Dissecting PDP’s ‘failure’ at 12

Over time, one identifiable major problem with the assessment of the ruling party is that most commentators are hooked to the stereotype; are minded to the trite Arcadian brush of non- performance that an honest attempt to deliver a verdict to the contrary immediately invokes the image of  a paid agent. Another is that in […]

Over time, one identifiable major problem with the assessment of the ruling party is that most commentators are hooked to the stereotype; are minded to the trite Arcadian brush of non- performance that an honest attempt to deliver a verdict to the contrary immediately invokes the image of  a paid agent. Another is that in our peculiar clime, when the opposition concedes performance to the party in power, it is misconstrued to have lost its canine teeth since opposition is wrongly conceived as an attack dog that must see nothing good in the ruling party. Similarly aligned is that propaganda is a free tool in the game of politics.

It is a potent weapon in the hands of those who know beyond its rudiments.  And the opposition in Nigeria, I must concede, understands this full well and are tapping the advantages to the full. If it therefore succeeds in creating frenetic scenes of a successive cameo of over a decade long national woes, signifying the squander of trust and mandate of the people, self annulling effect would have been created while the ensuing tragic catharsis will achieve the rejection of the PDP by the people. This is for those who understand the Aristotelian Tragic lessons.

I was therefore not surprised that when Professor Alkali, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, went to press last week with “the nation has taken quantum leap in the last twelve years of PDP ”, Lai Mohammed, his equivalent in the Action Congress of Nigeria,  responded off hand that the “quantum leap has only been in the backward direction.” Has the PDP in deed failed in its covenant with the people? Has the party achieved nothing in the last twelve years? Can it be successfully argued that it has got nothing to show? I have taken time to interact with a wide spectrum of people on this issue and have also done an in-depth, unbiased analysis on same.

Though it is true the PDP may not have achieved as much as to reach or surpass the curve of soaring expectations, certainly, the truth is that the party has achieved quite a lot. Primarily, the size, cohesion and the centripetal pull which the party has continued to exert on the nation as a melting pot which has defied the barriers of race, religion and ideological persuasions in the last eleven untrammelled years of democratic governance and whose positive catalytic effects cannot be relegated has turned the PDP into a democratic bulwark against military adventurism.

Senator Jonathan Zwingina who was part of the leaders who drafted the founding manifesto of the party, once told me that the very fact that the PDP has successfully entrenched democracy as the only alternative form of government, has fulfilled the first major reason for which they founded it.  The democratically elected government which we practice, and the freedom there of is a dividend that cannot be quantified, not withstanding the imperfections in our electoral system.  

The next major vision of the party’s founding fathers was to form a government which will restore the dignity of the nation through an infrastructural turn around and provision of jobs, so as to free our people from the vicious grip of hunger and disease. The abundance or otherwise of this tangible democratic benefit can only be relatively measured.  The reason is that when we visualise the past, reckon with where we were in 1998 against where we are today; fairness can hardly hand over a damning judgment on the party. In other words, the nation has made significant progress.  

Baring the inglorious third term saga, for instance, no Nigerian can in clear conscience, claim we made no progress between 1999 and 2007. Similarly, the years of late President Umar Musa Yar ‘Adua saw the return of the rule of law, transparency and decorum in the conduct of government businesses. Such an ethical revolution was quietly taking root in the sub conscious that most Nigerians were sure the courts of the land would do justice and such verdicts binding on government where necessary.  Under Yar’adua, lest we have forgotten so easily, justice was taken for granted.   

His decision to tackle electoral corruption which is the mother of all corruption was unprecedented in the history of the nation. His personal conduct as President brought transparency to the front burner. “In the absence of justice, what is a nation but an organised brigandage,” asked St. Augustine of Hippo. The same administration successfully brought the Niger Delta crisis that was almost snowballing into a full blown civil war, to an end without the federal government raising a gun.

Unfortunately, ill health did not allow him to consolidate these highly priced democratic examples. However, his demise did not vitiate his immense contributions to the country. His successor and the incumbent President. Goodluck Jonathan, has since picked up the challenge. His steadfastness to nail the coffin of electoral corruption has brought to the fore, patriotism which is very rare among many a leader. How many Nigerians in his position will appoint as the chief electoral umpire, a man he does not know and cannot easily influence?

How many Nigerians in his position will, without hesitation, sign into law, an Electoral Act which completely decapitated over a thousand automatic delegates accruable to an incumbent President who is headed for a presidential primary where his opponents are acclaimed with more tactical wherewithal? I do not wish to discuss the issue of infrastructures, most of which have a long gestation period, knowing that Nigerians are justly impatient over this. However, I know that President Jonathan is already walking the talk in this respect.   

 Therefore, those who credit the PDP with annui, who chorus ‘twelve locust years in a bumper farm’, are only expressing the vacuity of objective inclination. It is not yet Uhuru for sure, but it is such a falsehood to bandy a thesis of zero performance. It is tenuous proposition to assert that when an organisation achieves less than the maximum of set targets, it has achieved nothing. In other words, even the opposition will agree that because the PDP has not achieved everything in her manifesto in the space of twelve years, does not mean it has achieved nothing. There is a need to do a deeper assessment of the PDP.  The disingenuous claim of despair in the land, meant to justify they -are- celebrating-nothing, sniff only discolours critical essentials of objectivity that can ignite a wake –up call on a ruling party. Nothing portrays the hollow claims of such hues of opposition than its inability to suggest an alternative to the supposedly shortcomings of the PDP. You then wonder such a nihilist alternative where in the midst of subjectivity; the germane which every criticism will convey is lost. But it cannot in anyway be argued that the PDP has never gone down the demeaning chute in the last twelve years.  After all, it is the same party whose leaders opted for crude democratic dictatorship in the third term mantra. It is the same party that once jettisoned the visions of its founders by narrowing the democratic space, a fact that the new National Chairman of the party, Dr  Okwesilieze Nwodo, has severally admitted. The music today is that under weeks, Dr. Nwodo has re-charted the cause and the course of the party. There are better days ahead.

Ngige, a staff of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), lives in Abuja