Unless a man has two wives he
does not appreciate the value of the first one. So, says an Urhobo proverb. The
present excruciating failure of government illustrates this aphoristic
submission. For 16 years, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) held sway as Nigeria’s
ruling party. While in power, the PDP behaved like a drunken braggart. It
unleashed impunity on Nigeria and adopted corruption and electoral heist as
appellations. Under its stewardship, militancy, insurgency and other crimes
festered. Its insensitivity was monumental and it neither acknowledged the
people nor the essence of a future. At the peak of its giddiness, one of its
megalomaniac chairmen boasted that the PDP would rule Nigeria for 60 years! In
retrospect, that declaration turned out to be a pun as the PDP ruled Nigeria
for 16 instead of 60 years!
The PDP was not a party of swashbucklers at its inception in
1998. The party grew out of a nucleus of 18 men who were in the vanguard of
opposition to military rule during the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha.
Among these men who formed the Group of Eighteen (G 18) which later expanded
into G 34, were Alex Ekwueme, Sunday Awoniyi, Sule Lamido, Solomon Lar, etc. It
was even hinted that the party’s manifesto was penned by Bola Ige, progressive
politician and leading intelligentsia. At birth, the PDP was the ideal party
for a nation extricating itself from 16 years of military dictatorship. The
party had “people” and “democracy”, which are the two ideal components of a
democracy, in its name. It also had a national spread which made it a truly
pan-Nigerian party at that time.
However, the party’s ideal was violated when the military
generals hijacked it. The generals, with their heavy financial war chest
mangled the party’s democratic soul. In spite of that early debauchery, the
party went on to win a nationwide landslide victory during the 1999 elections
across all tiers of government. The two other parties of that period, the
Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All Peoples Party (APP) won elections in
some states. It was this scenario especially, the manipulation of the PDP and
the electoral process by the generals that led to the emergence of Olusegun
Obasanjo, himself a general and former military head of state, as president of
Nigeria in 1999.
Obasanjo moved against the founders of the party, frustrated
them out and masterminded the resignation of the party’s chairmen at will. He
introduced garrison politics not just into the PDP, but into Nigerian politics.
He it was who declared election “a do or die” affair! He assailed the
legislature, compromised the judiciary and corrupted the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC). Obasanjo asphyxiated the PDP and convoluted the
nation’s democracy. However, his plot of a constitution amendment that will
earn him a third term in office blew up in his face.
By the time Obasanjo left office in mortification in 2007, the
nation was in a terrible shape and the PDP, the party in power, was blamed for
the woes. The denigration of values which Obasanjo promoted also took roots in
all the states so that Nigeria became a nation of orukukuru (debauched
sensibilities). Obasanjo’s successor, the meek mannered, Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua,
admitted to the electoral fraud that Obasanjo perpetuated in bringing him (Yar’
Adua) to power. Yar’ Adua died in 2010 and thus came in Goodluck Jonathan.
Jonathan, a meek teacher like Yar’ Adua, lacked the latter’s
moral fibre. He allowed himself to be led by the noose. He saw no evil and
heard no evil. When there was massive corruption he called it ordinary
stealing! He didn’t “give a damn” for not declaring his assets. Under him,
Nigeria suffered humiliation in the hands of insurgents. His government
represented the worst tendencies associated with the PDP.
An alliance of many political parties engendered a mega party,
the All Progressives Congress (APC). The party chose Buhari, a former military
dictator and serial presidential candidate, as its flag bearer for the 2015
presidential election. The APC rightly gauged the mood of Nigerians and
campaigned with a CHANGE slogan. The APC trounced the PDP and Buhari was
inaugurated as president in May 2015, thus ending the PDP’s 16 years of
misrule.
Buhari’s emergence has turned out to be a swindle as the APC
disavowed all its campaign promises. Nigeria has relapsed into a Hobbesian
condition worse than the terrible days of the PDP in power. Buhari hit the
ground limping. In spite of Buhari’s criticism of foreign medical trips, he has
himself been in a London hospital for months. Buhari’s abysmally poor
understanding of the economy threw the nation into its worst economic recession
ever and Nigeria has become the face of hunger and deprivation. Centrifugal
forces of disintegration are vociferous and the nation is falling apart.
Nigerians are the man with two wives who now knows the value of
the first wife, the PDP. The PDP must reinvent itself and seize the initiative.
The PDP has tasted humiliation. Many of its isiagwanre and ukodo (money sharing
and come and eat) members decamped to the APC overnight just as Ali Modu
Sheriff took the party through a terrible nightmare. The PDP should put its
house in order and engage the APC by deepening and consolidating democratic
culture. It should now play the role of watchdog, proffering alternative ideas,
inspiring debates, shaping public opinion, mobilising the media and civil
society. A new PDP shorn of the Obasanjo tendencies should give Nigerians
political education and support electoral reforms. Many of its founding fathers
and men of political valour are still around to give the party the needed
gravitas. They should embark on a nationwide reconciliation and regrouping.
They must reconnect with the
people. This will be to the benefit of Nigeria and Nigerians. Right now, there
is no new party that can confront the APC. Only the PDP can. The APC is riven
into factions in all the states. It is a drowning party, bereft of the vision
to navigate Nigeria out of the current miasma. All its vocal advocates, with
the exception of Atiku Abubakar, the restructuring campaigner, have receded to
the abyss of silence. Another season of change beckons.
Awhefeada teaches literature at the Delta State University,
Abraka.
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