Brookings: Fallacies of a ‘prediction’ (I)

Just last week, the Brookings Institution, actually one of its contributors, Jideofor Adibe, published a stale, misguided, ridiculous, unscientific and irrational paper ‘predicting’ victory for President Goodluck Jonathan in the February 14 election. Written under the heading “The 2015 Presidential Elections in Nigeria: The Issues and Challenges” the presentation was anything but scholarly. Adibe’s “prediction” […]

Just last week, the Brookings Institution, actually one of its contributors, Jideofor Adibe, published a stale, misguided, ridiculous, unscientific and irrational paper ‘predicting’ victory for President Goodluck Jonathan in the February 14 election. Written under the heading “The 2015 Presidential Elections in Nigeria: The Issues and Challenges” the presentation was anything but scholarly.
Adibe’s “prediction” is based on a few fallacies: that Bola Ahmed Tinubu will not mobilise  South West votes for Major General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC); the absurdity  that the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has “rebounded strongly” from defections by its members; Jonathan’s strong following in South-South and South East; the hysteria over Nigeria’s economy being the largest in Africa and the 26th in the world, as well as the government’s successful containment of the Ebola virus.
Each of these factors is contestable, and nothing about any of them is definitive. First, let us examine the farcical and incongruous assertion by Brookings, sorry, Adibe, that APC is “fragile.” What is it that makes APC fragile? Our scholar didn’t say but he wants us to allow this sweeping statement to pass without challenge; are we going to allow him? No. Note, however, that our scholar himself proffered reason for the unity in APC. According to him the APC “seems united only in its quest to wrest the presidency from Jonathan.” Is the quest for power not a sufficient motivation for a new political group? The “quest to wrest presidency from Jonathan” sounds like a PDP complaint, and not a scholar’s. It’s tempting to ask: what is it that unites PDP members? Is it the fear of prison!
It’s misleading, as Adibe attempted, to attribute APC’s strength to such boring things as “tapping into anti-Jonathan sentiments in the Muslim north and grievances among the Yoruba who feel that the Jonathan administration has ignored them in key political appointments.” At home and abroad, Jonathan is disliked for his administration’s incompetence and personal clannishness. The deteriorating security situation, unbridled corruption, the escalating impunity, tolerance of hate speech from his kinsmen, the moral crisis dogging the government, PDP’s failure (for 16 years) to deliver basic services or fulfil its other promises to our people are the issues which have all combined to make Nigerians look up to APC for redemption. The PDP is terrified by its appalling record of arrogance, indolence, injustice and legendary squander mania.
Adibe, without any rationale, speculates that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the most followed political leader in the South West after Obafemi Awolowo, is not “enthusiastic in delivering the battleground South West to the APC.” This must be a PDP wish. But Tinubu is doing the campaign of his life with energy and enthusiasm. In Abeokuta, he conjured GMB in the spirit of Generals Charles de Gaulle of France, Dwight Eisenhower of United States, Winston Churchill of Britain, etc, who played crucial roles in the history of their nations. As can be seen, Tinubu has a common goal with APC members: see the back of Jonathan this February, nay May 29.
Adibe lists the economy and the successful containment of Ebola virus as some of the reasons for which the PDP will retain power in next month’s election. The trouble here is that despite being named Africa’s biggest and the world’s 26th largest in the world, the Nigerian economy doesn’t work for ordinary Nigerians. Though this economy has created a few billionaires and thousands of jet owners, it has chillingly produced millions of paupers. About 70% of Nigerians are living below one $1. Adibe himself concedes that 24% of Nigerians are unemployed up from 12% in 2011. So where is the robust economy that they bandy about?
The success of the fight against Ebola and whatever accolades come with it is necessarily shared with the Governors of Lagos and Rivers States for the simple reason that they cooperated with the President to suppress the virus; after all, the commander-in-chief didn’t use soldiers to do the job. The conquest of Ebola was achieved via teamwork of health workers from private, state and federal hospitals and the society at large.
Moreover, the claim by Adibe that PDP has “rebounded strongly” from defections is false and premature. Up till today, people are decamping from the PDP to APC. Serving legislators, ex-ministers, gubernatorial aspirants and party executives from Adamawa, Bayelsa, Benue, Ekiti, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ondo, etc, including a former national chairman of PDP have all joined APC. The “Group of 22” gubernatorial aspirants in Akwa Ibom are allied with APC and have vowed to scuttle the election of the PDP candidate in the state. At one point, the wave of defections by many other influential politicians in Ondo even forced the President to cancel a planned rally in Akure. Even the current PDP National Chairman, Adamu Mu’azu has warned that unless the party treats its members fairly, it’s bound to have problems winning elections. Did you listen to Col Sambo Dasuki’s call, for the suspension of the February elections, in London!