by Collins Uma

I want to believe the APC will constitute a good government in 2015. I really want to. The signs however, are not pointing to that.

“…Obasanjo, Obasanjo, and Obasanjo”

Those were the words that woke me up that morning in 2003. I thought something was wrong in the country’s leadership again and as I woke up I wondered if there had been another overthrow of the government. Then I realised that was Chief Tom Ikimi’s deep voice announcing the results at the PDP primaries which had started the previous day and run throughout the night. I had just become very interested in Nigerian politics as I was preparing to vote for the first time ever.

Waking up to see Tom Ikimi on TV reminded me of five years before (1998) when he was the Foreign Minister in General Sani Abacha’s government and how he traversed the globe in his bid to convince the world why the ‘five fingers of a leprous hand’ – as the five registered political parties were called – were right in their decision to collectively nominate Gen Sani Abacha as their sole presidential candidate in the elections billed for that year. I was just a teenager but I knew it was a very wrong decision by the political parties – telling us that Abacha was the only man who the cap fits – and it annoyed me seeing Tom Ikimi address foreign press trying to sell that lie to them while insulting every other Nigerian’s intelligence in the process.

Fast forward to the present.

Tom Ikimi is a ‘progressive’, one of the leaders of the yet-to-be-registered All Progressive Congress (APC).

The Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2003 who superintended over that convention where PDP governors were bribed to vote Olusegun Obasanjo was a certain Audu Ogbeh. To get their votes, the governors were all endorsed for a 2nd term in office without having actually won any primaries. Ogbeh, in fact, apologised to the governors for ‘subjecting them to the rigours of the primaries’ stating that in other democracies the governors would not even bother contesting primaries as the declaration of their intention for the office was enough to get them automatic tickets. That was how James Ibori, Peter Odili, Jolly Nyame and co got the tickets for their second terms in office. That was how Obasanjo won the PDP primaries against Dr Alex Ekwueme and others, the result which Tom Ikimi announced. Audu Ogbeh’s chairmanship of the PDP between 2001 and 2005 set the stage for most of the drama called leadership we see today in Nigeria. It is believed that the PDP leadership has, for the past 14 years, only underdeveloped Nigeria, but, in all honesty, the template being followed by a majority of the current actors was designed and launched in the early days of the party and much of that political behaviour got crystalised during Audu Ogbeh’s tenure as Chairman of PDP. Today, Audu Ogbeh is a chieftain of the APC.

There are many others who form the nucleus of the APC who, like Ogbeh and Ikimi, have become transmogrified and there are others, still within the PDP, being wooed by these to just join the wagon. A mere cursory look into the past activities of some of these men we want to entrust our future to, in the name of dislodging the PDP hegemony, will reveal that they may be more interested in themselves than service to the Fatherland. Yes, people change and epiphanies are real but when the leaders of a party begin to act like Goodluck Jonathan is all the problem with Nigeria and just taking over the Presidency will bring us the much sought-after Nirvana then its time to question motives. As a result of this fixation on Aso Rock the huge corruption at the state and local government levels have been totally ignored. Mallam Nasir elRufai, a man I have great respect for, recently described the governor of PDP-led Kano State as a great leader. Mallam el-Rufai made statements, via his twitter handle, that imply that the paucity of leadership Nigeria is presently faced with is only at the federal level, which means that just voting Goodluck Jonathan out will solve Nigeria’s problem. With due respect, attitudes like this will not help the cause of the opposition. If PDP is the problem with Nigeria then let’s talk about removing PDP at every level and not just Aso Rock.

I want to believe the APC will constitute a good government in 2015. I really want to. The signs however, are not pointing to that. There is still time, no matter how small, to correct the anomalies in the opposition’s strategy for 2015. More attention should be given to candidates who will guarantee positive change in Nigeria, not just victory at the polls, for the good of all. Some analysts have looked at certain officials elected on the platform of the PDP but who are unsettled at the moment and their chances of cross-carpetting to the APC. Having Gov Kwankwaso, Gov Amaechi, Gov Wamakko, or Speaker Tambuwal move over to the APC might be a good thing as politics is a game of numbers but it does not absolve them of their complicity in PDP’s plundering of our commonwealth. PDP is not a separate entity from the men who constitute its rank and file. If it is corrupt it is because the politicians who make up the party are corrupt and corruption, which is usually worn like a toga, follows the corrupt wherever he goes. The name of a man’s party is not what makes him ‘progressive’. Besides, the APC can reach within its folds and get men and women who can perform as good as, if not better than, these men.

I see 2015 as the make it or break it year for Nigeria. Are we ready to serve our Fatherland?

PS: Have you registered with a political party yet? The time is now.

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Collins Uma tweets from @CollinsUma

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.