Don’t merge to submerge

Also published in Daily Trust 

The growing expectation in the emerging merger of some major opposition parties to transform into one robust opposition party strong enough to dislodge the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from Aso Rock villa in 2015 presidential election reminds me of the euphoria and the high public expectation that greeted the formation of the PDP itself in 1998, and its predictable win in the subsequent presidential election in 1999. This is because there are some similarities between the socio-economic and political circumstances prevailing towards the end of the protracted military rule especially towards the sudden death of the then Head of State, General Sani Abacha, and the potentially tense political atmosphere currently building up in the country due to the growing desperation for power among the country’s political elite.

Incidentally, many people regarded the sudden death of General Sani Abacha as a divine intervention designed to end the political tension in the country then, which had also been exacerbated by the General’s systematic political manoeuvre carefully designed to enable him shed his military khaki to become “elected” President of the federation. After all, all the then political parties which were likely to undermine his self-succession bid had already been disqualified and banned, while four of the five registered or rather anointed parties, which were by the way hitherto largely obscure had nominated the General as their sole presidential candidate, in an unprecedented and funny political arrangement, which I had personally never heard of anywhere in the world. That was especially considering the fact that, the General had not yet (at least officially) declared his intention to retire from the military and run for the presidency, even though virtually all government apparatus and resources had been mobilized to promote him as the only right man for the job.

Besides, what particularly made many people believe that the General’s sudden death was a divine intervention to resolve the country’s political impasse, was the fact that, just a couple of weeks before his sudden death, his-led military regime had organized a four-day national prayer session in Abuja to pray for unity in the country, where the invited clerics were reported to have prayed for the fall of whoever had a hand in the country’s political predicament then, which according to them was accepted by God the Almighty hence the General’s death and that of his main political opponent Chief MKO Abiola, who died exactly one month after him.

Those dramatic developments changed the country’s political course in an equally dramatic way, where General Abdusalam Abubakar who had succeeded General Abacha presided over a hurriedly arranged political transition that culminated in the rise of the PDP as ruling party, which it still maintains.

At that particular juncture and in view of the calibre of politicians who formed the party and who cut across different political ideologies, there was a high expectation from Nigerians that the country would begin its long overdue march towards a comprehensive and sustainable socio-political and economic reform.

Unfortunately however the severity of the subsequent circumstances under the protracted PDP-led administration has not only overshadowed what was obtained during the military dictatorship but has actually made Nigerians remember (with nostalgia) and indeed miss the socio-economic conditions under the military anyway.

Soon it appeared clearly that the public expectation in the PDP to dramatically turn things around was in the first place too high and/or simply misplaced hence the huge public disappointment that ensued. This however does not underestimate the party’s responsibility for the leadership failure in the country, instead it further underlines its lack of political will, incompetence or perhaps cluelessness to tackle the very challenges it inherited from the successive military regimes.

Anyway, now as a similar expectation gradually builds up with the emergence of the All Progressive Congress, APC, which is strategizing to defeat the PDP in 2015, it is quite imperative to focus on defeating the PDP as a political phenomenon instead of PDP as a party per se. This is because, going by the previous experience, defeating the PDP as a party would simply bring another set of equally corrupt and incompetent leaders to take their turn and perpetuate the status-quo under which thieve swap roles in looting the country’s resources and mismanaging the little they are “kind enough” to spare.

This note is particularly important considering the fact that, so many if not most of the top politicians at the vanguard of this emerging merger are either former convicts in scandalous corruption cases, disgraced thieves or frustrated politicians who have lost out in the dirty struggle for power hence their desperation to reclaim their lost relevance under any circumstances.

 This underlines the  need for the real progressives among the emerging APC to keep in mind that this merger per se is not an end instead it is a means to an end, which is to dramatically turn things around in the land. After all, Nigerians are sick of chasing illusionary hope promoted by rogue politicians simply to grab positions of influence and eventually betray and disappoint their people. Likewise they don’t want a situation where they would miss the PDP created mess either.

The value and potential of this emerging merger do not lie in its slogan, flag or even written manifesto; it is instead in the willingness, commitment and determination of its leaders to work hard towards transforming the country’s rotten leadership. This obviously entails playing by the rules strictly to ensure the emergence of the right candidates who have proven records of leadership competence and honesty in reality not on newspaper pages or the internet, to participate in general elections. After all, such right candidates aren’t hard to identify in the country’s largely messy leadership landscape. For instance, perhaps only an ethno-religious bigot or narrow-minded partisan would deny that, of all the current generation of top politicians in the country, Lagos state governor Babatunde Fashola remains the best presidential material to be fielded and promoted by the emerging APC as its presidential candidate in 2015 presidential election.