APC’s own goal It will not be out of place to imagine that the newly registered All Progressives Congress (APC) has an exaggerated idea of its capacity and capability. The reckless abandon with which it is making a death dash bears eloquent testimony to this assertion. The party appears to act first and thinks later. This tendency must be responsible for its many recent missteps. The many wrong steps have, in themselves, manifested in the many war fronts that the party is saddled with. But as a combatant that hopes to go to the field of battle and return victorious, the party needs to tread cautiously. It must do this if it must avoid wilful suicide. It should also not assume too much lest it burns itself out too fast and become a cold, impotent ash. In recent weeks, the party has taken certain steps that tended to disappoint most of those who had sympathy for it and its cause. The most recent was its directive to its members in the National Assembly to frustrate all executive bills until normalcy is restored in Rivers State. The pronouncement, voiced out by Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party’s interim National Publicity Secretary, shocked many a listener. It had the ring of a thunderbolt from the outer space. It sounded strange; indeed bizarre. It was like an invitation to anarchy. It set many wondering: what could the APC be up to? There can be nothing patriotic about the pronouncement. It sounded inchoate and anarchic. The scenario it painted had all the trappings of confusion and stagnation. Others wondered why APC was engaged in such an illicit jump. Why would a political party which is yet to organise itself into a formidable group be chasing shadows? Why undertake such a needless out -of –stage concert? The pronouncement was, indeed, disquieting. The conclusion by many is that it was ill-conceived and ill-thought out. Lai Mohammed has said that those criticising the directive are ignorant of the workings of democracy. I consider this an idle statement. It may well be that the only people who understand the workings of democracy in Nigeria are members of the APC leadership. But this can hardly be the case. Maybe Mohammed was making an oblique reference to occasional situations in the United States Congress when either the Republicans or Democrats take a partisan stand that could force the hands of the Presidency into acting in certain prescribed ways. It rarely happens in the United States. But when it does it must be over a serious issue that borders on policy, not politics. If this is what APC sought to achieve, then it was misdirected. There is no compelling reason for the party to do what it has directed its National Assembly members to do. The directive becomes even more incongruous considering the fact that the party is yet to be tested by the Nigerian electorate. It is yet to stand for elections. In other words, it is yet to test its popularity. It is only when this is done that it can stand on a firm footing as a political party and join issues with the people and government of the day. Right now, the party is dressed in borrowed robes. It is yet to establish an identity that the people can point to. A rainbow coalition which is what APC is should not assume or presume anything. It is too early in the day to do so. While we expect APC to be wise, it is gratifying that its Senators have already shunned the directive by joining in the screening of Service Chiefs. The Senators obviously understand the danger inherent in the directive. To comply with it is to sound a death knell for our fledgling democracy. And I do not think that this is what APC wants. It is, indeed, too early in the day for the APC to slide into disrepute by creating wider chasms where it should be building bridges of understanding. The party, for instance, is using the Rivers crisis as a bait. It has become an instrument of blackmail in its hands. That is why it is making it appear as if without its intervention, the State would burn to ashes. This is a clear case of playing to the gallery. Riding on the wings of ephemeral populism is not the way to win the confidence of the people. As a party that believes that it has what it takes to take over leadership in Nigeria, the wise thing for APC to do is to be patient. It should work towards wresting power from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The next one year will provide the opportunity. Why not wait for that time rather than kill the same democracy it is dissipating so much energy on? Before this ill-advised directive, the APC had also mishandled the issue of the role the five governors who defected to its fold should play in their States. This state of affairs has unsettled the party in States like Sokoto, Kano and Adamawa.We can illustrate this with the Sokoto scenario. Here, the State Governor, Alhaji Aliyu Magartakada Wamakko, jumped over from PDP to meet the former Governor of the state, Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, who nursed and nurtured the party into a formidable platform. The set-up in Sokoto is particularly intriguing because Bafarawa and Wamakko have been at daggers drawn since 2007 when Wamakko took over from Bafarawa. The situation therefore required absolute circumspection on the part of the APC leadership. Surprisingly, this was not taken into consideration at all. The party simply issued a directive which handed over the leadership of the party in the State to Wamakko. In doing this, the party did not consult with Bafarawa. It did not bother about what the new set –up would mean to him. That was most impolitic. It was a slight on Bafarawa. The APC got it all wrong here. It created no room for give and take. It made no provision for reconciliation. It also did not bother about something called backlash. It simply ignored Bafarawa and all the others who built the party in the State. By so doing, the party practically asked them to dive into the nearest ocean if they did not like the new order.As a new political party that aspires to take over leadership in Nigeria, I had thought that the APC would be interested in closing ranks rather than widening existing cleavages. If the party were interested in building a community of men and women who would form a united front for the purpose of achieving a given objective, it would have striven to understand the differences between Bafarawa and Wamakko with a view to reaping from the benefits that would have accrued from reconciling both of them. A Bafarawa- Wamakko coalition in Sokoto State would have been a win-win situation for APC. But now, the party has decided to choose one and throw the other overboard. This is divide and rule at its most banal. But it is counter –productive in this instance because it is akin to scoring an own goal. Before now, the party was celebrating its harvest against the PDP. It decimated PDP ‘s camp by grabbing five of its governors. But the APC has not really converted this into advantage. It is even becoming a disadvantage in some of the States. Now, the party has lost Bafarawa in Sokoto State and Ibrahim Shekerau in Kano. The likes of Buba Marwa are up in arms against the APC leadership in Adamawa State. All this is happening because the party has not given some members of the legacy parties through which it came into being their due. The APC cannot engage in any meaningful membership drive if all it does is to dispense with its foundation members through acts of indiscretion. With the loss of Bafarawa and Shekarau in Sokoto and Kano States and their teeming supporters, the PDP which a few weeks ago was bleeding in these States is the happier for it. The PDP is fast neutralising APC ‘s onslaught owing to the latter’s errors of judgement. Paffcomm paffcomm IMPORTANT ANOUNCEMENT Paffcomm is not affiliated to any political party. All we do is to bring the two sides of the coin and allow you to decide. We publish peoples and Paffcomm members articles as it is sent to us. We pay or demand no money for an article sent us to publish. Anyone is free to send his or her article to info@paffcomm or press@paffcomm. Please, also notify us if you would like your name and email address to be published on your article. Thanks and God bless.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 09:01:33 +0000
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