Since the triumph
of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last presidential and national
assembly election, there is a shift in the political party power equation in
Nigeria: the hitherto opposition; APC, has become the governing party (in the
tongue of the president-elect), while People Democratic Party (PDP) is now in
the opposition.
The whirlwind of
change, the slogan of APC, and the cult-like personality of the
president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, have been catalytic to the winning of many
APC contestants, some, as pundits will want us to believe, did not naturally possess
the political muscle to merit the winning, but went into victory as a result of
the Buhari phenomenon. This development, as presumed, if not halted, will
result in APC welding too much strength while opposition dissolves into the
thin air. On this exclusive basis, there is a push from certain commentators
that selected PDP Governors must be supported, arguably on their ‘merits’, and
by extension to serve as vibrant opposition to the to-be-formed central
government of APC. As beautiful as this campaign would have been, the
theoretical crisis is over-bloating the credentials of these PDP aspirants,
just on the pedestrian argument that we need to dilute APC strength, and not on
a comparative assessment against the APC candidate. This is the flawed
democratic lessons that campaigners of Jimi Agbaje, for example, are teaching.
Let us be clear:
Our democracy will not mature if there is no vibrant and proportionally strong
opposition. This, as Ashley observed in "Getting India Back On Track,"
is one of the triadic poles of masses-oriented democratic setting. Many of us
joined the APC vehicle because of this understanding, and we are glad that this
nation has finally taken the path of deepening her democracy. So, I agree that
the only precautionary move of preventing APC (a perceived progressive party)
from turning to PDP (a perceived monstrous party) is to be confronted by virile
opposition.
What I however
disagree with is that PDP must be the said opposition –a party with
intimidating record of ruthlessness, anti-masses posturing, and battered public
image. This would be the worst time to lose Lagos to
PDP. This would not be a good choice for Lagosians. This is the PDP that had
been stunting Lagos' infrastructural development because of political difference.
The stalemate of many Lagos developmental projects like the re-construction of
Murtala Muhammad International Airport (MMIA) road, the light rail project,
among others that needed federal consent, is as a result of anti-masses
politics of PDP. It is therefore ridiculous, to be mild, to be campaigning for
Lagos power shift to that same party that is responsible for its limited
developmental growth. Allowing PDP to take hold of Lagos is like
building a house with one hand, and dismantling it with the other.
At
its broader dissect, PDP, as presently configured, lacks both the intellectual
and moral ground to be the needed opposition to APC. It is a party of moral
baggage. Its sixteen years of holding the federal might with no commensurable
achievement will continue to make mockery of its future criticism. There is a
ready-made response: “What is your record?”
There
is however room for re-branding. Perhaps, if the Okupes, the FFKs, the gutter
fighters in its ranks, are expunged from its public relations’
responsibilities, if cerebral and decent critics are allowed to hold sway, and
possibly change of name, this PDP might not go into oblivion. This is where those teachers of flawed
lessons, demanding PDP presence as the only viable and needed opposition,
should walk the talk by joining the ranks of the party; they may pour some
sanity to the fold of the party –if they are accommodated.
And
if I am asked: ‘where will the opposition evolves?’, I would say: Let the
fence sitters, the adhoc change campaigners, the advocate of third force, the
small but progressive political parties merge to give APC the needed virile
opposition. The surviving sane minds in PDP can join this needed new breed. The
civil societies, human rights organizations, public affair analysts and
commentators should also move back to their trenches to start probing Buhari's
government and keeping a watch on its activities.
