By Ezeh Jude Ogechi
According to the famous American attorney and political commentator, John Bolton: "There is no patriotic obligation to help advance the career of a politician who is otherwise pursuing interests that are fundamentally antithetical to your values. That's not the call of patriotism."
What is going on in Peoples Democratic Party (PDP's) nuclear family is not patriotism, but petty parochialism that can best be described as misguided antagonism, no thanks to the ruling party's failure in governance, which have had ripple effects on every aspect of Nigeria's component parts and integral entities. It is giving field days to APC cronies to keep handling the management of our common patrimony in a manner that leaves much to be desired.
Nigeria is suffocating in the heat of unabated insecurity and its twin evil of poverty and austerity. The people have found themselves in a quagmirical junction. They are in dire need of a savior as the nation head to 2023. The only three viable groups that traditionally have the calling to rescue and/or succor the wailing masses are Trade unions, primarily the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the religious bodies, and opposition parties. Incidentally, these three classes of social interveners are forlorn and bastardized!
With an ailing economy, heightened poverty has reduced man in this part of the world to "homo Erectus" with the 'sapien' attributes traded for comestibles and quest for survival. Death through starvation stares everyone in the face!
Even religious leaders whose foundational philosophy was on the abnegation of this passing world's transient glory is compromised already. Most of them have turned profiteers. Emphasis is placed on money and temporal gains much more than on salvation, and the attendant moral rectitude and attitudinal change. In fact, some of them have been accused of going to Aso Rock plate-in-hand soliciting for contracts to make ends meet. And Ayuba Wabba-lead NLC made no pretense about its ineptitude in this regard too.
Where then lies the hope of the common man, you may ask. The opposition parties of course. But then you remember that the main opposition party -- PDP choose this queerish moment to throw tantrums among themselves.
Who could ever believe that after its National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, snatched the party from its pallbearers after colossal failure at the 2015 general election, and elevated it from the pit of 11 states to the enviable rostrum of 16 states at some points, would be reprehended by a campaign of calumny and inglorious attempt to remove him from office?
Granted, PDP under him lagged behind, in terms of walking the talk for the nation as an opposition party, but that doesn't mean he should be bullied on and off the courtrooms. He may deserve every vilification, but certainly not this Oshiomole treatment being matted out to him. Those maligning him failed to recollect Francis John McConnell's counsel that "We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us."
Regular followers of this column will recall our discussion here on March 22, 2021, entitled: "PDP and NLC are suffering from Stockholm syndrome".
In the course of that musing, we opined that "PDP under Prince Uche Secondus has achieved nothing aside wresting the party from its undertaker, former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff, and increasing the number of states controlled by the party from 11 to 16. But of what value is the numerical strength in states controlled by the party if they could not translate into viable consistent adjuration for good governance and welfare of the masses.
Before APC came to power, Nigeria’s economy was gasping for breath under PDP despite attempts to administer palliative therapy to keep it stable by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and her economic team. Yet, in 2015, when the APC government came on board, the situation appears not to have significantly improved much.
The initial economic recession that descended on the country then following a sharp and unexpected drop in crude oil prices in the international market, coupled with the orchestrated attacks on the nation's oil facilities in the oil-producing Niger Delta region by the protesting militants known as The Avengers, however, affected Nigeria's total oil production and sales output. These combined factors including the alleged massive looting of the national treasury at the twilight of the outgoing administration, however, put intense pressure on the economic recovery efforts by the government.
It is therefore expected that the intense challenges the ruling government is experiencing in the past six years would have provided the opportunity for the opposition parties led by the PDP to re-invent itself in the eyes and estimation of the anxious Nigerians.
With unmitigated incidences in banditry, kidnapping, insurgency, and accusations of abuse of human rights against the ruling government, the opposition party are yet unable to make political capital out of the misfortunes of the APC regime. All the notable leaders of the opposition PDP seem to have either slumbered, hibernating, or battle weary.
For when last did you hear solicitation for the nation from PDP’s 2019 presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar? The likes of Bukola Saraki, governor Nyesom Wike, Ayodele Fayose, Governor Bala Mohammed, and Senator Ike Ekweremadu, all seem to be silent now. Even President Goodluck Jonathan is alleged to be in a clandestine romance with the APC, etc.
But among the pack, Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom, appears to be the opposition voice on the nation's political firmament. Charly Boy’s “#Our Mumu don do” protest march, Omoyele Sowore’s #revolutionnow, and the recent #EndSARS protests, seemingly presented fertile grounds for the PDP and NLC to take the APC government to task in terms of real democratic opposition politicking.
However, some commentators have argued that the difference between the PDP and APC is in their names only. Nothing in essence! This is proving to be true. Otherwise, why would the only thing in their agenda be to fight one another, while their supposed enemies in the opposition watch on? Today, the likes of Gov. Ortom is running solo, daring the power centers, but what can a lonely voice do in a forest of deafening silence from his fellow party men? The last two months saw many of the party's stakeholders defect to APC as asylum seekers. From here, the 2023 election looks every inch a novelty exercise.
It is more ridiculous to think that those (the PDP governors) on whom we wait to lead constructive opposition politics against whatever maladministration in the land, were waiting for Secondus too, as placards of the anti-Secundus protesters read.
Since NLC appears not to have the will to bark as expected, the current bickering and in-fighting in PDP is a huge disappointment to Nigerians who hoped on them to provide an alternative approach to governance. Unfortunately, also, the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) equally seems to has grown cold! Its leader, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, seems to be found nowhere since after his detention experience. The danger of it all is that 2023 may just be another formality!
May daylight spare us!
...Eze Jude Ogechi is a Columnist and Public affairs, Analyst. NNL.
