PDP, This Course Is Ruinous

It is true that with last year’s registration of the mega opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) PDP is about to face its stiffest electoral challenge since this country returned to democratic rule in 1999. No one expected it to take the challenge lying down and not to strategise […]

It is true that with last year’s registration of the mega opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) PDP is about to face its stiffest electoral challenge since this country returned to democratic rule in 1999. No one expected it to take the challenge lying down and not to strategise to ensure it retains its dominant role in Nigerian politics. However, the course it has chosen must give all right thinking Nigerians cause for worry.
A course of action is unfolding before our very eyes that could ultimately ruin the democratic order and endanger Nigeria’s corporate existence, all because PDP and the President are determined to win an election. Aspects of this scorched earth policy include the removal by impeachment of as many APC governors as possible, destabilising more APC states by factionalising their State Houses of Assembly, using otherwise apolitical Federal agencies such as Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) for partisan politics, and using the security agencies and the anti-corruption agencies to achieve similar partisan political aims.
The most ignoble manifestation so far of this scorched earth policy was last week’s impeachment of Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako, a PDP man who defected to APC last year. Nyako had many faults, most of which he shared with most other state governors in this country irrespective of party affiliation. His Achilles’ heel was that PDP retained control of the State House of Assembly. It proceeded to misuse it exactly the same way that the ruling party of the Second Republic, NPN, misused its majority in the old Kaduna State House of Assembly to impeach PRP governor Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa. While the Nyako impeachment unfolded, all the signs were there that it was orchestrated in Abuja and heavily backed by Federal might.
Apart from Nyako, the only other APC governor whose state assembly is controlled by PDP is Nasarawa’s Umaru Tanko al-Makura. Within a day of Nyako’s impeachment, he too was served with an impeachment notice by the state assembly. That a spontaneous public protest followed the serving of this notice to the governor is a point totally ignored by the legislators who are allegedly representing the people. They would rather answer to puppeteers in Abuja who are jockeying for self-serving national power than accommodate the wishes of their own constituents.
Even while these are going on, PDP has orchestrated a nasty division in the Edo State House of Assembly in order to cripple the administration of Governor Adams Oshiomhole. For several weeks now, the assembly has been split into two factions and has been unable to hold normal sessions. Policemen have sealed up the assembly and the two factions hold meetings in different venues, a recipe for chaos.
The events in Edo are but a replica of long running events that took place in Rivers State last year. Under the direction of Minister of State for Education Nyesom Wike and with the active collaboration of then state Police Commissioner Joseph Mbu, five members of the Rivers State Assembly began what they hoped to be the impeachment of Governor Rotimi Amaechi. That there is no love lost between Amaechi, one of the five PDP governors that defected to APC and the presidency is public knowledge. Their quarrel ranged all the way from Rivers oil fields ceded to Bayelsa State to First Lady Patience Jonathan publicly upbraiding Amaechi for allegedly neglecting her native land to the ‘16 is greater than 19’ saga in the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF). Further attempts to impeach Amaechi using a tiny minority of legislators was only stymied when the National Assembly took over the state assembly’s powers.
Since last year, the Federal Government has also been using aviation agencies to fight political opponents. These included the grounding of Governor Amaechi’s plane as well as Governor Oshiomhole’s helicopter and the closing of Kano airport to prevent APC chieftains and others from paying homage to the new Emir of Kano, another foe of the presidency. In recent weeks this upsurd and dangerous course was carried a notch further with the closure of Maiduguri airport. Even though “security” concerns were cited, it soon became clear that the whole purpose of the closure is to punish the Borno State Government and curtail the movement of its officials, including Governor Kashim Shettima. As further evidence of malicious intent, soldiers were removed from guarding the Government House and from the governor’s entourage. This, in a state under emergency rule and which is the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency.
The final proof of the ill intent of the Maiduguri airport closure was that while a plane that came to airlift pilgrims to Jeddah for the Lesser Hajj was forced to take off without them, the airport was reopened twice last week to allow former governor Ali Modu Sheriff to land and to take off. Sheriff is an APC chieftain who has declared his intention to defect to PDP. That the Federal Government would open a closed airport to enable him pay a political visit to the state is doubly tragic and shameful because Boko Haram was incubated and nurtured during his years as governor of Borno State.
Taken together, these actions suggest that the Jonathan Presidency and PDP are ready to destroy the essence of democracy, bastardise non-partisan public agencies, throw decorum to the wind and infact jeopardise the country’s unity and integrity all in order to remain in power. This is a ruinous course. All previous Nigerian rulers that pursued similar self-serving courses of action to the detriment of national peace and harmony ultimately came to grief. Among them were NPN, the Babangida regime, the Abacha regime and the Obasanjo civilian regime. Those who have ears, listen.