The Implosion of PDP and the Nation (I)

I am not in the nihilistic circle that borrows negative fortune-telling from some America star-gazers that put the termination of the life our country as a single entity to the year 2015—the year of the next general election. But before this looks as some kind of uncritical patriotism, let me say that the way the […]

I am not in the nihilistic circle that borrows negative fortune-telling from some America star-gazers that put the termination of the life our country as a single entity to the year 2015—the year of the next general election. But before this looks as some kind of uncritical patriotism, let me say that the way the political class in Nigeria is behaving, you do not need to be an uncanny interpreter nor an un-appointed legislator to know that the way the operators of our country’s governing elite carries on, the potential for ‘end of time’ of our country as a country is neither a fantasy nor the product of a nightmare. Indeed, the time is truly ‘out of joint’ (to borrow a memorable phrase from immortal Shakespeare) on Nigeria’s political landscape. The problem in Nigeria, unlike the one Prince Hamlet in the Shakespearean play with the eponymous title, Hamlet identified as his business to set right, is not claimed by anybody as a duty to set right. Nobody is about to accept the responsibility of reconstructing the country’s destiny.
Hence, we have a country in which the dominant and dominating political party creaks, right down the middle, at its own instance, and neither the organized opposition from without, nor the orchestrators of internal dissensions in the party, are willing to rise to the nation’s rescue. Put frontally. The People’s Democratic Party, which people have had cause to rechristen in uncharitable terms as ‘People Destroying People’ or Pin-di-Pi , according to Chief Bola Ige of immortal memories, is self-fragmenting. Known from inception as a party which has observed the tenets of democracy in defiance rather than in compliance, the ruling Party has never set great value at building internal democracy. It has boasted and gloated before the whole world that it is the largest party in Africa which will rule unchallenged and unchallengeable for six decades. To accomplish this, it will brook no opposition to its leadership structure in matters of (s)electing  its hierarchies, internally. It will adopt the principle of consensus in its Conventions where its leadership is named. It will cajole ‘rabble-rousers’ who dare to ruffle the process. It will not allow the opposition, which is weakened from the start by its own inability to cohere through the subjugation of personal drive and vaulting power lust to national interest, a fair, playing-level ground for competitive electioneering.  In the end, given the growth of the culture of impunity and a recurrent political complacency within it, the PDP festers and rots through power grab, rather than growing a democratic culture—even from within itself.
What is the end-product of a political situation in which the dominant party must dominate unbridled and unchallenged, and an opposition which fails to muster strength in a united form because of ego-tripping, self- masturbation among the leadership and therefore an incoherent opposition strategy? The elephants fight and the grass and forest suffer and is pulled down, inexorably. The latest of the story, which is erected from the beginning, is this. The election process leading to the emergence of the present government in 2011 prepared the ground that is the present political anomy. The opposition composed, in the main, by AC and CPC (led by Tinubu and Buhari irrespective f other leadership dissembling) gave the nation’s critical mass, and to a modest extent, the popular masses a good cause to cheer. A cheer that the political arrogance and nauseating cavalier of the ruling party is about to receive a major shove. A cheer that our democracy will begin a process of maturation, if a robust opposition emerges in the build- up to the General Elections of 2011. The appetizing anticipation was that, even if the tactical alliance, which we even expected to end up in the first real party merger in the country, would not result into the dislodgement of the supercilious ruling party, it will at least compel and jolt the dominant party back to consciousness such that it will begin to be responsible, accountable and humble. Unfortunately, that was not to be, no thanks to the vaulting power grab of the central figures and protagonists of the opposition.  At the end of the day, the opposition lost out through its own failure of fulfilment based on the elevation of personal ambition over the towering interest of the nation and its democratic aspirations.
The resultant outcome of that election was that as soon as the PDP got back to power, through, thanks to the valiant struggle of INEC, a fairly fair and credible election, the struggle for the next round of election, that is the 2015 election- commenced in earnest. There are many discernible minds who averred that our President, favoured by name and by the stars, never gave himself a chance, nor was he given a chance from the blast of the whistle, by all kinds of forces, to pay uninterrupted attention to his electioneering promise of winning public goods for the electorate which gave him massive triumph across the country. Both the ruling party, the geo-polities and the opposition started the hunt for power in May 2011 for May 2015. No one can persuade me that if the President and his party had allowed themselves  and had been allowed by the other competing forces for power space that will come five years hence, to face the challenges of governance, Nigeria would have been a better place to achieve;  the objectives of both the dying embers of the Seven-point Agenda and the new Transformation Agenda would have been largely achieved.   A section of the northern political elite wanted, right from the start, Jonathan to perish the thought of a second term, on the strength of an alleged Agreement he had signed not to stand election for a second term. The opposition party, nursing the bruises and wounds it sustained from the last election—festering wounds that were largely self-inflicted—began to build up unhidden strategies and tactics to create a ambiance of impossible governance for Jonathan and his party. Realizing the import of this trend, the South-South, with particular reference to the Ijaw, rose, with alarming ferocity to claim ownership of a President who they could not have contributed more than 15% of the votes that brought him to power and will spare no opportunity for cacophony to beat war drums to the ears of anyone who cared that the country will break r burn if their ‘son’ was not returned as President.
To worsen the matter, the internal squabbles from within the PDP itself began to fester from a bruise to a gangrene. Various interests began to emerge, leading to the present situation in which the bird has climbed the rope and neither the rope nor the bird is at ease.
(To be Continued)