by Ekerete Udoh

Mr. Chairman, I am afraid if you don’t begin to weave a beautiful narrative on  a different governance model and reduce your personal attacks on the president, you may find out rather belatedly that Nigerians have already soured on your party and once they had defined you along certain lines, it would be extremely difficult to win them back.

Dear Chairman Akande,

Let me first start by congratulating you on the successful registration of your party-All Progressives Congress (APC) after some moments of doubt and chicanery. I am sure you and your fellow promoters must be feeling giddy and excited at the possibilities for change that you feel and believe exists for your party come 2015.

I have  however, followed your post registration pronouncements and I must say that you have hit the ground running on the wrong foot, as far as the messaging board is concerned, and that is why I have decided to send you this open memo. What I am doing here in  the open, is what political consultants would have done, for  a huge amounts of money, but as a deep believer in a two-party system, I felt I should do this free of charge.

My Chairman, as I stated above, I believe in a two-party system and have advocated and advanced that position on this page on numerous occasions. I believe that an ideologically distinct two-party system is the best vehicle to advance democracy, build its internal structure and deepened its culture. All over mature democracies, a two-party system has helped the electorate make informed choices as to which of the two platforms best advance and cater to their common needs, hopes and aspirations. The coming of APC, therefore, is a welcome development. But Mr. Chairman, I am concerned and worried that you and some of your colleagues may have already frittered away a huge percentage of the goodwill that your registration engendered in the first few weeks by the divisive, almost obtuse rhetoric that has emanated from you. You didn’t have to travel that path; you should have stayed above the fray of such inanities.

Even though your aides may not have told you the honest and unvarnished truth, let me tell you that you have disappointed millions of dispassionate, engaged and alternative solutions-seeking Nigerians with your messaging board. APC was founded on the belief that Nigerians needed an alternative platform to that which the PDP have run and governed with. Those Nigerians want a different approach to governance, new set of values and ideology founded on progressive ethos. They don’t want name calling, of vile and infantile posturing, of heating up the polity with divisive, ethnic-tinged rhetoric, they don’t wish to see a party that magnify our differences and deepen the chasm and cleavages that already exist within our polity. They don’t wish to see a leader of  a major party descend to the level of mud, calling or likening the president of the republic and the institution of the presidency to that of “a kindergarten” and saying he is not “a serious minded person” without showing us  “how serous minded” and ‘grown-up” your advertised alternative would look and feel.

Mr. Chairman, you will not win the hearts and minds of millions of independent minded Nigerians- those who are non-aligned politically but are desirous of seeing good governance take root with such seriously confounding rhetoric.  What Nigerians desire is a politics of ideas and not politics of personal attacks; what Nigerians need from APC is to draw distinctions and show how it is a viable alternative to PDP; its platform on key issues germane to our development-power, education, infrastructural upgrade,  the growth of economy, employment generation mechanism, how to use our power to achieve our national interests, a culture of transparency and the awakening of the innate abilities- that ‘can-do- spirit that defines the Nigerian essence.

Nigerians desire an opposition party that will rise above the fray of obtuse-mudslinging, where its leaders will prove that they are actually new kids on the block willing to buck conventional wisdom and do things differently. Mr. Chairman, if Nigerians were to judge you based on the above check boxes since your party was established, I would say you have failed miserably. You have to rein in some of your spokespersons, such as the former Minister of the Federal Capital Teritoty-Mallam El-Rufai, to tone down his divisive rhetoric. Those resorts to amplifying our differences and ethnicity represent bad political strategy that will not serve you well in the end.

What you party needs is to come out with a carefully constructed and internalized narrative- a narrative of change, of hope and opportunity and how such, would be achieved under an APC government. As we speak, Nigerians don’t know what you stand for; none of your spokespersons have advanced any reason why Nigerians should jettison the PDP for APC. If what you and your spokespersons have so far presented as  APC’s governing style, which based on statements so far made, appears to be founded on vindictiveness, hate and anger, then I posit that you will find the political waters in 2015 violently turbulent and you will need a lot of prayers to stabilize the ship.

Let me present a little analysis here of the American political process which I am very familiar with, and have been an active chronicler and follower for almost 17 years now. At the beginning of the millennium, the Republican Party was struggling to find its voice. The party had been riven by ideological inflexibility and its leaders had instead of providing the electorate an alternative vision of governance, rather devoted itself to the politics of personal destruction of President Bill Clinton. They had amplified a personal failing of Bill Clinton to a national and international embarrassment. The Monica Lewinsky scandal which led to Clinton’s impeachment was a politically manufactured crisis. The Republican Party reveled in politics of personal destruction as opposed to those of ideas.

Clinton was eventually impeached and soon, it came to pass that the very people who had mouthed moral arguments and purity were themselves enmeshed in various sexual shenanigans-Speaker Newt Gingrich was later forced to resign when it was revealed that he, after hounding and pillorying Bill Clinton over his sexual dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was himself involved in a romantic liaison with his secretary whom he later married. Congressman Bob Livingston, who was selected to succeed him as speaker and was one of the most vociferous opponents of Bill Clinton himself, himself, was involved in an adulterous affair. He was also forced to resign.

The American people were not amused, and averse to the brand of politics the Republicans were promoting, had rewarded bill Clinton‘s personal failing with the highest approval ratings post-Lewinsky’s scandal. The Republican Party in the lead-up to the 2000 presidential election had to recalibrate its message and reduced to the fringes those elements that practiced politics of personal destruction. The party came out with a narrative that appealed to millions of American founded on the principle of what they called “Compassionate Conservatism”. George W. Bush, ran on this narrative and convinced millions of independent American electorate to see the party as an alternative to the Democrats whose then Presidential candidate-Albert Gore had promised to bring back the era of big government that Bill Clinton had worked hard to make lean and effective.

George W. Bush, who at the beginning of the electioneering campaign did not stand a chance against Gore suddenly, was able to win the majority of the Electoral College votes (however dubious it may have seemed, especially in Florida where his brother Jeb, was the governor) and eventually became the president , however contentious his victory was!

The new message founded on Compassionate Conservatism lasted throughout the Bush administration until 2008 when a fringe group who demanded ideological purity- the Tea Party or the hard right took over the Republican Party and the party has never recovered its ideological moorings. The Tea-Party elements today dominate the Republican Party and their motto is ‘obstruct, obfuscate,  create legislative gridlock, attack and obstruct.’ Their messaging board is filled with vile and objectionable rhetoric. They have employed ethnicity, racism and outright hate to define the Obama presidency. They have alienated different voting blocs-the Hispanics, African Americans and other minorities groups, they have resorted to name-callings and instead of presenting an alternative to the Democratic Party platform, theirs has been to attack, name-call, and continue to manufacture crises upon crises. The net result of this approach has been the gradual defacing of the Republican brand so much so that today the party is going through crises of identity and Americans have soured on its divisiveness.

As a result, the Republican Party stands the risk of becoming a minority party for a long time to come, because politics of personal destruction is not a winning strategy. The 2016 Presidential primaries front-liners of the party today parade the best of its inflexible and ideological purity class: Senator Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and a coterie of other narrow and fringe elements of its lunatic right. Little wonder that prognosticators have already started seeing Senator Hilary Clinton- the all-but certain candidate to hoist the Democratic Party flag in 2016 as the president in -waiting.

Mr. Chairman, I am afraid if you don’t begin to weave a beautiful narrative on  a different governance model and reduce your personal attacks on the president, you may find out rather belatedly that Nigerians have already soured on your party and once they had defined you along certain lines, it would be extremely difficult to win them back. Mr. Chairman, Nigerians are getting increasingly politically sophisticated, and your conduct must recognize this new reality. You must recalibrate your messaging board and take the bull-horn from the merchants of hate and bigotry or your message would be lost in the din of ethnic-laden echo chamber.

The office of the presidency of Nigerian is larger than an individual; we should respect that institution no matter who occupies it. Using phrases like “kindergarten “or that the occupant is not a “serous –minded person” is a politically obtuse and idiotic strategy. Go out and tell Nigerians why you are a viable alternative and why they should invest their hopes in you instead of engaging in politics of personal attacks and name-calling.

Enjoy your weekend, Mr. Chairman

Best,

Ekerete Udoh

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