To spell out the limits of any proposition, is not to give a dog a bad name, but a way of expanding future outcome of an enterprise. PDP emerged after the elections of 1999 with a huge, seemingly undeflatable balloon of national good will. Meanwhile, no sooner Nigerians settled down in the post-election years with the aim of savouring the PDP much talked about democracy dividends that the party started deflating the big balloon, the beautiful banquet, presented to it by the electorates until it is left of no content.
The party’s moral platform in government has been the anti-corruption crusade and yet it is where the failure is more disastrous. In this culture of graft that has been taken to an unprecedented level of threat, no institution or organ of government is immuned. Siphoning/tinkering the commonwealth is now in trillion, with PDP chieftains leading the leagues followed by the police force, PHCN and education striving to out stage them. These have dire consequences for our democratic process, internal security, infrastructural basis of the transformation agenda and of course future of generations yet unborn.
True, there is no more bombing of minority groups as it happened in Odi. Attitude of the State watching killings in Jos to get to a hit for Government to declare state of emergency has ceased to be. The guns are silent in Ife-Modakeke, Aguleri-Umuleri and the Niger Delta Amnesty has worked, at least, up till date. All these seem more of security threats change colour rather than any dependable progress.
PDP addition of the least imaginable chapter to this chequered history, paying trillions of naira to perpetrators of insecurity is absolutely a wrong signal to other splinter groups: genuinely disenchanted or loafers. The chief state actor unacceptable thesis is that arm uprising is an easy access route to the State’s lagesse under the auspices of PDP mis-governance. Years on, the eloquent absence of a clearly articulated security policy on Boko Haram has become a singular cause of loss of hope as regards the PDP government’s commitment to security of life and property in Nigeria. Who knows how much of these are a part of the largest party in Africa’s grand strategy for 2015!
If the party’s first inauguration speech in 1999 is anything to go by one will be convinced that the party knows what to do. Back then, Obasanjo and even in his subsequent references, the nation was convinced that the party has been aware that mainstreaming of intelligence gathering is internal security strategic constant, yet till date, this party of salad refuses to act accordingly.
The state of infrastructure under PDP successive governments are prostrate and an expression of record mismanagement of resources and opportunities. PHCN is the third most corrupt institution in the country. This, as a social fact is that electricity is not supplied to the households, cost of running small scales businesses gets prohibitive, the planned prospecting? of other sources of energy in the last twelve years have failed, takes Independent Power Project (IPP) for instance. FERMA is making some contributions but estimated N80 billion loss annually due to neglect of national road networks with additional N35 billion operational cost are criminal denial of resources to national development enterprise.
In the area of education, performances at all the levels are dismal, when corruption in terms of all manners of bribery and examination malpractice are added on to it the picture becomes scary. A CBN report shows that Nigerians loss of confidence in the educational sector enriches the Ghanaian economy with a whopping amount of N155 billion annually. This accrued as school fees from young Nigerians schooling there.
As a political party, what keeps this coat of many colour PDP on as an apparel is the belief of tribe of politicians desperate for power that unless you belong, you cannot win. Its instruments are rigging, perpetrating election related violence and disobeying courts rules among a few other antics in the name of political tactics. Other rude ways of PDP abuse of the psyche of Nigerians include candidate’s substitution regardless of the stage of an election process. Abuse of the constitution is flagrantly done by the party. An instance that remains the most amusing was the way INEC ignored the election petition of recall concerning Senator Ibrahim Nasir Mantu in December 2005. This petition was signed by 208,408 registered voters out of 388,833. The PDP did not see anything wrong with this, hence its desperate bid in 2007 election to rig him back to the National Assembly; then the 3rd term, in spite constitutional provision restriction.
What signal the end of the road for this uncivilized tradition are many; the most telling are lessons from election global best practices brought to individual groups and families by international election monitor/observation, conventional and social media etc. “Occupy Nigeria” remains green and indelible a code of resistance to unhelpful therefore unwanted tradition that has been given the chance to have a field day for this long.
The seeming absence of an alternative party that can take it head on and wrestle power from it is a sad comment on the struggles that culminate into the birth of the 4th Republic. Therefore, it has become imperative for all patriots to facilitate the coming to life of this phase of alliance (called Merger) between the ACN and CPC.
In the light of the foregoing, the chances are bright for the alliance. In addition to discrediting itself, is the fact that increasing numbers of the children of chieftains of the ruling party are rejecting them not as parents but as perpetrators of unacceptable values. The Governors of ACN-CPC are re-inventing the electorate’s beliefs in feasibility of good governance.
Meanwhile, the threats cannot also be dismissed with a light shake of a shoulder. The two most critical, first, any sign of ACN-CPC mismanaging the process is the one that spells the worse consequences. Attempts at alliance are as old as the country’s post-independence political history. To take power at independence, there was an alliance attempt between the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) and National Council for Nigeria Citizens (NCNC), to wrestle power from the NPC, Action Group (AG) attempted an alliance with NCNC. There was also NPC and UNDP alliance as NPC’s tool of retaining power in the centre and take over the then Western region. In the second Republic, UPN, NPP made efforts to dislodge the NPN at the federal level through alliance: United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA). The 4th Republic’s first election in 1999 threw up the alliance of All Peoples Party (APP) and Alliance for Democracy (AD). What resulted from these efforts as they ended up not actualising power were two. Virtually, each of these alliances’ collapse was traceable to the leaders of the dominant party or parties’ whimsical attempt to impose their candidature on the alliance. The process of alliance formation was underpinned by too much presumption and over confidence. Manners of media reportage need no exposure in terms of how it can make or mar the process and the future this incomparably promising nation.
Alliance, coalition or merger have saved nations from self-inflicted doom or suffocation of alternative voice. In the same vein, there were alliance attempts in history that raised hopes of citizens and subsequently smashed beautiful opportunities. Limited was our expectation in the Buhari-Atiku attempt in 2007, that of over-hyped 2011 Buhari-Tinubu initiative generated interest, the clincher is the current one. We much invest new energy and sacrifices for the common good. Please let’s not scuttle it.
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Ezenwa Nwagwu is the Executive Director of Operation Nigeria, a civil society organisation, based in Abuja.
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