Lest another ‘PDP’ evolve

Also published in Daily Trust

For the sake of clarity, I put the Peoples Democratic Party’s acronym in inverted commas to highlight the differences between the PDP as a political party theoretically defined by its official name and manifesto, on one hand, and the de facto ‘PDP’, which could be defined as a political attitude and practice characterized by sheer obsession with power and insistence on clinging to it by hook or by crook, on the other.

Basically, there is nothing wrong with the former i.e. the PDP in theory, however since the latter i.e. the de facto ‘PDP’ has actually overshadowed the theoretical PDP, I approach the issue that way to address it accordingly.

Now that the 2015 elections are mostly over and the widespread euphoria prompted by the dramatic fall of the hitherto seemingly unconquerable Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) continues to subside for the time being pending the inauguration of the incoming federal and most of the state governments when the euphoria definitely resumes, there are justifiable worries that, the persistent decline, and in some cases, the virtual eradication of the PDP and the unprecedented wave of defection from it to the victorious All Progressives Congress (APC) may, unless utmost care is taken, create yet another ‘PDP’ albeit  in disguise.

These worries can’t be dismissed after all in view of how the hitherto popular and largely progressive PDP has effectively turned into virtually an exclusive club of notoriously corrupt and power-obsessed elite and consequently gained the current apparently irredeemable notoriety.

While it remains to be seen if the few and marginalized progressive elements within the PDP will capitalize on the current situation to reclaim the party and lead it through reform processes, the APC leadership and the incoming Buhari-led administration in particular should learn lessons from the circumstances that led to the PDP’s dramatic fall lest the same fate befall them also.

This is especially considering the fact that, the APC, which is equally made up of different parties and individuals from several and even conflicting ideological backgrounds in politics and, of course, with various levels of moral and leadership qualities, does not seem to be ideologically cohesive and committed strongly enough to prevent a similar fate befalling it. This is even though the evolving political equation gives it a controlling influence over the federal government and the majority of state governments in the federation, which means the absence of an effective and potentially constructive political opposition.

Against this backdrop therefore, the APC, and in order to avert the PDP’s experience, needs to consolidate its democratic success and further institutionalize the culture of internal democracy within the party and, of course, live up to the understandably high expectations of the obviously hugely disappointed Nigerians especially the poor who constitute the overwhelming majority of  the country’s population. 

To facilitate the achievement of its mission, the incoming APC-led federal government can even consider forming an all-inclusive government by including some other politicians with provable moral integrity and professional competence, from other political parties including the PDP, for that matter.

Meanwhile, the public also has an important role to play to keep the APC and indeed the federal government on their toes. There should be intensified and concerted collective and individual transparency advocacy whereby all government dealings and policies are always subjected to painstaking and critical public scrutiny while all official processes of public service delivery and projects implementation mechanisms are made transparent enough for the public to easily and closely monitor.

This would inspire people to be largely objective in their scrutiny, which would also influence the nature of their criticisms and make them more constructive while government, in turn, becomes even more transparent and public oriented. Besides, the Freedom of Information law (FoI), which was enacted after much foot-dragging, is already in place, even though the outgoing government and its various agencies have not been cooperative enough to enable the public to access the information demanded. In fact, many government agencies have effectively turned down several individual and collective applications to access some official information.

Now that the incoming Buhari-led administration is expected to be different from the successive administrations over the decades in terms of adherence to the rule of law in the country and commitment to due process in government and other official dealings, Nigerians can confidently count on government’s commitment to transparency to always demand access to whatever official information they want to know from any government agency.

By the way, admittedly, I may sound too optimistic and naively idealistic in this regard considering the sheer complexity of the challenges in the country, yet I believe this is achievable anyway provided that Nigerians maintain the momentum of their demand for good governance and transparency advocacy, which has already begun to yield positive results. Nigerians simply can’t afford to create or allow another ‘PDP’ to evolve, for they may not be able to survive it again.