allow free, fair, and credible elections. But as we know going by verifiable observations or experiences devoid of pure logic, such expectations are far from reality.
But even if the playing field were to be level for all to operate and explore available potentials, is the opposition PDP ready and prepared? An answer to this very important question will help discerning minds to act the soothsayer and pretend to foretell to the future even if Father Mbaka style.
There is an Igbo proverb that translates loosely as, “The blacksmith who does not know how to fashion a gun butt should take a look at the tail of a kite.” This readily reminds one of the very important lessons PDP needs to learn from Anambra State where the party’s popularity has little electoral value. Anambra is one of the reasons South-East Nigeria is considered a stronghold of PDP.
To explore and attempt to answer PDP’s preparedness, I would like to draw examples from what has happened to PDP in Anambra State and hazard what is likely to happen at the national level unless the stitch comes timely, to recast the well-known cliché.
In 1999, Anambra was one of the strongest bastions of PDP. The pioneer National Chairman and father figure of the party, Dr Alex Ekwueme, hailed from there. By 2000, elite greed and rivalry weakened PDP in Anambra State. The party’s gubernatorial candidate in 1999, Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju, who later ruled from 1999 to 2003 squandered the party’s goodwill and justifiably, was denied a second term ticket. It went to Dr Chris Ngige, today’s minister of Labour and Productivity. Although PDP was defeated by an All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, candidate Peter Obi in 2003, PDP tried to force itself in with Dr Ngige ruling for about three years before the court threw him out in 2006 for Peter Obi.
When Obi finished his first term and got a second term, again, it was the court that saved him. This time the candidate of PDP who was Andy Uba had only two weeks to govern Anambra. Ever since then PDP has remained in disarray in the state…popular with the populace but cannot win elections because of intraparty squabbles. Pull Him Down syndrome among the gladiators became the order in the party. The only time the people disregarded the elite fight was in the 2019 presidential election when they gave more than 95 per cent of their votes to their beloved former governor (Obi) who was on the ballot as the presidential running mate of PDP.
Today ahead of 2023, PDP is not shown itself capable of retrieving the Anambra gubernatorial seat. Neither has shown that it has learnt some hard lessons in the turbulent opposition camp. Instead, it keeps shooting itself on the foot. Jumping from one court to the other in search of healing for self-inflicted injury.
The best PDP outing since losing power in 2015 was in the October 2018 National Convention in Port Harcourt where 12 presidential aspirants contested and Atiku Abubakar won and got immediate support from the other 11 contestants because of the transparency of the selection process. That outing erased the division that arose from prolonged and needless litigation in the party.
As things stand today, the party fits into Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Anambra State PDP, after its fierce fight and the attendant self-sabotage against itself in 2017 and 2021, was still expecting victory at last Saturday’s gubernatorial poll…how? Against an incumbent government in the state with better resources and other incumbency advantages?
Set Anambra aside, as 2023 is drawing near, the peace and concord in the national PDP suddenly evaporated because of the ambition of a few who didn’t want the transparency of 2018 to be repeated, hence everything had to be done to chase away those who conducted it. Today, the hitherto peaceful PDP is in a frenzy and at the mercy of the judiciary again. The elders of the party who should have waded in to save their party instead played the ostrich and are today in regret at the state of the main opposition party.
The hard fact, as it seems today, is that even though it’s the desire of many in the country for the ruling APC to be made history in our political evolution because of the damage it has done to our political psyche generally, the truth remains that the people who should do that are just not ready. Their leaders keep following the old ways that hardly open new doors, they are collectively sowing the seed of destruction for their party.
In conclusion if PDP really desires to return to power, in 2023 it should first realize that the challenge ahead is herculean and it needs all hands on deck to get there. It should also put its house in order by telling themselves the truth that success cannot be gotten where justice and reward system are absent.
Where are the elders?
God bless.
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