The move by the Alhaji Baraje
group might be politically expedient for two main reason. First, it exposed the
deep seated failure of a collective group of people to properly associate and
forge a common front towards meeting the needs of the larger society. This sort of discontinuous disarray within
the Nigerian political space is not limited to the PDP and has given room for
intermittent interruption of true democratic process in most of the parties. There
is no amount of name calling and brinkmanship that can change the situation of
things with the political space as currently being operated – debilitatingly
poor internal democracy within. And secondly, it exposed to the entire world
the inability of the leaders to allow the rule of the game to prevail. Suffice
it to say that the documentations of the rules of political parties within Nigeria
might sound very elegant; it may even be among the best in the world. But
because of the deep-seated corruption in the country, the operation of such
papers are not practicable.
The failed efforts of those who
have been appointed to lead the reconciliation of the renegades with mainstream
partymen should not be befuddling owing to the situation Barack Obama described
as strongmen weak institution. If the institutions are driven by true intention
of providing enviable welfare for the people, I do not think that there should be
open desecration of the political ambience. The need to forge a common front to
fight poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease should be the primary focus of
the group. Economic data are not encouraging at the moment. The number young
people who are willing and able to work is about one-fourth of the nation’s
total population. This alone should be the most critical concern of those paid
by the people to help revamp an ailing economy.
My fear however is that we may
collectively fall again into the hands of the President in 2015. This is very likely
in view of the fact that Nigerians are extremely sentimental when it comes to taking
important political decision such as voting to elect new political office
holders. Past elections have not produced true democrats; rather, it has served
as a boon to legendary politicians with inimitable political legerdemain. With
water-tight cohesion with economists, politician usually get extolment after
abdicating owing to tenure expiration; and, are honoured for their ‘selfless’
service to the nation even when there is
not proportionate redemption of the economy when a metric-tape is used to gauge
the amount of money spent during a four-year-term and the physical
infrastructure on ground. Like in warfare,
just as it is in present day Nigeria, hunger is a potent weapon for the
political emancipation of the few smart ones – some see money as the election
winning wand. With as a sum of money as meager as two dollars, congenitally
poor Nigerians often commit crime against themselves. This is like committing
suicide by stealth. The idea of living for tomorrow is only possible in the minds
of those who can live beyond their immediate needs. The poor people in Nigeria are
pitiably weak-minded individuals who are tools in the hands of powerful
politicians. Some do not actually know what they want from the ruling class.
The president will certainly
contest in 2015 and his homing to victory is not in doubt. The import of this
argument is valid based on the electoral resources and the uniqueness of his
generation. Dr Jonathan belongs to the facebook, twitter, etc generation of
leaders with huge fan base on the internet. Nigeria being one of the fastest
GSM economy in the world. With over 35 million mobile phone users in the country,
Dr Jonathan will certainly not have problems reaching his audience. This is
good news for him but it also depends on whether his popularity with these
people is not waning. Most importantly, it is pertinent to mention that the
presidency in Nigerian federal system is an astonishingly powerful office. In
fact after the Almighty creator the president of the country is the next in
command. The president is either more senior to Satan the devil or he
intermittently share official responsibilities with him. Simply put, the
president is too powerful. He controls all the essential infrastructure in the
country. These hydra-headed issues do
not have practical solutions in Nigeria.
The true federalism and devolution
of power should be the primary concern of the newPDP if really their committed
to resolving the crisis facing the country. An understanding of the federal
government as the single most debilitating headache in Nigeria will set the
nPDP on the party of creating a nation. Genuine agitation like this one will
make them the heroes of our democracy and not by fighting an individual who is
simply deploying the richness of his powers to suppress any form of criticism
with the hope of keeping himself in office. The reason in my line of argument
is that even if Baraje and his group
succeeded in removing from the list of PDP aspirants in 2015 or say preventing
the president from contesting, they would still continue to tap into the federal stinking
arsenal with the hope of weakening dissenting voices. So the whole noise about
misrule, highhandedness and dictatorship will amount to phantasy. It would only
be seen as the sacrifisation of Jonathan for the resurrection of Sule Lamido or
Kawu Baraje. Nothing would have changed in essence. This is why discerning Nigerian
should help this group to re-designate their angle of attack towards addressing
the real issues that gave Dr Jonathan so much power.
In the meantime, we welcome the
implosion of the PDP and hope that the fight towards creating a better Nigeria
has started with the pioneering group of 7. If the people cannot stand up to
the maniacal and minutiae elites due to their insincere love for this troubled
country, or as result of their congenital obsession with religious catechism with
credo of happiness and other esoteric rewards deemed to come after life, then
the fight by the rich and powerful against the other rich from the other bloc
is a tipping point for psychopathic gangs to act. But caution must be exercised
in the struggle. As has been seen in
other climes where such has taken place,
some other entrenched interest could display the natural owners of the
struggle; some of this people might even been sympathetic to government or honed
by government to make nonsense of the genuine agitation of the people.
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