DEMOCRACY appears to be on the reverse gear with the current happenings in the country. The desperation of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to remain in power by hook and crook is becoming more and more manifest daily.
With the appointment of a Board of Trustees Chairman through a flawed process and a man who is known not to have respect for democratic norms and rule of law emerging leaves observers wondering if the nation will not retrogress by more than 50 years if this present crop of elites in the PDP are allowed to continue to misdirect the affairs of this country beyond 2015.
The seeming controversy surrounding the registration of a political amalgam that is out to wrest power from the spineless PDP has further exposed the treachery and perfidy in the ruling party which establishes political parties every day to cause confusion in the polity. Obviously afraid of the robust blend the opposition parties have assumed when the All Progressive Congress, APC, was launched, from the merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP and All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, the PDP hawks went to their drawing board to plot what sort of spanner could be thrown into the works to prevent an obvious defeat come 2015. They eventually settled for a childish plot of rushing to establish more APCs.
A few days ago, the African Peoples Congress, APC, unveiled its controversial logo, acronym and emblem even when the shameless promoters know that the All Progressives Congress have settled for that name. As if the controversy was not enough, the ruling party sponsored yet another group, the All Patriotic Citizens. Those behind this dastardly exercise in the ruling party know that their game is up so they are ready to hang on to any available straw.
The African Peoples Congress, which has Chief Onyinye M. Ikeagwuonu, as its protem national chairman, when he speaks, you think he speaks for himself and the unknown group, just as one unknown Mr. Oliver Ike will speak as if he has a political agenda for Nigerians. For instance , some members of the so-called African Peoples Congress rose from a hurried meeting accusing the ruling PDP of setting aside huge sums of tax payers monies with the sole aim of ensuring that their political association did not see the light of the day.
But these voices put together are the voice of Jacob, but Nigerians can feel the hands of Esau. They come out and cunningly insult the PDP and its leadership, so that Nigerians could mistake the PDP decoy for reality. The PDP must understand that these old tricks would not stand the test of time.
Prior to the consummation of the merger, observers as well as some active players on the Nigerian political turf, mouthed that it would, like the previous ones, end in a stalemate. This, they explained was because it is the coming together of strange bedfellows whose principles and political ambitions would not agree. But it later turned out that the personalities in the merger talk were unswerving to proving the doubting Thomases wrong.
Everyone knows that the All Progressives Congress was the first to intimate the Nigerian populace and approached INEC since February 16, 2013 in writing of its resolve to use the acronym APC. This makes the APC exclusive intellectual property of the progressives.
Unarguably, all legal and constitutional processes required to formalise the decision by the CPC, ACN, the ANPP, to merge and register in the name of APC with INEC had been in progress since it was announced on February 16, 2013.
Interestingly, prior to the adoption of the name, the amalgamation of political parties carried out a careful search of the existing names of all political parties and extant registration in Nigeria and found out that none had the name All progressives Congress nor the acronym APC, hence the resolve to settle for the name that was unveiled to Nigerians. Two days later, the PDP came up with their own versions to cause unnecessary confusion to overheat a polity it was supposed to be maintaining at least, room temperature.
Clearly, the PDP is afraid of the merger and it is doing everything, using state resources to truncate the wishes of the powerful groups. But no gathering of any armoury can stop an idea whose time has come. The PDP will continue to flee from its shadows from now till 2015 when they would be swept away from power for apparent reasons.
First, it is noteworthy Nigerians had never taken interest in the coming together of opposition parties in their bid to square up with the government at the centre, which they claimed, has reduced their citizenship to vagabond status. Nigerians are apprehensive that basic needs of life such as health, education, water, electricity, food and other things are out of the common man’s reach. While government officials and rich individuals go about buying private jets for themselves, send their children and wards to expensive schools overseas, seek foreign medical attention, supply their own water at home, provide their electricity and eat balanced meals, the poor study in schools under trees , have no roads to their communities, no health facilities or use ill-equipped and poorly staffed medical centres.
Secondly and more disturbing is the fact that the country is immersed in official corruption and insecurity of unimaginable magnitude while the PDP is busy giving presidential pardon to high profile corrupt persons and ex-convicts. Who then can be prosecuted for corruption? Only the opposition parties, of course. Can the President Goodluck Jonathan administration have the moral right to prosecute anybody in court in Nigeria for corruption today? The answer is an emphatic no. Anybody being prosecuted of corruption by the Jonathan administration is just being persecuted by government because it is morally debased to combat graft.
The Southern part of Nigeria and some volatile parts of the North is a haven for kidnapping, where even royals, celebrities, academics, sports heroes and heroines and even the poor public are afraid for their lives and the lives of their loved ones as they go about their lawful businesses. In the North, the insurgency of Boko Haram and menace of unknown gunmen make an average citizen feel very insecure. The PDP security chiefs have a ready cliché that they are on top of the situation. The more they claim to be on top of the situation, the more insecurity grows worse. Who then is fooling who?
Culled from Vanguard
No comments:
Post a Comment