Buddy,
you were born today a product of the protracted pregnancy of multiple
mothers. Happy birthday. I do not come to rob or rock the cradle. I have
merely come to greet you, the newborn, bearing not gifts of myrrh,
frankincense, and gold but loads of uncomfortable questions, queries,
and warnings. Since you are only a few hours old, the politically
correct thing to do is to wait at least for your eighth-day outing
ceremony before piling on you but you have been born into extraordinary
circumstances which require extraordinary measures to save you from the
mounds of self-inflicted injuries you shaped from the yolk. It is true
that while still a foetus in the collective wombs of your mothers (CPC,
ACN, and fragments of APGA), you showed persistent signs of not really
getting what the philosophy of opposition is all about – while
conveniently using the evil desire of the PDP and INEC to abort the
pregnancy as an excuse for your own incipient obtuseness.
Therefore, this memo welcomes you to the cradle with loads of good
intentions. If, however, you insist on seeing it as the handiwork of an
enemy, you may take consolation in the fact that a newborn begins the
business of acquiring enemies in this world the moment it is able to
crawl and upturn cups and plates, wasting water and food. If you elect
to ignore this memo or treat it as the work of a hostile intellectual,
your paternal uncles, Lai Mohammed and Rotimi Fashakin, are welcome to
rock you to sleep with this Ebenezer Obey lullaby: “ota omode, bere lati
bi irakoro, ka dani l’onje nu…” If they are wise, however, they will
keep you awake and alert to the following four memo items rather than
claim that you have fallen into the malevolent hands of the world:
1.Identity
Your identity problem started right from your days as a foetus. You
just assumed that by adopting “Progressives” as your middle name and
tucking it seamlessly between “All” and “Congress”, all other things
shall be added, most especially legitimacy in the eyes of a Nigerian
people desperate to be rid of nearly two decades of plunder and rape by
the useless and visionless PDP. You assumed that battered and betrayed
Nigerians would confer automatic oppositional legitimacy on just about
anybody or any entity able to scream the loudest about the irredeemable
incompetence of Goodluck Jonathan and the overbearing and unending
irrationalities of his wife, Jesus Christ (formerly known as Lazarus,
all documents remain valid).
So certain were you about your
pre-determined and unearned legitimacy as the oppositional alternative
to the unbearable rot that are Goodluck Jonathan and his godforsaken PDP
that you assumed you had the luxury of throwing away the core meaning
of the term, progressive, in the context of democratic discourses and
political philosophy. As conception took place and you grew weekly as a
foetus, “progressive” in APC-speak became an open sesame for every
manner of character, much like the maggot-ridden umbrella of the ruling
party. The chaotic and open sesame approach to your emergence ensured
that rather than acquire the characteristics associated with progressive
and oppositional politics, you became very vulnerable to taking on the
complexion of a confederacy of political losers united only by
gradations of loss. Loss of an election, loss of a political
appointment, loss of membership of the eating club at the centre, loss
of political relevance, loss of critical access to the corridors of
power became the only identifiable trait of a foundational strange
bedfellowship.
However, there are losses and there are losses.
The loss of the Nigerian people, for instance, is not personal in the
political scheme of things. What we collectively lost to the PDP’s reign
of locusts in the last two decades are the vision, dreams,
possibilities, and potentials of Nigeria. This is a deep collective loss
as opposed to the personal losses of the arrowheads of the APC who are
busy trying to equate those personal losses with the fundamental losses
of the Nigerian people. Our loss as a people affects our psyche, your
loss as a member of the political elite affects your pocket and your
belly. It is not the same loss. Therefore, you have no right to expect
the people to automatically equate your personal loss with their
collective loss just because you are making noise and abusing those
responsible for your loss in the circles of political prebends.
You have to work to convince the people that you have purged yourself
of the consequences and hangover of your personal loss and you now
understand the ramifications of our collective loss. You need to work
very hard at showing us just where, when, and how you differ
fundamentally from the PDP. I am not talking about issuing platitudinal
statements to abuse Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP all the time. That is
not how to establish your own identity as a political party. You have to
show us the meat, ideologically speaking. And we are not seeing it yet.
I have written elsewhere that what I see, for now, is the APC becoming
the botanical name of PDP. Think about it.
2. Ideology
This is related to your problems of identity. Here, again, you assume
and carry on like your name should make your ideological creed obvious
and easily graspable by the people. You assume that everyone should know
why and how you are ideologically different from the PDP. Well, one
would have to know who you are ideologically before even moving to the
question of whether your ideology is markedly different from the PDP’s.
I’m afraid I’m at a loss here. Just who and what are you, ideologically?
Have you asked yourself the following questions: why is it
that migrants from other political parties are not afflicted by
ideological homesickness once they land in APC? What is it in the APC’s
ideological mould that would make a PDP chieftain very comfortable once
he crosses over? What is it about the APC that made it possible for even
the recidivist pedophile of Zamfara, Senator Sani Ahmed Yerima, to
appear to speak for it a few weeks ago? Why is Tom Ikimi, a former
Chairman of the National Republican Convention who subsequently helped
General Sani Abacha to rape the potential of Nigeria, so ideologically
comfortable in the APC? The answer to all these questions are simple:
there is no ideological difference in contemporary Nigerian party
politics. You just have actors roaming from platform to platform to
secure or guarantee better access to the national cake. Nothing would
take Andy Ubah, Ayo Fayose, or even Olusegun Obasanjo ideologically out
of their comfort zone if they joined APC today.
Think of it
this way: can you picture any scenario in which Senator John McCain or
Lindsey Graham would end up in the Democratic Party after electoral
losses? After some years in hibernation, can you think of any imaginable
scenario in which Terry McAuliffe would resurrect as a Republican? Can
you imagine a scenario in which Paul Begala and James Carville would
become strategists for the Republican Party with a permanent home at Fox
News? Can you picture Karl Rove migrating to become a Democratic
Strategist in a Hillary Clinton White House in 2016? If you cannot
imagine any of these things, it is because we are talking about two
ideologically opposed views/visions of society and democracy and not
just about political appointments and access to bread and butter.
To crossover to Democratic ideology, Senators McCain and Graham, for
instance, would have to subscribe to bigger government funding presence
in social programs as opposed to believing that making billionaires and
Wall Street comfortable would guarantee prosperity by trickling down to
the poor and the vulnerable; they would have to suddenly become
sympathetic to the cause and issues of minorities: gays, women, the
disabled, etc. They would have to embrace an entirely different vision
and approach to education, jobs, guns, race, abortion, foreign policy,
the military, civil rights, etc. In short, they would have to be tigers
learning the rudiments of a vegetarian diet. Applying this scenario to
Nigeria, exactly what did Tom Ikimi have to change to blend in so well
in the APC? Did he just carry his NPN-derived, Abacha-inflected NRC
ideology seamlessly over? What would Atiku Abubakar, Ibrahim Babangida
have to change today if they boarded the APC train? The answer is
nothing. They would carry their ideology to the same dining table with
Kayode Fayemi and Raji Fashola. This scenario is possible because no
Nigerian party is presently about any core and fundamental ideology.
Make no mistake about it, there was a time when party politics in
Nigeria was driven by ideology. Umaru Dikko or Adisa Akinloye would
never have been able to find a comfortable ideological bed in UPN or
PRP. Today, they would be able to go back and forth between PDP and APC
without any ideological hiccups. Since you legally cannot deny
membership of your party to any Nigerian, ideology is what makes it
impossible for those who do not share your philosophical approach to and
vision of society to join you. You have to start working on a coherent
ideology that will not just distinguish you from the rest, especially
the PDP, but will also make it difficult for anybody from a different
ideological persuasion to feel at home in your domain. It is not enough
to welcome and baptize them progressives like Ajimobi recently did in
Ibadan while embracing PDP decampees.
3.Entitlement
Nigerians do not owe you the debt of automatic acceptance. They do not
owe you conferment of popular legitimacy just because you are claiming
to be the embodiment of their collective rejection of the PDP. These are
things you have to work very hard for and earn. Therefore, you will
have to do something urgent and drastic about your sense of entitlement
to immediate validity. So long as you believe that rejection of Goodluck
Jonathan and his PDP translates to automatic acceptance of what you say
you are offering but have not really explained to us, you will continue
to live in a fool’s paradise. My friend, Chido Onumah, was recently a
victim of the bullies who see themselves as enforcers of your automatic
validity. They abused the heck out of him for requiring that you answer
tough questions. And the poor man kept explaining and explaining,
forgetting that all the explanations should be coming from his entitled
traducers. They have to explain why they believe that the people’s
disgruntlement with PDP should translate automatically to an endorsement
of a new platform that is asking to be placed above legitimate critical
scrutiny from inception. You must be reminded in no uncertain terms,
APC, that we are not fighting for a Nigeria in which the loudest abusers
of the incumbent acquire automatic validity as the opposition and
proceed to entertain illusions of immunity from criticism. No, the
Nigeria we envision will necessitate your having to work very hard to
sell your vision to the people and be humble if they accept it. We dream
of a Nigeria in which rejection of the status quo would not invalidate
the necessity of probing and critiquing emerging alternatives. You must
be reminded that Nigeria, for some us, is much more than a game of
musical chairs between two sets of ego-driven elite, some dancing around
the chairs, waiting to expel those sitting and denying them a seat.
4.Elitism
APC, once you stop playing musical chairs with the PDP, you’ll be able
to look in the mirror and see how much of the PDP’s Siamese twin you
currently are in terms of strategies and modes of relating to the people
of Nigeria. The PDP has always been a party of yeye chieftains, useless
elders, and corrupt stakeholders. Nothing about that party inheres in
the people. She has never even needed the people to win elections. She
“captures” power and political offices in a process driven by corruption
and rigging. Nothing is explained to the people. The singular function
of the people is to cheer as spectators as the country is plundered.
They are the ones to whom ankara and rice are distributed at victory
rallies. When the people wear the ankara to those political rallies,
their bodies collectively become artistic display canvasses of the
corruption of their conquerors.
When I first heard the idea of
APC, I said to myself that the wise thing to do would be to eloquently
map a different course from the PDP’s sickening elitism. Do not
photocopy the scenario of yeye chieftains, useless party elders, and
corrupt stakeholders meeting in choice hotels in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna,
Abeokuta, Owerri, and Enugu to carve out portfolios, offices, and
personal fiefs even before going to the people to explain yourselves.
Start with townhall meetings all over the country. Take a leaf from the
grassroots canvassing of the Obama campaign and what folks are doing
quietly at readyforhillary.com. Send foot soldiers to villages all over
Nigeria. Let Kabiyesis, Obis, and Emirs, call town centre meetings for
you.
You already have a groundswell of national disgruntlement
with the PDP to use as a door to mass appeal once you assure the people
that this thing is with them and of them. Explain this thing to the
people. “We are leaders of CPC, ACN, and APGA o. We are planning to
come together under a new political party to confront PDP ni o. We need
your input and support ni o.” Go to the trade unions and the labour
unions. Go to the market women of Nigeria. Storm University campuses all
over Nigeria and let your spokespersons submit themselves to grilling
at campus open fora. Let this thing be of the people and from the people
as opposed to the impervious elitism of the PDP. This cross-country
canvassing would not in any way have been incompatible with the regular
scenario of committee formations and party leaders holding endless
meetings to strategize and work out finer details of the merger. Both
processes would have been complementary.
Rather than do this,
we saw a photocopy of haughty PDP elitism. Chief Tom Ikimi would wake up
and address a press conference, talking about the formation of elitist
committees of elders and distinguished Nigerians, with the ever present
hint of the people being told to await further directives. Even the
diction wasn’t really different from the PDP’s: sharing formula and all
that jazz. If you are going to copy the elitist strategies of the PDP,
please APC, I beg you in the name of God, acknowledge your sources and
avoid plagiarism.
Start with these four memorandum points and
let’s see how it rolls. While you are it, remember that Nigerians don’t
owe you anything. You owe them everything. If you do not understand this
simple, if you do not base your strategies on working like you owe them
everything, Nigerians will give you a look in, see an arrogant replica
of the PDP, and sing: “ma gbe keke e lo”. I trust that your paternal
uncles, Lai Mohammed and Rotimi Fashakin, will explain this to you. Once
again, happy birthday to you.
