Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) eventually registered the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the latest political party in the country.
Ordinarily, there could not be any surprise at the development. But relief, if not surprise, there was because like everything Nigerian, there was a last minute alarm on the doubtful prospects of the new party being registered.
And for what reason? That another new group, bidding to be registered as a political party also adopted a similar acronym like the APC. It was, therefore, a great relief that good sense prevailed because INEC would have generated unnecessary political row.
Speculations towards that end in the media must have been more of kite flying. Even if it was true that another party, bidding for registration had identical acronym, APC, justice and impartiality, INEC's only tenable reputation, demanded that the first APC to have its fate determined by INEC should be registered while any latecomer (as a political party seeking registration) should be so directed by INEC to seek a new name. In any case, like law courts, INEC should not be a sort of Father Christmas, dishing out unsolicited help.
On the other hand, perhaps, the newly registered APC needed such last minute jitters to make the party appreciate what merit and hard work earned its registration. The timing of the emergence of All Progressives Congress is either lucky or demanding on both, when the rampaging Peoples Democratic Party is in virtual disarray at state and national levels.
Much is, therefore, expected by Nigerians and foreign observers from the APC with its offer of a better Nigeria in various ramifications in governance, stability and conduct of public office holders.
The APC is, therefore, entering the theatre of Nigerian politics with a lot of cheap goodwill to tap. Instead of regarding future prospects as an easy task, the All Progressives Congress must, therefore, see the couple of years, leading to the 2015 elections as a challenge.
For the past fourteen years, there had been frustration among the general membership of the existing political parties – the ACN, the PDP, the CPC, the ANPP and the APGA. Among the lot, the ruling PDP at federal level with thousands of public appointment and juicy contracts to dangle, is only escaping potential bust, especially lately.
The only bond is the looting of public funds. All the root of this crime is lack of democracy in Nigeria but even within the political parties but the bitter truth is that on the latter score, the rival parties, especially the newly merged ones, forming APC, did not fare better.
What emerged thereby was the disturbing and uncomfortable reality that there is more to democracy than civilians in power. Democracy must just be proclaimed in radio and television broadcasts to exist in a country. Democracy must be practised, felt and jealously protected by the people with whatever means.
What democracy allows an incumbent – president, state governor or member of legislative assembly – to assume the arrogant posture of a public office as personal or family property for which no other person, even within the same political party, must challenge? What democracy allows successive tenure as a right? Such tenure in a genuine democracy is earned.
What democracy allows the incumbent to clobber a potential challenger? Which genuine democracy does not allow public demonstrations or protests? Which democracy allows a favoured group demonstrate/protest while another group within the same state is banned from protesting or demonstrating? What democracy allows the existence of a politically partisan federal police? In any controversy, there is bound to be more than one side of an argument.
If, therefore, one side to a dispute is protected, guided and guarded by the police to vent their anger, why not the other side? Also, what is democracy if members of a political party cannot freely choose their candidates for elections to local councils, state and federal legislative assemblies?
The fused component parties (in APC) were also not free from these political maladies. That, therefore, is the challenge, facing the APC.
Uprooting a ruling political party is the tenet of democracy. But with bitter experiences so far in Nigeria, the APC must be prepared, as a challenge, to give public commitment to make and allow democracy to work in Nigeria.
The APC will thereby be offering Nigerians something new in place of the same old saga. As part of the old brigade, both the dissolved Action Congress of Nigeria and the Congress for Progressive Change exposed themselves to counter charges (by the PDP) of lacking in internal democracy. Were such charges baseless? The record of the two parties provides the necessary answer.
The 2011 federal and state elections cost the parties (ACN and CPC) control of state governments and seats in the federal and state assemblies mainly because party members were not allowed to pick their favoured candidates. Inevitably, there were protest votes.
The much-maligned first republic provided us better democracy than what we witness today. For the 1954 federal elections to the House of Representatives in Lagos, the NCNC could have imposed Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti as its candidate for Egba Central (in today's Ogun State) but because she lost the nomination contest, the party upheld the successful candidate, Chief E.B. Sorunke, who eventually won the election, defeating among others the same Mrs. Kuti, who stood as independent.
A similar history was repeated by the Action Group at Ife Central in today's Osun State for the 1959 federal elections to the House of Representatives in Lagos. Chief Michael Omisade, a member of the Action Group, believed he had a better chance of winning the election than Chief Remi Fani-Kayode. Michael Omisade stood as independent and won the seat.
Action Group did not force him (Omisade) to stand down. Genuine democracy or lack of it will play a major role in the 2015 elections and for a party, discrediting the ruling PDP of running Nigeria like a fiefdom, the new APC must allow its members in all constituencies to freely select candidates of their choice.
Candidacy for an election (be it to a local council or to the Senate) is not and must not be a political patronage of the whims and caprice of the party hierarchy. Scare-mongering along that line, especially that if the ACN won the Ondo State gubernatorial race last year, the party leadership in Lagos would dictate every appointment, cost the party the election.
On its part, the CPC lost the races in Kano and Kebbi States owing to imposition of candidates. One member of the APC, who must be delighted with the registration of the party is the Governor of Oyo State, Chief Abiola Ajimobi. Obviously very optimistic of this development, Chief Ajimobi assured that the progressives would rule Nigeria for sixty years, commencing 2015.
The first man to give such assurance was the then national chairman of PDP, Chief Audu Ogbe, who, by the way, is one of the members of the new APC. We disagreed with him in this column.
One of Audu Ogbe's successors as national chairman of the PDP, Vincent Ogbulafor, similarly pledged that his party would rule Nigeria for sixty years and we disagreed with him in this column. We, therefore, also disagree with Governor Ajimobi on his projection. No genuine democracy clings to a ruling party for fifty or more years.
As Nigerians, we are not such a people to tolerate a ruling party, even comprising progressives to be in power for that long.
A genuine democracy is best highlighted by intermittent change dictated strictly by the good or poor performance of the contesting parties. That is why world attention is focused on elections in the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Canada. Incidentally, in view of its big challenges ahead, the APC future is not enviable.
The party's registration is bound to alarm the PDP to iron out its current ravaging disputes in many parts of the country – Rivers, Adamawa, Ogun, Ekiti and federal levels – to be able to resist the APC in 2015. That is good for democracy. It is, of course, to be expected that the APC will not be cracked by the betrayal of the 2011 presidential elections in which supporters of one of the parties in a supposed alliance were directed to vote for Goodluck Jonathan on the laughable (?) excuse that the beneficiary was Jonathan and not the PDP.
Furthermore, how the APC will deal with eventual possible two-faced leadership of national chairman and national leader is to be seen.
A party with the national spread of APC cannot afford such risk. That situation was merely tolerated in the ACN merely to avoid rocking the boat.
APC would have served a purpose if it could make the 2015 elections, especially the presidential race very keen. One way to do that is not to underrate the PDP.
It's the FRSC, stupid!
Seemingly without precedent, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) recently announced that the agency would probe the fatal motor accident, which claimed the life of Ms. Charity Oba, said to be the foster mother of Patience Jonathan, wife of President Goodluck Jonathan. The accident also claimed the life of 12-year-old Miss Favour.
Quite rightly, FRSC Marshall Osita Chidoka, highlighted human factor as major cause of avoidable fatal accidents on roads. Ordinarily, that should have been the end of the matter. Why, therefore, was this accident going to be probed? No other reason could be adduced than that the major fatal victim was the foster mother of Patience Jonathan.
To be fair to the bereaved lady, she could never have demanded a probe and if she did (there is no such evidence) Patience Jonathan should have been told that it was not the practice for FRSC to probe accidents. And nothing would have consequently followed. Unknown to Nigerians, those in power are never averse to being told the truth.
It depends on the character. Would any probe bring the deceased back to life? Impossible. Road accidents, fatal or not, are daily routine in Nigeria on our bad roads and, perhaps, owing to over speeding by drivers. There was, therefore, nothing peculiar in the accident, which killed Patience Jonathan's foster mother except that status.
What is more, if only because of her status, she would have been accompanied by reasonable security personnel, who could have explained all the circumstances if necessary at all. Equally if not more important Nigerians had died on our highways.
Given the tense political situation in Rivers State, the FRSC should have been more discreet than profiling the accident in which Patience Jonathan's foster mother died. On Abuja-Lokoja road, Army General Rufus Kupolati died in a motor accident.
On the same road, Senator Tijani Ahmed was killed in an accident. On the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, former Chief Executive of Lever Brothers, Chief Rufus Giwa, died in an accident. Another victim of fatal motor accident on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was a wife of the then military governor of Lagos State, Brigadier-General Raji Rasaki.
Former military governor of Oyo State and later Federal Minister of Works, Major-General Kareem Adisa, died in a motor accident on a highway in Kogi State. Retired Colonel Nyan, a serving special assistant to Senate President David Mark, was killed in a motor accident in Southern Kaduna.
One of Nigeria's most distinguished civil servants, who comprised the super permanent secretaries in the 70s, Chief Sunday Awoniyi, died in a tragic motor accident on Abuja-Kaduna Highway. Former National Publicity Secretary of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP), Amos Idakula, was killed in a motor accident while traveling from Abuja to Jos.
What is more, on the very day Patience Jonathan's foster mother died in an accident while traveling to Bayelsa from Okrika, Rivers State, over twelve Nigerians died in motor accident on the same Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Why did FRSC not bother to probe the circumstances of all these other fatal accidents? Then suddenly, the FRSC decided to probe circumstances of a fatal motor accident, which claimed the life of Patience Jonathan's foster mother?
Surely, in the tense political atmosphere in Rivers State, sycophants are desperate for recognition. Nigeria is waiting for the report of the FRSC probe, which, it is hoped, will apportion blame and explain why the probe is so special.
Via: Sun News Online