And Dora left the building…
Not only on the basis of timing, taste and character of the inflammatory comments but primarily on the grounds of propriety and sincerity. My argument at that point in time was that Professor Akunyili wasn’t making that outburst for the sake of Nigeria but for her personal sake. Yar’adua died and government continued with Goodluck […]
Not only on the basis of timing, taste and character of the inflammatory comments but primarily on the grounds of propriety and sincerity. My argument at that point in time was that Professor Akunyili wasn’t making that outburst for the sake of Nigeria but for her personal sake.
Yar’adua died and government continued with Goodluck Jonathan on top of affairs. The rest is now history. Truly Dora continued as the Minister of Information but definitely without the aura that characterized her Yar’adua days. She became rather withdrawn in the last several months that President Jonathan held forte.
The expectation was that given the role she played in the ‘ouster’ of President Yar’adua, Professor Akunyili was going to be more proactive and perhaps she expected she was going to occupy a grade ‘A’ posting after that infamous role. Unfortunately, she was retained as the Minister of Information. This may be responsible for the sudden withdrawal of Professor Akunyili and the lowering of the tempo of her fake rebranding project.
Now, the twist is completely in a different direction. The sensation has moved a mile away from the way it was in the Yar’adua saga. She has now resigned from that plump ministerial position and has also resigned from the PDP, a party that she said was her life.
Are we sure that this time around Mrs Akunyilli is sincere? Well, that is left for APGA to sort out. If they are convinced that she should be given a platform to contest only to retrace her steps back to the PDP after the 2011 elections. That is left for the people of Anambara State and the party under whose platform she desires to go to the Senate to decide.
The resignation from the PDP speaks volume about the nature and character of the personality in question. Was her sensation at the peak of Yar’adua’s ailment a product of sincerity? Why would someone who only a few months ago claimed so much love for the then Ag. President Jonathan, the party and the nation only wake up one early morning and decide to drop a job, negotiate with an opposition party and opt out of a government that she was violently protecting, in search of a new opportunity in the Senate?
This is a lesson to the PDP and the president himself who probably knew the character of the person he was dealing with and thus dined throughout with a long spoon. I am of the view that Dora’s resignation is a welcome development because it is high time that governance is faced by very serious people and not on those that are masters of sensationalism.
In my view, the defection of Dora from the PDP only speaks about the enormity of the problems that the party is facing and is likely to face in the heat of the 2011 elections. The expectation is that Nigerians will rise in their number and ensure that democracy reigns through free, fair and credible elections.
I also believe that the political patties especially the PDP is sufficiently getting ready to brace up with the realities of allowing peoples’ votes to count. I do not have any doubt in my mind that the more the political class subordinates itself to the wishes of the Nigerian people, the better for the system.
If Nigerians will find PDP more appropriate, let that be, but it mustn’t be through the truncation of the wishes of the people that landslide majorities should be acquired. Every one of us that has a fair idea of the character, content and context of Nigerian politics knows definitely that the majority the PDP enjoyed in this country from 2003 was unnatural and therefore products of serial manipulation and rigging during elections.
The best thing that can happen to Nigerian politics is if the old order of politicking is respected. There must be plurality in representation reminiscence of the pluralism in the country. It is not a sin if the South West is predominantly skewed towards one political tendency. The same is with the South East and the North. This is not however to assume that in these dominant political groupings there would be no differences of opinions and tendencies.
That is how politics is practiced in most plural federal structures. It is not about uniformity but more about how the divergences and differences are managed by the federation that makes success of politics, administration and governance.
I am therefore excited that though some measure of instability was at display by Professor Akunyili in her defection to the PDP, the action in itself is a signal of how partisanship in a complex peripheral federal state like Nigeria ought to be. Any attempt to force unity by fiat only results in the tragedy that we have today. Desperation on the part of political alliances to capture power at no matter what cost and regardless of what will not serve us.
That is why there are no virile political parties in the country that preach the gospel beyond access to power. Critical functions like political education, interest articulation and aggregation are all absent in the political parties that we have today. They may do better if they have some specific focus and support. We will again see party supremacy and the capacity to discipline whosoever decides to go against the rules and regulations of the political party.
Now that Dora is gone, I have been proven right. That her outburst when President Yar’adua was indisposed was not honest. It wasn’t nationalistic. It was merely sheer grandstanding which she thought would pay her the more. Now that she has left, it is good for Nigeria. Others who nurse personal ambition or believe in the collective good must also be bold enough to throw in the towel and leave when the situation warrants. Bravo Dora. Best of luck in APGA and I hope you are sincere.