And so we formed a new political party

I have been involved with a few young and not-so-young people, in coming together to form a new political party called the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP). We can be found on www.anrp.org.ng and we are coming to the village near you in a short while. We hope to bring a new ethos into the […]

I have been involved with a few young and not-so-young people, in coming together to form a new political party called the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP). We can be found on www.anrp.org.ng and we are coming to the village near you in a short while. We hope to bring a new ethos into the Nigeria political sphere and we believe that the right-thinking people of Nigeria have complained for too long and need to try and show what they can do themselves.  The major political parties of Nigeria are presently in disarray and there is talk of a mega-party. They cannot even agree on anything, and pride and prejudice has marred all of them from within. Our idea is based on transparency, equity, unity, prudence, and underpinned on global best practices. 

The party seeks to do things differently. Already, our membership numbers is more than 1,700 by the time you read this article, and it is organic. Nobody is being forced to join, and the party roll call is available for scrutiny anytime. Our membership spans all 36 states and the FCT, and we already have chapters in the UK, USA, South Africa, Turkey, and so on, in less than two weeks of formation. Our motto is “Renewal, Renaissance, Respect!”, because we respect everyone we come across, we respect our elders, we respect the environment, we respect humanity, and we respect the Almighty God. We also hope to be the party that RENEWS Nigeria, a country of abundance where the citizens wallow in abject want. Since this year’s Eid el Kabir till this Christmas, Nigerian have never been so deprived, totally washed up and clueless as to where to find food, since our formation as a nation. 

What is more? We have ‘shadow ministers’, because this can serve to focus the party and make us busy and productive. This is a feature of parliamentary systems of government but a country like Thailand, after it had to shift from parliamentary system in 2014, retained shadow governments as part of opposition. If political parties are not lazy, it should not be hard to do. We have done this because we intend to be serious with governance in Nigeria – even in opposition.  However we intend to contest every position in the land and we have the people to do this. 

We of ANRP want to do things ourselves, not to be spoon-fed by our father’s generation, and we have absorbed people who are old and young. We’ve seen that in many parts of Nigeria today, due to economic and social mismanagement, we have 35-50 years old men still living with their parents, hoping for those parents to die so that they may inherit – the same way we who are between 35 and 50 are waiting to inherit age-old, tired political structures formed when Nigeria’s nationalists were in universities in the 1940s. Many Nigerian men today are unable to even build the “face-me-i-face-you” bungalows that their illiterate fathers managed to build. We are already in disaster. 

Let me briefly list some reasons WHY Nigeria NEEDS a new party, and why we (ANRP) are that party.

1.We are a GREEN Party. Shockingly, almost every other country in Africa has a Green party, from South Africa to Kenya, to Mali, Guinea even Somalia and others. With Green, White, Green for a flag, one would think there will be a party drawing our attention to the environment, to sustainability, to agriculture and so on. But we have never had any, as our existing political parties pay lip service to these ideals. The result is that we have totally despoiled our environment in a way that tells foreigners and visitors of our carelessness and inability to foresee the future consequences of our actions. So whereas we are not tree-huggers, we are one party that has sustainability, and the achievement of the SDG goals as one of its core ideals and deliverables. We see the environment as the last bastion of employment and business in Nigeria; the most neglected sector which is also the last pressure/trigger-point for our economy. It is about focusing attention on the details.  We believe that there is so much value to be unlocked from a focus on sustainability.

2. With the demographic that we are targeting, even though we are open to every age group, we hope to get new ideas on board, as different from the ideas with which Nigeria has been run for decades now. After recycling same people and same ideas for too long, they naturally wear out. There has been too much of godfatherism in the existing parties and in-bred ideas that lead to stunted and deformed results. We intend to emphasise opportunities for the young, and for women, to take active part in the administration of Nigeria. It needs to be known, that even the relative gains of the youth and women in governance under the much-vilified Jonathan government, were shockingly and almost totally rolled back in the Buhari government. We intend to encourage young people to contest for elections within the ambit of the constitution, and without prejudice to members who are advanced in age.

3.We have formed this party because Nigeria needs new ideas, new people, new perspectives, new thinking and new results, if I may borrow from a comment from another brother of mine, Leo Onogu. With the economic calamities we are going through, it will be wicked and totally unfeeling for someone to suggest that all we can do is sit here and stew in our misery, or go to existing parties to queue for ‘our turn to eat’ when we can actually TRY and do something profound, altruistic and original about it. 

4.We need a new party because Nigerians are looking for avenues and opportunities for new expression and they want to do things differently than before. Einsten it was who said two things; that it is insanity to do things the same way and expect different results; and that we cannot solve the problems or today, or tomorrow, by using the same instruments and circumstances, or even people, who created them. 

5.We need a new party now, which will continue to grow in the next two years before the elections, and which will field people for all elections, because Nigerians hope to take their country forward. We are a much-castigated, infamous country, increasingly grouped as a country of terrorists and fraudsters. Nigeria is retrogressing when smaller and less-endowed African nations are getting their acts together. We need a new party for those who understand and appreciate the URGENCY OF NOW! We need that new party because this country needs to understand how fast the world is moving and that it is presently one of the most vulnerable and most disadvantaged countries in the world. 

Looking at the way we do things presently in Nigeria’s civil service, and how the commonwealth is grabbed by those who are closest to it for their own personal comfort, there is a need to speak up and be heard. Alas, we are tired of complaining about what government can or cannot do. We are beginning to work on how we can make things different if given the chance.  This, we believe, is the way forward. You shall hopefully, be hearing more from us. 

So, on behalf of myself, and this new political party of ours, we wish everybody a Happy New Year