By Mohammed Alhassan
The title of this essay was chosen because of recent developments in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which portends the comatose state to which the practise of democracy has fallen in the party and the country. It is worrying that a rainbow party which represents all ethnic groups in Nigeria is able to reach a consensus such that no one, not one person in the entire party, is willing and able to challenge the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan for the presidential primaries of the ruling party.
The events of September 17, 2014 when PDP governors’ forum told the nation that they in their wisdom have endorsed President Jonathan as the only person eligible to contest the 2015 presidential election, is an ill omen, and a very sad turn of events. Quickly on the heels of the governors, the party’s Board of Trustees followed suit and endorsed the incumbent. Before all these, ministers and political heads of government parastatals including top civil servants, all whom are now PDP members, also came out to endorse the same man, thus making it unpopular and risky for anyone within the party to raise a banner to compete against the incumbent.
The nation has come full circle and is now in dangerous waters. The only political vehicle left for anyone interested to contest the presidency and give the suffering people of Nigeria an alternative leadership is the opposition parties notably the All Progressives Congress (APC)! Even, by President Jonathan’s policy of ‘no opposition’, several of the smaller opposition parties in the country are appendages of the ruling party, and are funded by Jonathan’s cronies!
The PDP that was known to the people of Nigeria before the coming of Goodluck Jonathan at the death of former President Umaru Yar’ Adua, was one robust party where people had dreams and ambitions and where there aspirants for positions was never lacking. Even under strong –willed personalities like former President Obasanjo, there were never occasions when incumbency prevented the emergence of aspirants to challenge a President for the number one seat in the country.
The point is that the PDP has lost its appeal, its soul, its attraction as well as all its men of substance. The men who dream dreams in the party have all gone, leaving only those who are in their nappies, who are content with being led and allowed to acquire filthy lucre at the expense of the lofty aspirations of great stewardship. It is rather strange how with the lawlessness and insecurity ravaging our nation, with poverty and unemployment and lack of electricity making life a bore, with more than 250 of our daughters hitherto in school in Chibok in the hands of violent terrorists, the PDP in all honesty can say, that the incumbent and the present sate od affairs in the country are satisfying! CRY, THY BELOVED COUNTRY!
Many concerned Nigerians have been tensed up since he September 17, 2014 when the combative and talkative Godswill Akpabio, Jonathan’s Man Friday announced that none of the PDP governors would vie for the Presidency against Dr Jonathan. In small groups, in restaurants and other places people have been talking in hushed tones, wondering how Nigeria got to this sorry state where men’s ambition have all died. A few in the party like the Jigawa governor, Sule Lamido who had flexed his muscle to contest was forced by group pressure to give up hoping that perhaps in future he would be rewarded for chickening out with yet another unpatriotic and undemocratic endorsement. Sule Lamido is naïve as such a day will never come as new political forces and realities would have surfaced. When that time comes, it would be on record that he compromised with undemocratic tendencies and reaped the whirlwind!
The silencing of political views in the PDP being harvested today did not come as a surprise. Those who were committed democrats and me of substance in the party saw the creeping anti- democratic culture and fought against it to no avail. The forces of anti-democracy, corruption and personal rule congregating around Jonathan did not give them a chance. This led to the forced exit of leaders like Atiku Abubakar, governors Wammako, Kwankwaso, Murtala Nyako, etc. These men were vilified and called names and even the nation’s judiciary agreed with the pro-Jonathan camp that there was no crisis in the PDP! The chicken has come home to roost.
An important point to note about developments in the ruling party today is that the party is weary and dying. It is tired of pretending to be a democratic party and has decided to take up a new garb, a personal party governed by military ethics and sustained by violence, intimidation and corruption. Those Nigerians who seek change from the present unsavoury state of affairs should look to the opposition APC as the 2015 polls draw near.
Alhassan wrote from Maitama, Abuja