When the Senior Special Assistant, Public
Affairs to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr Doyin Okupe, swore
that the All Progressives Congress would not last one year, many
Nigerians went after him in anger.
Maybe Okupe sowed some seeds that justify
what he got, but the medic turned politician saw something that most of
us did not pause to consider. In our anger, we condemned the message
because of the messenger.
Experienced politician that he is, having
been in the top echelons of a national party as far as 24 years back,
Okupe must have seen the congregation of politicians from every shade of
opinion and interest coming together in a hurry and concluded that at
some point, there would, without fail, be a conflict of interests, which
could precipitate a conflagration that the APC may be unable to weather
through.
Those
who were in a hurry to condemn Okupe must be having a rethink now.
Reports following the elections of leaders of the National Assembly
indicate that combatants in the APC are determined to snuff life out of
the in-house opponent without regard to what that may do to the party
and a country that is haemorrhaging.
Now, how that surprises anyone still
baffles me. If you understand that no idea, principle or person is
permanent in the contemplation of the average politician, you will not
be miffed to see men, who smiled at each other last night, draw the
daggers in the morning.
And this is not just about Nigeria. The
flip-flop of politicians in more advanced democracies seems a little
else obvious because while Nigeria adorns mortals in messianic garb,
institutions are stronger in those countries. Which is why, whether it
is a Barack Obama, a George Bush or a Bill Clinton, there are
institutions which deal with malfeasance and beat a leader into line.
Here, we rely on human beings to save us
from human beings. As a result, only a Muhammadu Buhari is believed to
be able to fight corruption, only an Attahiru Jega is able to organise
free and fair elections. Now that his tenure is over, we are at a loss
about sustaining the credibility that attended the 2015 elections.
Rather than build the Independent
National Electoral Commission into a reputable body where anyone can
function with limited opportunity for manipulations, we prefer to seek
another Jega or his clone. We would rather depend on strong individuals
than on strong institutions. But I digress.
Politicians do not have to be nice. They
are not clerics, bound by some ecclesiastic charter of charity to which
they are eternally committed to. If something suits the purpose of the
politician today, he is all for it but everything changes the moment
that fancy object outlives its purpose.
For instance, why did President Barack
Obama stand so solidly against gay marriage during his campaign in 2008
but made a total turnabout in 2012 with a recent claim that he “evolved”
on the issue?
Obama’s volte face is so absolute that
his administration held the passage of the anti-gay marriage bill
against Nigeria! That is the way of the politician, he is not even sure
of his own ways until some exigency presents itself. No matter what they
say, ambition drives all politicians. As someone once alluded, only
statesmen think about the future, politicians are too engrossed about
winning the next election and the game for 2019 has started in earnest.
The attempt to impose leaders on the
National Assembly and the move that blindsided those who were bent on
imposition is all politics and we must come to terms with the fact that
the political field does not have the sanctity of a religious place. In
any case, every Nigerian politician of clout is guilty of some measure
of imperialism or treachery in their areas of influence, so it would be
hard for anyone to cast a first stone.
This is why the current travails of the
APC which resulted from the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki and
Yakubu Dogara as the Senate President and Speaker, House of
Representatives, respectively, against the wishes of their party could
be fatal to the birthing of the change that Nigerians envisaged when
they voted for the APC at the last elections. And when that happens,
there would be no one to blame other than the party itself.
What I am saying is that only the APC is
able to help us move on from the feeling of uncertainty that has gripped
many Nigerians since the emergence of people, not sanctioned by the
party as leaders of the National Assembly.
Unfortunately, the APC does not seem be
in control of the situation. Although the Chairman of the party, Chief
John Odigie-Oyegun, indicated that the party had no choice but to accept
the elections of Saraki and Dogara, the fact that Tuesday’s first
caucus meeting of the APC senators nearly resulted in fisticuffs is an
indication that all is not yet well with the party.
Those who think they got bloodied by the
elections early this month are likely lurking in the corner looking for
an opportunity to take their pound. I smell that someone is cooking up
plans to serve those who carried the day the cold dish of revenge, some
banana peel of sorts.
This is where it gets scary. If anyone in
the APC, no matter whose interest they represent, strikes back at
Saraki and Dogara for any reason, the APC would be on its way to
fulfilling the doom predicted by Okupe. And any disaster on the APC will
tell negatively on Nigeria and may put paid to the promise of change
that they made. And there would be nobody to blame other than the APC
itself and its seeming unpreparedness to govern fairly.
Although there is a dearth of
statesmanship on the Nigerian political landscape currently, President
Buhari being the only one I see from where I stand, there is an
inexhaustible list of politicians in the APC who qualify to be in the
hall of statesmen, only if they would bury their personal ambitions and
consider the future of the country.
For instance, penultimate weekend, Saturday Punch
reported a subtle battle for the soul of the party between Alhaji
Abubakar Atiku and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Now, each of these men has
considerable following with which they can pull the plug at any time
and so, a prompt cessation of this silent war, which has not been
refuted by any of the parties, would be important to saving the party
and helping it deliver on its promises to Nigeria.
Before Atiku, Tinubu and their supporters
push the people off the bridge incurring democratic fatalities, they
need to imbibe lessons on the role of kingmakers from American
politician and Catholic influencer, James Farley, who orchestrated the
electoral success of politicians including Franklin D. Roosevelt without
causing dislocations in the American political system.
What we ask of these gladiators is that
if only for this one time in their career, they should put the interest
of Nigeria first. I worry that unless President Buhari gets the full
cooperation of his party, such that some far-reaching reforms can happen
in Nigeria within the next four years, the trouble that we thought were
over as a result of the peace that followed the 2015 elections will
revisit us.
They must consider the interest of
millions of Nigerians who have no food to eat, who die from common
ailments that most of the world does not talk about again, of hundreds
of thousands of entrepreneurs sweating under the harsh business
conditions in the country, of the power and energy crises and a myriad
of other problems that make life feel like hell for Nigerians.
- source: PUNCH
