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Mega
parties and the PDP - Reuben
Abati
THOROUGHLY
exasperated by the insufferable arrogance of the ruling
People's Democratic Party (PDP), a select group of opposition
politicians and civil society leaders are working on
a project to create a mega party: an alliance of opposition
parties which can wrestle power from the PDP in 2011,
and put an end to its menace. The ambition of the coalition
is in sync with the aspiration of many Nigerians. Ten
years after seizing majority status in Nigeria's political
space, the PDP has been unable to make much difference
in the people's lives.
In a few isolated states across
the country, there may have been intimations of progress,
depending on the personality
of the Governor in office at a particular time, but generally,
the pervasive impression is that the PDP is a non-performing
political party whose members and representatives have
failed to give full effect to the country's return to
civilian democracy. The more alarming part of it is that
the people are seemingly helpless. Every hope that the
party can be removed from power through the ballot box
has been thwarted at various turns, by a compromised
electoral machinery and a PDP-elite that boasts arrogantly
about its capacity to "fix anything". The only
thing they have not been able to fix is Nigeria's problems.
In those instances where the PDP
lost elections, the party did in part due to overwhelming
public objection,
or some say, due to the contrivance of a picture of credibility
and PDP-benevolence interpreted in the following thought: "it
is good to let the opposition take a few states or seats".
Much of the problem with contemporary Nigeria is thus
PDP-created, PDP-facilitated and PDP-imposed, all of
which is a reflection of the primitive nature of Nigerian
politics, the failure of the political party system and
the discounting of the Nigerian electorate. The feeling
that Nigeria is at the mercy of one political party takes
away from the country's democracy.
A grand defeat of the PDP at the centre and at other
levels is perhaps the only thing that can restore voter
confidence, and the belief that change is achievable
in real terms. Existing doubts have been promoted by
such declarations by the PDP Chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor
that the PDP will rule Nigeria for the next 60 years.
And the opportunistic manner in which leaders of other
political parties including Governors have been defecting
to the PDP, after having won elections on the platform
of other political parties. Add to this the fact that
the other 50-something political parties on the INEC
list are poorly organized entities without significant
spread. For this and other reasons, there is a real justification
for the kind of movement that is being proposed. A re-grouping
of progressive forces is probably what is required in
order to save Nigeria's democracy and give it a new direction.
But where are the progressives? Can they be found in
the National Political Summit Group (NPSG) - the body
that met in Lagos on Wednesday, April 8, with the sole
objective of ending PDP's continued majority status in
the 2011 elections?
Vincent Ogbulafor, the garrulous
Chairman of the party that advertises itself "as the biggest political
party in Africa" is unfazed. His sharp reaction
to the idea of a mega party in Nigerian politics is as
follows: "Surely they shall gather, but surely they
shall scatter. We know of the meeting of the proponents
of the so-called Mega-party. My reaction to it is that
surely, they shall gather, but surely they must scatter
because they are strange bedmates... let me tell you
that history will always prove us right. They shall gather
and scatter with the same speed of their gathering. The
reason for their gathering and scattering is simple.
They have no political relevance anymore and their individual
greed will make them scatter." It is easy to dismiss
Ogbulafor's statement casually as mere political rhetoric
but he may well be saying the truth, even if it does
not lie in his mouth to talk about individual greed or
political relevance. His statement is indirectly a comment
on Nigeria's political culture. As a beneficiary of the
politics of strange bedmates and as a manager of the
politics of gathering and scattering, Ogbulafor should
know.
This is not the first time that
attempts will be made in Nigerian politics by "progressives" in
different political parties, or groups to join forces
together
to achieve a common agenda. Such alliances - in the First
Republic, the Second Republic and even in more recent
times, almost always floundered due to personality differences,
intrigues and the inability to form a consensus around
an ideology that is inspired by a Nigerian agenda and
the common good. The mega-party proponents want the PDP
out of power, but what are they offering in its place?
They want to form a new mega-party. What is their ideology?
Nobody knows.
What is known is as Ogbulafor
puts it, the obvious fact that they are "strange bed-mates".
The proposed movement is chaired by Chief Anthony Enahoro,
but there
are reports that other stakeholders include Alhaji Bashir
Tofa of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC),
and Presidential candidate in the aborted 1993 elections,
Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Dr Frederick Fasheun, Chief Olu
Falae, Dubem Onyia, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, Chief Dapo Sarumi,
Alhaji Yerima Shettima...
The group is reportedly talking to Prof. Pat Utomi,
and members of the Progressive Peoples Alliance who are
said to be pulling out of the Government of National
Unity with the PDP. The names of Alhaji Abubakar Atiku
and General Muhammadu Buhari have also been mentioned
in connection with the proposed mega party. What can
a Chief Anthony Enahoro possibly discuss with Alh. Bashir
Tofa, who is said to be leading a faction of the divided
ANPP into the grand alliance? If Professor Pat Utomi
agrees to join the coalition, what ideas can he possibly
share with Bashir Tofa as a co-partner in the movement
to change Nigeria? And to ask a more pointed question:
who is the godfather behind this proposed mega-party
which seems to be bringing together cats, doves, hawks
and rats?
It is a fact that Nigerian politicians are opportunistic.
Political arrangements are rarely for altruism but self-interest.
Technically, the proposal in the White Paper on Electoral
Reform that only parties with 5 per cent of the votes
would be entitled to campaign funding from the state
should take care of the mischief represented by the existence
of so many unviable political parties which seem to be
structures set up solely for the purpose of rent-collection.
This will probably result in the structured creation
of two or three major political parties. But the emergence
of two or three major political parties is not even where
the problem lies. It is the cynical use of political
parties as vehicles of rank opportunism.
In the last month alone, two state Governors have defected
to the PDP, the ANPP Governor of Zamfara state Mahmuda
Shinkafi and the ANPP Governor of Bauchi state, Isa Yuguda.
The latter, long before the defection, had even taken
one of the President's daughters as his third, (or fourth?)
wife. Yuguda was originally in the PDP, then for the
purpose of the 2007 election, he defected to the ANPP,
now having been elected as ANPP Governor he is two years
later, returning to the PDP with the enhanced status
of being the President's son-in-law. If the weather changes
tomorrow, he could move on to the Action Congress and
back to the ANPP. This is the nature of Nigerian politics.
What is required beyond the righteous objection to the
PDP and its totalitarian tactics is a reinvention of
the political party system in Nigeria. The soul of politics,
even of society is tied to the character of the political
party system. In Britain, Germany, the United States
and elsewhere, politicians and even the voters do not
jump from one political party to the other as is done
around here; membership of a party is about a vision
of society, individual and collective, it is about preferences
and choices. In Nigerian politics, the stomach sadly,
rules. Unfortunately, it wasn't always so. In both the
First and Second Republics, we had in this same Nigeria,
political parties with strong, definite brand identities.
It was not so difficult to tell the difference between
the Northern Peoples Congress and the Action Group, or
between the NCNC and the Northern Elements Progressive
Union, Aminu Kano's People's Redemption Party, the National
Party of Nigeria (NPN) or Ibrahim Waziri's Great Nigeria
Peoples Party. In 2009, we are saddled with over 50 political
parties of uncertain colour and identity.
But it is possible to build a
new political party of progressives. Except that the
National Political Summit
Group or any such other group must not become a platform
for excluded politicians seeking a stronger platform
for relevance. Commitment, focus and vision are the values
that build political parties. It is the same values that
can sustain a movement for change and progress in Nigeria.
The PDP runs a well-oiled machinery for "scattering" any
alternative or progressive initiative. For more than
10 years, PDP politicians have "scattered" Nigerians.
Would they not also attempt to scatter the opposition?
And to scatter Nigerian politicians is ever so easy.
General Obasanjo did it to the Alliance for Democracy
(AD), and later to the APP, and the ANPP. When Ogbulafor
the PDP chief laughs at the idea of an anti-PDP, mega-party,
he should be taken seriously even more by members of
the NPSG. He could well have been saying in popular parlance: "I
know these people, they won't last".
Desirable as a strong alternative
to the PDP may be, the promoters of the idea must seek
early in the day
to gain the support and confidence, not of politicians
but of the Nigerian people who must be more interested
in seeing the PDP taught a lesson in humility. But people-ownership
can only be secured through a strong definition of vision
and ideology beyond a crass bid for power. The Nigerian
people have been disappointed so often by politicians,
they have seen so many gatherings of strange political
bedmates which later "scattered" (PDP, NPN,
etc), that they have since resolved that all politicians
are the same. Even now, apart from the Enahoro-led mega
party, there is said to be another mega-party being proposed
by other factions of the Action Congress and the ANPP,
involving former Lagos Governor, Bola Tinubu. What we
may well remember later is the fight of the mega parties.
This however does not negate the urgency of the change
that the people desire. Not change in terms of the replacement
of one set of predators with another, or a recycling
of the old brigade, but a different political culture,
a new momentum, and a value system where the votes count,
the electorate matter, and Nigeria is considered more
important than private and narrow ambitions. That is
the change we want. |
