To spell out the limits of any proposition is not to give a dog a bad name, but a way of expanding the future outcome of an enterprise. PDP emerged after the elections of 1999 with a huge, seemingly undeflatable balloon of national goodwill. Meanwhile, no sooner had Nigerians settled down in the post-election years with the aim of savouring the PDP’s much-talked-about democracy dividends than the party started deflating the big balloon, the beautiful banquet presented to it by the electorate, until it is left with no content.
The party’s moral platform in government has been the anti-corruption crusade, yet it is where the failure is most disastrous. In this culture of graft that has been taken to an unprecedented level, no institution or organ of government is spared. Siphoning or tinkering with the commonwealth is now in trillions, with PDP chieftains leading the leagues followed by the Police Force, PHCN and Education striving to outstage them. These have dire consequences for our democratic process, internal security, infrastructural basis of the transformation agenda and, of course, the future of generations yet unborn.
True, there is no more bombing of minority groups as it happened in Odi during the Obasanjo era. The state’s penchant for watching killings in Jos to get to the sky before declaring a state of emergency has ceased to be. The guns are silent in Ife-Modakeke, Aguleri-Umuleri, and the Niger Delta amnesty has worked, at least, up till date. All these seem to be more of security threatschanging colour than any dependable progress.
PDP’s addition of the least imaginable chapter to this chequered history —? paying trillions of naira to perpetrators of insecurity? — is absolutely a wrong signal to other splinter groups: the genuinely disenchanted or loafers. The chief state actor’s unacceptable thesis is that armed uprising is an easy route to the state’s largesse under the auspices of PDP mis-governance. Years on, the eloquent absence of a clearly articulated security policy on Boko Haram has become a singular cause of loss of hope as regards the PDP government’s commitment to security of life and property in Nigeria. Who knows how much of these is a part of the largest party in Africa’s grand strategy for 2015!
If the party’s first inaugural speech in 1999 is anything to go by, one would be convinced that the party knows what to do. Back then, even in Obasanjo’s subsequent references, the nation was convinced that the party had been aware that mainstreaming of intelligence gathering was internal security strategic constant, yet, till date, this party of salad has refused to act accordingly.
The infrastructure under the PDP-led governments are prostrate and an expression of record mismanagement of resources and opportunities. PHCN is the third most corrupt institution in the country. The fact is that electricity is not supplied to households, the cost of running small-scale businesses gets prohibitive, and the planned prospecting for other sources of energy in the last 12 years has failed.Take the Independent Power Projects (IPPs),for instance. FERMA is making some contributions but an estimated N80 billion loss is recorded annually due to neglect of national road networks; additional N35 billion operational cost is a criminal denial of resources to national development enterprise.
In the area of Education, performances at all the levels are dismal. When corruption in terms of all manner of bribery and examination malpractice is added to it, the picture becomes scary. A CBN report shows that Nigerians’ loss of confidence in the Education sector enriches the Ghanaian economy with a whopping N155 billion annually. This accrues from school fees paid by young Nigerians schooling there.
What keeps this coat of many colours, the PDP, as an apparel is the belief of politicians desperate for power that, unless you belong, you cannot win. Its instruments are rigging, perpetrating election-related violence and disobeying court orders, among a few other antics, in the name of political tactics. Other rude ways of PDP abuse of the psyche of Nigerians include candidates’ substitution regardless of the stage of the election process.
Abuse of the constitution is flagrantly done by the party. An instance that remains the most amusing was the way INEC ignored the election petition of recall concerning Senator Ibrahim Nasir Mantu in December 2005. This petition was signed by 208,408 registered voters out of 388,833. The PDP did not see anything wrong with this, hence its desperate bid in the 2007 election to rig him back to the National Assembly.
What signal the end of the road for this uncivilized tradition are many: the most telling are lessons from global best practices brought to individual groups and families by international election monitors/observers, conventional and social media etc. The seeming absence of an alternative party that can take the PDP head-on and wrestle power from it is a sad commentary on the struggles that culminated into the birth of the Fourth Republic. Therefore, it has become imperative for all patriots to facilitate the coming to life of this phase of alliance (called merger) between the ACN and CPC.
In the light of the foregoing, the chances are bright for the alliance. In addition to discrediting itself is the fact that increasing numbers of the children of chieftains of the ruling party are rejecting them not as parents but as perpetrators of unacceptable values. The governors of ACN-CPC are re-inventing the electorate’s beliefs in feasibility of good governance. Meanwhile, the threats cannot also be dismissed with a light shake of the shoulder. Any sign of ACN-CPC mismanaging the process will spell unpalatable consequences.
Alliance,? coalition or merger has saved nations from self-inflicted doom or suffocation of alternative voice. In the same vein, there were alliance attempts in history that raised the hopes of citizens and subsequently smashed beautiful opportunities. Limited was our expectation in the Buhari-Atiku attempt in 2007; that of over-hyped 2011 Buhari-Tinubu initiative generated interest; the clincher is the current one. We must invest new energy and sacrifices for the common good.Let’s not scuttle it.
—Bako sent in this piece from Abuja
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