Ayomide
I gave this page to Malam Abba Kyari last week, because he had a very important story to tell. Did you read his well-written piece titled PUBLIC ENLIGHTENMENT NOT MEGA PARTY? It is a very compelling read. Abba Kyarihas reminded us that some basic assumptions being made about Nigerian politics can be and are dead wrong. He argued that if politics will offer Ii-route
of salvation for the Nigerian people, then patriotic politicians must be prepared to dirty their hands, in a manner of speaking, by carrying out a patient work of enlightening, educating and mobilizing the Nigerian people to participate in their own liberation.
Besides, it is becoming clearer that the mega party idea as is being conceptualized will most likely be a clone of the PDP-BIG FOR NOTHING! If there is no ideological platform that mobilizes the Nigerian people especially along class lines, and with a national democratic project of reclaiming Nageena from the bandit capitalism which has taken us to despair and left the country on the verge of failure and collapse, then it will merely be more of the same.
It is also frightening to note that politicians like Ahmed Bola Tinubu in recent days have ratcheted up their advocacy of a LEGISLATED two-party system in Nigeria. It is amazing that those elements who describe themselves as ‘progressives’ will continuously hack back to the political engineering project of a military dictatorship! Tinubu and his fellow riders want Nigerians to be railroaded into a two party arrangement that will allow two contending cabals of thieves to alternate the fleecing of Nigeria and their template is the political party process of the Babangida regime. These gentlemen are not democrats really; but we must equally let them know that the right to an open, democratic political space was won by the Nigerian people and it cannot now be taken away by those hacking back to the NRC/SDP days!
Dr. Junaid Mohammed’s interview With THE GUARDIAN newspaper of last Tuesday, also offered very remarkable insights into the contradictions inherent in attempting to create a ‘mega party’ of strange bed fellows and led by frankly expired political Dinosaurs like Chief Anthony Enahoro, who made the transition from the nationalism of earlier years to the ridiculous platform of advocating Nigeria’s “restruturing” along ethnic lines! The nut and bolt of the mega party huffing and puffmg is that it has taken the dead-on-arrival trip to the morgue of Nigerian politics! Yes, Nigeria needs to build alternative politics, but it must be based on ideas of liberation. If those who are bunching up in a “mega” fashion want to continue business as usual, just like the PDP, then they miss the point about what the political imperative of the moment is Isa Yuguda’s switch from the ANPP to the PDP was the worst -kept political secret of recent politics. Of course, the Bauchi governor has the right to make his choice, but he probably forgot that the massive support he got from the
people was the rejection of the PDP way of doing things in 2007. But what was most fascinating was the content of his letter of resignation from the ANPP published by DAILY TRUST of April 14, 2009. That letter reflects everything wrong with Nigerian politics: its soulless lack of principles, the prebendalist proclivities and the pettiness! The issues were about the sharing of offices as loot of war; petty jealousies and rivalries and such vain assertions about “utter disrespect and disregard to my person:’
Yuguda’s letter allows us to see the inner workings of the Nigerian political system and why it carries the DNA of failure. The parties are merely vehicles for the sharing of the spoils of office while the Nigerian people are.far from the locus of -concern. Take the ANPP that Isa Yuguda dumped, for example; it is a party that is serially abused by agents of the PDP to ensure that it can never become a meaningful platform of alternative politics. For the roles they play, they earn a commission of jobs for themselves, as we saw with Sa’idu Kumo or for their children, as Edwin Ume Ezeoke arranged for his son.
Yugudas letter underlined the “party’s leadership inability to resolve conflict and ensure justice and equity among members” and is one of the reasons for the hemorrhaging of membership. The ANPP resembles a roofless bus stop on a very rainy night; whoever stays out there is soaked wet! Significantly, the PDP also held its much anticipated national convention on Monday. There was no earth-shaking development, since the decision to take away Obasanjo’s monopoly of the BOT chairmanship has long been in the works. Inthe end, Umaru Yar’adua took control and has positioned the vote-rigging contraption for 2011, despite his demand that party members should stop politicking.
The field willbe abandoned for more clandestine scheming’s, since it is in the smoke-filled recesses, that the party barons are most effective. The broth will cook, no matter what; how a politician will ask his colleagues to stop. Playing politics is one of the wonders of Yar’adua’s stewardship. But it is all a ruse anyway because 2011 is the only game in town! The PDP will of course not stop politics where the Ekiti State re-run is concerned, and that comes up this weekend. It is the mother of DO- OR-DIE elections for the PDp, with the distinct possibility of unraveling in the South-West.
They are desperate to “capture” Ekiti by ALLmeans. It is a very dicey situation even if they deploy soldiers as Speaker Dimeji Bankole threatened they would because they might jeopardize the nation’s political system. Ifthe PDP does not want to lose everything eventually, it is in their interest to allow INEC to conduct decent elections. I am rooting for Kayode Fayemi; I know he won the last time INEC and PDP rigged in Segun Oni, in May 2007, and will win against this weekend!
