Too Early In The Day
I think it is natural for me to think about Nigeria quite often. I think about its many great sons and daughters who have sought to make the country and its people live the better life. I also think about those opportunists who get into politics to grab public offices because they see them as lucrative gold mines.
One of those leaders who aspired to make Nigeria a better place for his countrymen and women, and who often crosses my mind, is the late Chief Moshood Abiola. Abiola was a good man by any stretch of the imagination. But his life ended in tragedy.
A lot of things can happen in politics. That is why genuine career politicians should always aspire to learn from the political past of their nation. Not the rogue politicians. Such politicians, like rogue countries, never learn anything from history. They keep making the same mistakes over and over. And they never learn.
Abiola loved life. He loved to help the poor and to give scholarships to the sons and daughters of many poor families to enable them become educated and more useful to their country. Abiola was an intellectual who made a first class in Accountancy from Glasgow University in the United Kingdom and received a distinction from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. He was one among the few leaders Nigerians trusted to give them effective leadership.
But like I said earlier, in politics, many things can happen. There are those less endowed politicians who, for instance, would normally hide behind the prominent ones. They make themselves regarded as friends of the progressives. But they are wily, self opinioned and only associate with greater minds because of what they can get from them, not for the love of them or their aspirations. They represent the dog in the adage of my people: “the local dog says he loves to follow the pot-bellied rich man because it knows that it is either he will stool or he will vomit”. That means that whether the pot-bellied rich man stools or vomits, the local dog is sure of its food.
Had Abiola been more discreet with his desire to become the President of Nigeria after the elections on 12 June 1993 in which he won by a landslide, and had those “friends” not cajoled him into taking prolonged panic measures about an election everyone knew he won, believe you me, Abiola would have been alive today, enjoying his money and his family.
Had those political “dogs” not continued to egg him on to assert himself as the President of Nigeria even in the face of massive odds, it would possibly have occurred to him to ask for a re-run of the Presidential election, knowing full well that if it was the wish of Nigerians that he lead them (which it was) he would win the election over and over, no matter how many times it was conducted.
But those who must plod others on to risky situations, so that if they succeed they succeed with them, and if they fail, they fail alone, were at him. They kept plodding him on, asking him to “demand for your mandate. It is your right” – until they pushed him to his death. That is what happened in Nigerian politics not too long ago. History you would say. But what lessons have Nigerian politicians learnt from the life and times of Moshood Abiola?
About this time last month, APC spokesman and National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, told the nation that the APC understands and appreciates the concerns of Nigerians as far as the perceived pace of the administration is concerned. The party appreciates that Nigerians repose so much confidence in it and in the government, to act quickly to stamp out insecurity, tackle corruption, revive the moribund economy, provide jobs and generally restore hope. The party knows that the high and urgent expectations of the people can only be just, and he assured that the Buhari administration has started addressing them, despite the enormous challenges it faces which include an empty treasury and an economy that has virtually collapsed.
Mohammed says that despite the laudable achievements of the Buhari Administration within the past few weeks of its coming into being, Nigerians are right to demand even a faster pace. Nigerians are right to ask that a government be quickly put in place. Nigerians are right to demand that looters be exposed and brought to justice. “Nigeria is long suffering, and cannot wait any longer for paradigm shifts in the way things are done. Nigerians are right and justified in their expectations. All that APC asks for is a little more patience, a little more understanding and continuous support for the Buhari Administration” Mohammed said.
It is all good and well. Good talk. Good planning. But if one may ask: what is happening in the National Assembly today? Can this leadership tussle be traced to or have any bearing with the ideologies of the various parties which formed the merger in the first place? Those fighting for supremacy in the National Assembly, what party did they come from into the APC? Perhaps the answers to these questions will give a clue to the forces that are behind the inability of the contending forces to give peace a chance by coming to a consensus.
Lai Mohammed and President Buhari would be the best men to intervene in this leadership problem in the National Assembly. They must settle it, even if it means nullifying the current elections (both the real one and the one with forged documents) to conduct a fresh election.
It will be fatal to its image and ability to deliver if APC members forget so soon how far they came to form the party?
Just in case they have forgotten: the All Peoples’ Congress (APC) which formed the current government in Nigeria was formed in February 2013. For 16 years, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, ruled the country, boasting it would continue to dominate the nation’s political domain for the next half a century. It was no empty boast. The PDP saw all the other contesting parties as mushroom parties which did not have the sheer numerical strength to conveniently fight a political battle against it.
All the other parties felt the bitter truth at the time. And it gave their leaders sleepless nights. So, somewhere along the line, former governor of Lagos state, Alhaji Ahmed Tinubu summoned a meeting of all the other interested parties and suggested an alliance of all the opposition parties. They saw it as the only way to give the PDP a real battle at the polls which were due in two years.
As a result of that initial meeting and subsequent ones, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, the All Nigeria Peoples’ Party, ANPP and a faction of the All Peoples’ Grand Alliance, APGA, merged into a mega APC which later won the incumbent PDP at the polls. The resolution to form a merging mega party to be called the APC was signed by Chief Tom Ikimi who represented the ACN, Garba Sadi who represented the CPC, ex-governor of Kano state, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau who represented the ANPP and Senator Annie Okonkwo who represented the APGA.
On 31 July, the National Electoral Commission, INEC, gave approval of legitimacy to APC as a fully registered and recognised political party in Nigeria. It withdrew the previous operating licenses of three of the merging parties (the ACN, CPC and ANPP), but not without distractions.
It had been reported in March 2013 that two other political associations – African Peoples’ Congress and All Patriotic Citizens had also applied for INEC registration, adopting APC as their acronym. That development clashed with the intentions of the APC. It was seen as a move to dampen the spirit behind a successful coalition of the opposition parties, ahead of the 2015 general elections.
In April 2013 the APC considered changing its name to the All Progressive Congress of Nigeria (APCN) to avoid conflicting with other aspiring parties.
The final emergence of the APC became an assurance to many Nigerians that at-last there could be an alternative to the PDP which they were beginning to believe would lead the country into a one-party system of government. The PDP showed understanding by congratulating the APC on its registration as a political party but it was also quick to assume that the APC was not going to be a threat to its electoral opportunism. But on 25 November, five serving PDP governors and 49 legislators announced their decision to join the APC. It was a major blow to the PDP as the defectors went to swell the rank of APC legislators in the National Assembly. But all that is now history, I suppose.
In politics, a lot of things can happen. But what is happening now is that Nigerians are looking up to Lai Mohammed and President Buhari to settle the leadership of the National Assembly without further delay. They must study the situation and know if the political “dogs” are at it again. If any contender is confident he is the chosen one, his mates will choose him again and again, even if the elections were held twenty times.
The Nigerian Anthem talks about Nigeria as Fatherland. It does not call it Motherland. What is happening in the National Assembly portrays the country as motherland, not fatherland. Men must not fight over petty matters like leadership of the National Assembly. If they do, the impression everyone has is that they go there for their own self-aggrandisement, not to serve the interest of those whose mandate they have to represent them. Such a signal will not do the image of the party any good towards future elections.
So, can Lai Mohammed please have a private discussion with the President and the pair of leadership contenders in the National Assembly to determine if one of them should step down or if a new election would be arranged with journalists and perhaps selected international journalists like BBC, AP etc in attendance to ensure it is fair and free? It is indeed too early in the day for APC to begin the sort of selfish controversy which finally destroyed the PDP. It is too early in the day.