Now that the Party is dying

Our leaders are careless about how we feel. They have turned our misfortune into politics, our insecurity into economics and fear their comfort. It is safe to say that the worst that Nigeria has had since 1914 are the last few years that the PDP has held sway and critically worst are the last few […]

Our leaders are careless about how we feel. They have turned our misfortune into politics, our insecurity into economics and fear their comfort. It is safe to say that the worst that Nigeria has had since 1914 are the last few years that the PDP has held sway and critically worst are the last few days of Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency.
The game plan, right from the time of the coercion of the National Assembly into that illegality called ‘doctrine of necessity’ which literally pushed Umaru Yar’adua to his grave, to the appointment of Bamanga Tukur as the national chairman of the PDP and the recent imposition of Tony Anenih as the party’s Board of Trustees chair, the objective has been how to wrestle power from the Governors’ Forum and concentrate same in the hands of one man in the Villa.
As a student politics, one thing I have said time and again that what democracy simply means is the existence of centers of power. Concentration of powers in one or few hands is equal to either authoritarianism or totalitarianism. I see the presidency in cahoots with a few others desperately trying to cut the tails of the governors so that even councilors in a local government area would be determined from Abuja.
I don’t mind the contemporary misnomer which gives the governors the maximum powers to determine what happens in their states and have a say on what is going on at the center. That is federalism. That is a lesser evil than concentrating powers in the hands of a president who is uninformed about the basic geography and history of his immediate environment.
I think that the Goodluck Jonathan experience should henceforth guide the political process on effective leadership recruitment processes that would ensure the emergence of capable and people who are informed sufficiently about the history, geography and even topographies of Nigeria and its people.
Many Nigerians didn’t know that General Obasanjo was not the worst thing that happened to this country. We have a duty to our children and those yet unborn to liberate the political space so that all other items on the agenda could possibly be added on to it and thus pave way for good life and true nationalism.
What we have in Nigeria today is an expression of pity. That is why regardless of the manner the PDP was running the country, it remained intact. That is why today the leadership of the nation and that of the party is incapable of holding its fold together and this crack is widening so fast and it is very glaring. The president is killing the monster not because he desires to save the people against its horrors but for simple selfish reason of perpetuating in power even in the face of glaring national failures.
Almost everything is wrong with Nigeria: poverty, hunger, ignorance, diseases resulting in instability at the level of life. All these are the consequences of a gigantic failure. The death of the PDP will therefore be a great relief to the Nigerian people. At the moment, celebration is all over the place and the prayer is: may it not come out of this commotion in one piece?
We have said time without number that the pendulum of Nigeria hangs in the balance and if experience is anything to go by, the current characters in the PDP are incapable of getting us out of the woods. The situation isn’t getting better. The only option left is that the party dies and permanently too.
If the attempt by President Jonathan and his Chairman Bamanga Tukur to deceive the Party leaders as represented by the Governors and their chairmen and the colossal failure that such deceit was met, is anything to go by, the handwriting is very clear. I don’t know what Tony Anenih will tell these aggrieved governors.
To be patient until they are removed and dealt with? It will be a fatal mistake to agree to either President Jonathan or his fixer who has no doubt reached his crescendo and is on a fast decline. You can fool some people sometime, but can’t fool all the people all the time.
The PDP Governors especially must be warned against any deceit. It is better to have power revolve around 37 centers than just one. That is precisely what the president and his men are desperately wanting to force down the throat of Nigerians. That will be disastrous and a nail on both the party and the nation.
I think Nigerians have paid heavy price under this party and its regimes. Now that the battle for 2015 has begun, those who use religion and region in the negative are sharpening their swords. It will not work this time around. Nigerians have seen and tested the orgy of intolerance and it is now clear that the mode of worship is less important than the character of the worshippers.
A good and capable Christian is better than an ineffective Muslim in government and even in minute by minute life. Equally is the case with good Muslim doing better than an ineffective Christian in every facet of life. You are not coming again with this balderdash just because you are desperate for power.
God save this country from this incapable party and government.