 Published
March 22nd, 2010
Highlights:
**Barely four months ago, Jonathan was a mere presidential
ornament in Yar’Adua‘s backroom office in the presidency.
Today, he is the Sole Administrator of Nigeria who, like the
sun, is at the center of our political universe from whom
all powers radiate to animate our national planet—the
nucleus of the emerging power center.—Franklin Otorofani
**The PDP may be dreaming of ruling the nation for another
fifty years and there is nothing wrong with dreaming. But if
it wants to rule for another four years, Jonathan is the
answer and it is well advised to have him on board for the
2011 presidential elections. He might not be ambitious, but
as we have seen, his political trajectory is destined for
the ultimate presidential title with or without the support
of the PDP oligarchs. Hasn’t the party learnt its lesson
yet?—Franklin Otorofani
**The issue of the moment is not whether Iwu and INEC are
responsible for electoral malpractices, but to do all in
their powers to avoid them and where impossible
discountenance votes procured through undemocratic means by
voiding them. This is the phase that Iwu and INEC have
moved into at the moment—to deliver credible elections to
the glory of Nigeria and her electoral system. And that’s
bad news for the PDP. Iwu and INEC will do this regardless
of any pressures or underhanded interference from the ruling
party or the opposition because Iwu is bent on leaving a
worthy legacy of credible elections. He just did it in Edo
and Anambra states at the local and state levels and he will
do it again at the national level – Franklin Otorofani
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With the
nation emerging from the strangle-hold of military
dictatorship in 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),
formed by a group of 34 eminent Nigerians led by former Vice
President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, equally emerged as the heir
apparent to the throne and chief inheritor of the bequest of
the decadent political infrastructure left by the departing
military oligarchs. The discredited generals wasted no time
in replacing themselves with one of their own, former boss
and one time military Head of State, General Olusegun
Obasanjo, brought from prison to continue from where they
left. In a military fashion, the gritty, no-nonsense
general soon appropriated the political platform of the G34,
which, coupled with the rump of late General Musa Yar’Adua’s
People’s Democratic Movement (PDM), had metamorphosed into
the PDP.
The PDP
under Chief Olusgun Obasanjo (as he preferred to be called
under civilian rule) almost succeeded in obliterating all
traces of opposition from the polity and roamed the
political landscape like a vicious predator out to gobble up
all political entities the membership of which were only too
happy to jump ship and partake of the goodies dangled before
them in the PDP. Where the moral anatomy of political
entities is emptied of ethical contents the end product is
political prostitution and unprincipled politicking that is
solely dictated by survivalist instincts rather than higher
values of service to the people. Presently, Nigerian
politics is dominated by primordial clans of survivalists
and not ideological thinkers and actors. The days of Awo,
Zik, and Aminu Kano, are over and replaced by mundane
politics of the stomach, which they share with the lower
animals in the wild, and not of service that is the hallmark
of their counterparts in other parts of the civilized world.
The PDP as
grandmaster of Nigerian politics understood this only too
well and made its moves to weed the political farm in
Nigeria of its poisonous undergrowths that had tended to
undermine its supreme authority and total control of the
farmstead. It is to be recalled that the defunct Nigerian
People’s Party(NPP) was at its inception just as big and
powerful as the PDP, but it soon splintered with the
Alliance for Democracy (AD) emerging from its rubbles and
the party ended up weakened with another name to go
with---the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP). And the AD
itself further splintered to become the Action Congress
(AC). The splintering of the NPP was the harbinger of the
political undergrowths that have become the lot of the
Nigerian political farmstead, which inevitably gave the PDP
the opportunity to poach, annex, and where possible
obliterate the mushrooming entities as happened, for
example, with the AD in 2003. These opportunistic political
undergrowths only survive on crumbs from the system and add
no greater value to the political system than can be derived
from epiphytes.
Armed to the
teeth with total control of the National Assembly and more
than three quarters of the states through hook and crook,
the party arrogantly served notice on Nigerians and the
opposition that it was ready to rule for the next 50 years
unchallenged and uninterrupted. And there was nothing
anybody could do about it. Not even the military who do not
depend on anybody’s votes to gain and remain in power could
dare Nigerians in that manner. But the PDP was so cocksure
of itself that it served that notice on Nigerians without
batting an eye. And before Nigerians could cry out, “Not in
my country!” the party had laid the foundation stone of its
N50bn secretariat complex in Abuja designed, in its sheer
size and grandeur, to send a clear message that it meant
business and certainly not in a hurry to vacate the
presidency anytime soon. And why wouldn’t it be drunk with
power? A party with questionable electoral mandate at each
and every election has managed to rule the nation for 11
unbroken years thus far and still counting until it
celebrates its jubilee at 50! Not even the military could
achieve that feat.
With the
anemic, myopic, and visionless state of the opposition in
the nation, Nigerians were forced to swallow the insult
because it seemed they had nowhere else to turn to, as it
were, to liberate them from the stranglehold of their
native, modern day internal colonialists. However, the
question of liberation wouldn’t have arisen in the first
place had the party made such a difference in the lives of
Nigerians, as for instance, the Communist Party has done in
China. Ever heard of the Chinese complaining about the long
rule of the Communist Party in China? China has only one
political party and that’s official that has been in power
since 1949! The Chinese are happy with their leaders and the
Communist Party and have largely resisted western calls for
openness and western style democracy. That is not to say
there are no Chinese dissidents who hate the system as
should be expected, but they’re a negligible minority.
For all
Nigerians care, the PDP could rule for another millennium if
it so wished if it could provide them with basic social
amenities to make their lives a little easier and not the
eternal purgatory and drudgery that is now their lot. What
do people care for if their basic needs are being met by the
state in terms of economic opportunities, security, and the
availability of efficient and effective social services at
their beck and call? Pretty little! When we get right down
to it, politics is an elite sport and not for the masses,
who are only used to install the elites in power only to be
discarded until the next around round of elections. That is
the nature of politics ala democracy, whether it is in
developing or developed nations. As experience has shown in
developed democracies, people do not even bother to go to
the polls when they have little to worry about. Under such
conditions, they can only be mobilized for the polls on
fringe issues not on anything substantive that bother on
their material well-being. Even so, turnouts would still be
low and disappointingly so. When we compare, for instance,
voter turnouts during the Gore/Bush 2000 presidential
elections when the US economy was still roaring with record
budget surplus bequeathed by the Clinton administration, or
during Bush/Kerry presidential election, when the economy
was still strong, to voter turnouts in Obama/McCain 2008
presidential election elections when the US economy had
already tanked with record budget deficits, the difference
is stark clear. The acute voter apathy witnessed during the
Bush/Gore and the Bush/Kerry elections respectively, was
remarkably absent during the Obama/McCain election, thanks
to the economic worries caused by the financial meltdown in
2008.
When the
electorate is gripped by economic worries, some politicians
in office should dust up their resumes and be looking for
jobs because when people have worries in a democracy they’re
revved up for the polls, determined to throw out those
perceived to be responsible for their woes or not doing
enough to either remove or at least mitigate them
substantially. Under such poisoned political atmosphere even
a cow standing for election against the status quo would
defeat an incumbent at the polls. Obama was swept into
power with the gale of public discontents about their
economic conditions.
The present
political situation in Nigeria is not altogether far from
the scenario painted above. If anything, it represents the
above scenario and that, in and of itself, is enough to make
the PDP sober and soul-search itself, if not totally
jittery. But the reverse is the case in Nigeria where the
party appears to have nothing but absolute scorn and
disregard for the dire economic realities Nigerians are
facing, made even worse with the total absence of basic
social amenities. One reason for this is that Nigerians
have never really tasted the good things of life such as
well developed and efficient social infrastructure, as would
for instance, the citizens of developed democracies save for
the few elites who are either linked to the government or
the business sector or the religious clergies the
professionals, who travel out. Yet all Nigerians are victims
of decaying infrastructures at one level or another.
Presiding over the degradation of their quality of lives
should bother the ruling party sufficient enough to make
amends and deliver on its solemn pledges made to the people
of Nigeria. Yar’Adua came to power promising to declare a
state of emergency within his first months in office
indicating that he was sufficiently acquainted with the
power problem confronting the nation, which was then a whole
lot better than it is today. The power situation has
degenerated further under Yar’Adua. As at the time he took
over power generation was peaking at 4000mw which was and is
still grossly inadequate for a nation that requires no less
than 30,000mw by some estimates. The president had no
qualms reneging on that fundamental undertaking made to
Nigerians. Thereafter, he came up with another promise of
generating up to 10,000mw by the end of the year 2009. Come
2009 and power generation plummets to under 2000mw and
remains so till date. His promise on electoral reforms
solemnly made and for which the Justice Uwais panel was set
up and came up with certain critical recommendations has
similarly not seen the light of day. Niger Delta began and
ended with declaration of amnesty for so-called repentant
militants with some token handouts and nothing more---just a
declaration and Yar’Adua went to sleep on us and he’s yet to
wake up from that slumber till date. Scarcity of petroleum
products has become the norm rather than the exception in
the land. Heinous crimes such as kidnapping and daylight
robberies under the nose of law enforcement agencies,
magnified and accentuated by mini-jihads in parts of the
North, have unleashed deaths and destructions on innocent
citizens thus making the lives of hapless Nigerians to
become short, nasty, and brutish in the extreme.
All these
calamities are taking place under a PDP government that is
flush with petro-dollar with oil prices hitting and staying
at the rooftops. Yet the government could not implement up
to 30% of its own budgets with unspent funds returning to
the treasury to be budgeted over again and again in a cycle
of unfulfilled budgetary circus. A government this weak and
anemic on budget deliverables in the face of huge oil
receipts has no business remaining in office. Yet,
ironically, the PDP has been returned to office at every
election. Many Nigerians are quick to cite electoral
malpractices as being responsible for the party’s electoral
victories. However, that is only part of the story and not
the whole. This is because from the verdicts of the
electoral tribunals the elections of the overwhelming
majority of the PDP governors including the President have
been validated by the courts. Of all the PDP governors
elected in the last elections, only two in Edo and Ondo
states have been invalidated with the remainder declared
validly elected by the courts, discounting Anambra state
which was a carryover from the 2003 elections. Those who
hoist rigging on rooftops as being solely responsible for
PDP’s electoral victories had better come up with something
else because that simplistic conclusion does not hold up to
judicial scrutiny and amounts to pedestrian reductionism
which trivializes the issue. It is, therefore, more
profitable to search for a more sophisticated explanation;
one that takes into account the several factors that combine
to determine electoral outcomes in Nigeria. In this
connection, therefore, one would venture to state that while
electoral malpractices have become endemic in the nation’s
electoral system and have obviously exerted negative effects
on electoral results on the whole, other primordial factors
are at play, which have little or nothing to do with
electoral malpractices.
One of such
is the traditional power of incumbency. As the INEC
Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu observed regarding the
inability of the opposition which included such favored
heavyweight like former CBN Governor, Professor Charles
Solubo, to dislodge Governor Peter Obi from power, you do
not go after an incumbent office holder with fragmented
weapons by fielding a multiplicity of parties that end up
splitting the votes of the opposition. That is the first law
of elections. The Nigerian opposition had been going after
the incumbent PDP governments at the center with fragmented
weapons by fielding a multiplicity of party candidates and
the net result is nothing but disaster for the opposition.
And the reader would ask, didn’t I just say that even a cow
would defeat an incumbent when the voters are angry about
their economic conditions and revved up for the polls? Yes,
but that happens not in a multi-party system with fragmented
political parties, but in two-party or limited party system
as it’s practiced in advanced democracies. A two or limited
party system aggregates votes while a multi-party system
fragments votes into nothingness. It is near impossible for
the above model to work out in fragmented party environment
like obtains in Nigeria, and the elections in Anambra state
just proved it. Governor Peter Obi was returned on a
minority votes with the opposition combined garnering more
votes than him. But fragmented votes do not make a
difference even if their totality amounts to the majority
votes. And that’s why Peter Obi is back in power! This
should serve as a signal lesson for the opposition in
Nigeria, that no matter how unpopular the PDP may be at the
moment, if it fails to field a common candidate against the
PDP at the center, it will continue to remain in political
wilderness and Ogbulafor’s boast will come to pass, while it
continues to whine about rigging. It is critically
important, therefore, that the opposition rallies around
single candidates through some mutually beneficial
arrangements rather than fielding presidential candidates of
their own without making a dent, which is sheer
ego-tripping.
Another
potent factor could be found in PDP’s divide and rule zoning
formula. By dividing the nation into North/South for the
purpose of the presidency, the party had psyched and
conditioned the zones to expect their turn and vote for its
presidential candidate from the zone to which the slot is
due at any given moment. Thus when the PDP fielded Yar’Adua
in the 2007 election from the North, the South was ready to
support him knowing that after his tenure the presidency
would rotate back to it, to either the South/East or
South/South with the South/West already zoned out by virtue
of the previous Obasanjo’s two-term presidency. By this
reasoning therefore, the South was not ready to gamble with
another party fielding a candidate from the either the South
or North for fear of derailing its chances. Thus even if an
opposition party fielded Northern candidates like Abubakar
Atiku and Mohammadu Buhari as the AC and ANPP did
respectively, it would have amounted to taking a gamble with
these candidates whose parties have not publicly and
officially adopted the zoning formula like the PDP. Why go
with the unknown when the known is available and beckoning
on you to come and grab it? It makes no sense at all!
A third
potent factor is financial inducements. Nigeria’s electoral
development has yet to attain that grainy level of campaign
financing regulations that would effectively checkmate the
electoral bazaars that go for elections in Nigeria. It is so
easy for moneybags to ‘win’ elections in Nigeria even if the
candidate is known to have corruptly enriched himself while
in public service. The electoral culture in Nigeria is so
atrociously corrupt that even the average voter openly
demands money for his vote and would go for the candidate
with the deepest pocket possible. Thus a party like the PDP
bristling with government contractor millionaires has little
or no difficulty buying up and warehousing electoral votes
during polls. And this is by no means limited to the PDP
alone as the opposition parties are also in the game. When
we talk of a corrupt electoral culture, it should be
understood that it is a systemic issue not necessarily a
party a ruling party issue only. Endemic poverty coupled
with lack of political education is at the root of the
problem and the politicians would like to keep it that way
and only get to cry foul when they are at the receiving end
but keep mum when they’re the beneficiaries.
The above
factors, together with others like ethnicity are currently
playing to the advantage of the PDP—that is until now, that
a Daniel has come to judgment! My analysis of signals from
the fast emerging Jonathan presidency points unmistakably to
a thunderous, earth-quaking game change that will put the
ruling PDP on the chopping block. Although Ag President
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was elected and ruling under the
platform of the PDP, it is my prediction that he will
ultimately be transformed to become that party’s nemesis
that will see the end of PDP as we know it. Therefore,
regardless of the prevalence of the potent factors in favor
of the PDP enumerated above, the party is headed for the
rocks and will— listen to this, lose the next presidential
elections. And the cynic may ask, what is the basis for
your prediction? Such predictions had been made in the past
yet the PDP came out tops. Why would it be different now?
Two
fundamental developments in the polity are responsible for
the encroaching PDP doomsday. First and foremost is the
burning desire by INEC under Maurice Iwu to conduct credible
elections come 2011 of which the Anambra election that
returned Peter Obi to power is only a harbinger and
foretaste. This writer has always argued and will continue
to argue that Iwu had nothing to do with electoral
malpractices that had bedeviled our previous elections. The
politicians themselves are the culprits not Iwu. Electoral
reforms must begin and end with the politicians otherwise
nothing will change. Reforms must be centered on the players
not the umpires. I had put out series of articles dating
back to 2007, patting Iwu on the back for successfully
transiting from one civilian administration to another; a
feat yet unequalled in the annals of Nigeria’s electoral
history and I’m happy to observe that many notable Nigerians
are now coming to the same conclusion even if belatedly.
That said, it is still critically important for INEC to
deliver an election that is seen by the ordinary man and
woman in the street as credible, free and fair, such as
recently conducted in Anambra state. The issue, therefore,
is not whether Iwu and INEC are responsible for electoral
malpractices, but to do all in their powers to avoid them
and where impossible discountenance votes procured through
undemocratic means by voiding them. This is the phase that
Iwu and INEC have moved into at the moment—to deliver
credible elections to the glory of Nigeria and her electoral
system. And that’s bad news for the PDP. Iwu and INEC will
do this regardless of any pressures or underhanded
interference from the ruling party or the opposition because
Iwu is bent on leaving a worthy legacy of credible
elections. He just did it in Edo and Anambra states at the
local and state levels and he will do it again at the
national level. At the moment that spells disaster for the
ruling PDP in the forthcoming polls.
Unless the
opposition manages to shoot itself in the foot yet again the
present mass angst against the ruling party will sweep it
out of power in one gale. Having recorded a feat in civilian
to civilian transition in 2007, I’m reasonably confident
that INEC is ready to record another and the ultimate feat
of party-to-party transition to complete the job. Nigeria
might be a democracy but her democracy and electoral success
are incomplete unless and until she is able to transit from
one government formed under one political party to another
government formed under another political party—that is to
say, party-to-party transition and not merely from one
government to another of the same party as happened between
the Obasanjo and the Yar’Adua administrations. That is the
next hurdle before the nation and all the auguries point to
this eventuality beginning in 2011 however with the caveat
that the opposition is ready and willing to stake its claim
to the presidency under one roof, and not as political
undergrowths as presently constituted. For the opposition
to make a breakthrough vote fragmentation must be avoided
like a plague.
Enter
Jonathan: However, this feat cannot be attained in
isolation. For it to come to fruition, it must be coupled
with another more potent factor in the making—the political
ascendancy of Jonathan. The treatment of Jonathan by his
political party in the wake of the Yar’Adua imbroglio left a
sour taste in the mouth. Before he was made Ag President,
his party had treated him like a political orphan who had no
place in the presidency. That he was effectively sidelined
by Yar’Adua even in matters dear to his heart as the roiling
Niger Delta cauldron while the PDP looked the other way did
not help matters at all. It only served to cement the
perception that Jonathan was merely an ornamental object in
the presidency just to balance the aesthetic equation at the
nation’s seat of power. At the time he needed his party’s
support to fully assume presidential duties in the absence
of Yar’Adua, his party literarily turned its back on him and
gave him a cold shoulder. It even warned its members in the
National Assembly and the Federal Executive Council that he
was leading then as VP not to touch him even with a long
pole; all because it wanted to be in the good books of
Yar’Adua. In the language of William Shakespeare, Jonathan
was like a dog tied to a stake and bayed by other dogs.
Everyone was
positioning himself to be in Yar’Adua’s good books rather
than doing what was right for the nation to the detriment of
Jonathan. And what is more? Even the governors from his
Niger Delta base were scheming and plotting day and night to
upstage him, including the one from his own Bayelsa state,
as reported. And no sooner did the National Assembly brush
aside the party’s shenanigans and invested Jonathan with the
title and powers of Ag President than the same party rushed
to warn him that he could not contest for the 2011
presidential elections as if it had an axe to grind with
him. It would soon follow that warning with an executive
meeting that promptly zoned the presidential slot to the
North thus putting paid to any notion of Jonathan contesting
the 2011 elections. That singular decision has the effect of
abruptly aborting his brilliant political career midstream.
That is the height of wickedness. All these humiliations
were inflicted on a man who did not seek for the position he
found himself occupying and who had proved himself time and
again during one the most trying times of the nation, as one
of the humblest and most loyal deputies ever to grace the
face of the presidency, made more starkly so in the face of
the ambitions, treachery, and disloyalty of his predecessor-
in-office under the previous Obasanjo administration. This
man bore these indignities from his own party and home turf
with uncommon equanimity, Spartan stoicism, and decorum.
Pray, how
much more mean-spirited could a political party be to one of
its own in such high ranking position of authority in times
like these? It only goes to show that, just like the
Yar’Adua’s Kitchen cabinet and the security agencies,
Ogbulafor and his PDP gang are only loyal to Yar’Adua and
nobody else, not even the nation. But the good thing is
that all that is not lost on Jonathan. PDP will pay dearly
for its act of betrayal in the fullness of time and that’s
2011. Jonathan’s sending of the Justice Uwais report to the
National Assembly unedited is the first sign that the game
is about the change for good and that’s pointer to what lies
ahead that will fundamentally affect the fortunes of the
PDP. What is more? His sacking of the entire Federal
Executive Council (FEC) and keeping the PDP leadership in
the dark while at it is danger signal for the PDP that its
days in the presidency are numbered unless the PDP
leadership sees the handwriting on the wall and moves to
reconcile quickly with Jonathan. Barely four months ago,
Jonathan was a mere presidential ornament in Yar’Adua ‘s
backroom office in the presidency. Today, he is the Sole
Administrator of Nigeria who, like the sun, is at the center
of our political universe from whom all powers radiate to
animate our national planet—the nucleus of the emerging
power center. That’s right. There is a new power center
emerging in the nation with Jonathan at its nucleus, because
the old things have passed away!
This reality
is fast dawning on Ogbulafor and his PDP henchmen at Wadata
House in Abuja. Characteristic of the typical Nigerian
opportunists, however, Ogbulafor was quick to claim after a
visit to Jonathan that the party was duly consulted before
the FEC dissolution. Hear him: “…being
a PDP government, there was no way the acting president
would have embarked on such a major decision without the
knowledge of the party…” and hinting that the party would
play a critical role in the reconstitution of the FEC as
reported by THISDAY ONLINE (031910). However, the fact that
the PDP chairman has gone to such lengths to show that the
party is still relevant in the Jonathan presidency is clear
indication that all is not well between him and his party
executive on the one hand, and the Ag President on the other
hand. That Ogbulafor went back with other executive members
to plead with Jonathan to carry the party and allies of
presidents Yar’Adua and Obasanjo along in the reconstitution
of his cabinet, is proof positive that the party had been
sidelined by Jonathan in his bold moves. It seems clear,
however, that Ogbulafor is playing smart by gradually
changing his colors in the absence of Yar’Adua’s recovery.
That is the reality that has now cruelly settled on all
those opposed to Jonathan’s presidential elevation. It came,
anyway, by sheer providence and in spite of their stout
objections. However, to what extent the party is ready to
severe its umbilical cord with Yar’Adua and make nice with
Jonathan now holding the levers of powers, remains to be
seen.
That said,
the party’s current executive led by Ogbulafor should be
under no illusion that Ag President Goodluck Jonathan cannot
be pushed aside and have his rising political star dimmed or
sacrificed on the altar of political expediency masquerading
as zoning formula. Jonathan cannot be denied a chance to
gun for the presidency since the party is still stuck with
Yar’Adua and has bluntly refused to make him president and
stuck with the title of acting president in total disregard
for the constitution. Ogbulafor must be reminded that he
cannot serve both masters at the same time nor can the party
eat its cake and have it back. He should choose between
Yar’Adua and Jonathan because the line is already drawn in
the sand. If he doesn’t see it now, it will be too late when
the cookies begin to crumble.
Come to
think about it, if Jonathan is being denied the presidency
by his own party, not the opposition parties, why on earth
should he deliver the presidency to the same party that
denied him the chance to go for it? That is not how it
works. Politics is give and take. What is good for the goose
is equally good for the gander. It’s that simple! The party
cannot therefore dictate to the Nigerian nation which part
of the country should produce the president and which part
should sit on the stand as spectators. That is a matter for
Nigerians to determine not the PDP or Victor Ogbulafor, or
anyone else for that matter. It amounts to sheer arrogance
of power for the PDP to arrogate to itself the prerogative
of determining who should run or not run for the presidency
and from which part of the country he/she should come from.
It’s time to call the PDP bluff and respect our constitution
if it is worth respecting at all.
Yes, it is
time for Ogbulafor and his damnable executive to go because
they have outlived their usefulness, and have constituted
themselves into a formidable cog in the wheel of progress in
our young democracy. Rather than being part of the solution
they have become the problem itself for the nation.
Ogbulafor
can pretend all he wants that all is well between the party
executive and the Ag President at the present time, but it
seems clear to the discerning observer that Jonathan is
fighting back like a wounded lion and he is doing it with
presidential grace. Who would blame him? He has pledged to
deliver credible election anchored on electoral reforms that
had been marooned by Yar’Adua for three years. That
declaration and the sincerity with which it was made, is
good news for and a shot in the arms of the opposition but
bad news for the PDP. PDP can say goodbye to the presidency
unless something untoward happens in the run-up to the
presidential elections, which no one can foretell. How and
when Jonathan will make his ultimate moves will become
clearer as the days and months go by. But this much is clear
to me: no politician who has tasted power at that level
would sit idly by while his party power merchants abruptly
abort his political career midstream in the name of an
unconstitutional and illegal zoning arrangement without
fighting back with all the powers and weapons at his
disposal. PDP has just shot itself in the foot and might as
well kiss the presidency goodbye, come 2011!
That’s
right! The PDP has its head on the chopping block. As things
stand at the moment, the PDP as we know it, will cease to
exist unless it makes peace with Ag President Jonathan
otherwise it should know that it is on a death row and only
Jonathan can save it. The PDP oligarchs must understand that
the party has survived thus far because it is in control of
the presidency and therefore in a position to dispense
favors to Nigerian politicians who hanker after their
material comfort and nothing more. Without Jonathan’s
support, PDP will be out of power in a matter of months.
Losing Jonathan translates to losing the power of
incumbency, which is the only leverage it has at the moment
as it has frittered away its goodwill. That is the certain
fate that will befall it unless and until it retraces its
steps by allowing Jonathan to contest the next presidential
elections and leave it for the electorate to decide who wins
and who loses. That is democracy at work as opposed to party
dictatorship imposed on the nation. It is the prerogative
of the people not the party to determine who runs and who
wins or loses, not the party’s.
While it is
not yet clear at the moment which direction the wind may
blow, suffice it state that the worst thing that can happen
to the PDP is to force Jonathan to quit the party and run
under another party platform. But some may ask, what makes
Jonathan special? Is he not part of the despised PDP that
Nigerians have served an eviction notice on? Not exactly the
same. This man appears remarkably different from the power
merchants in the PDP. He is a chip from another block. His
simplicity is simply disarming and his sincerity shines
through his words and actions. Above all, he’s not
ambitious, and yet power finds him out wherever he is hiding
and latches on to him like a second skin. It’s too early to
judge the man, but apart from the power of incumbency which
he now has, he has demonstrated sincerity of purpose and
dynamism which is gradually but steadily endearing him to
the hearts and minds of Nigerians, which the PDP is wholly
lacking. Having wasted its goodwill, only Jonathan can
redeem the battered image of the PDP and that’s the more
reason the party should fall in line behind him with all its
heart and soul.
The PDP may
be dreaming of ruling the nation for another fifty years and
there is nothing wrong with dreaming. But if it wants to
rule for another four years, Jonathan is the answer and it
is well advised to have him on board for the 2011
presidential elections. He might not be ambitious, but as we
have seen, his political trajectory is destined for the
ultimate presidential title with or without the support of
the PDP oligarchs. Hasn’t the party learnt its lesson yet?
The sole question to be asked and answered therefore, is:
does he have the right to contest for the presidency under
our laws and the constitution? If the answer is no, I’ll be
glad to know the law or constitutional provision that bars
him from contesting for the highest office in the land. If
the answer is yes, so be it, and let the law rule! That, in
essence, is the true meaning of “The Rule of Law” not Kaase
Aondoakaa’s fraudulent jingo. How about allowing the rule of
law take firm hold in our nation? That would be a nice
beginning and worthy departure from the fraudulent past.
Wouldn’t it?
I rest my
case for now.
Franklin
Otorofani, Esq. contact:
mudiagaone@yahoo.com
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