By Abuchi Obiora
In a work titled “Solving Nigeria’s Political Equation” written by me and published in the REFLECTION column on page A12 of The Guardian on Sunday Newspaper of February 13, 1994, (28 years ago) I had argued that solving Nigeria’s political equation through the emergence of true progressive politics in the country is the only sustainable route to socio-political and economic development of the country because true progressivism in politics is the catalyst for socio-political and economic development of any country.
I had observed in that work that since Independence, the politics of Nigeria has hovered around the two closely-related political ideological camps of the Liberals and the Conservatives.
To quote a portion of that work, I wrote “The Conservatives Headquartered in the North, have been in control of political power since Independence. It is a conglomeration of some powerful northern political power blocks, though there are southern elements in the group…” I continued, “The liberals having emerged as a result of the fall-out in common interest with the Conservatives and headquartered in the south, have support in the marginalized areas of the north mostly the northern minorities…”
In that work of 28 years ago, I continued in building my argument to prove that there never existed any progressive politics in Nigeria since Independence. I wrote that “It must be noted that the diverse interest groups that emerged as a result of the scramble to take over the ruler-ship of Nigeria from the colonial masters are very much alive today. As a matter of fact, the descendants of their founding fathers or the beneficiaries of their political and/or traditional offices form the personalities around whom the activities of the groups revolve. In Nigeria, the most powerful on each side constitute the core, the inner circle of either the Conservatives or the Liberals….”
Continuing in my argument that there has never been any progressive politician in Nigeria since Independence, I wrote that “The absence of organized progressive groups in Nigeria is because primarily, the emergence of the power blocks derived from self-serving rather than nationalistic interests. These power blocks, having been constituted basically on ethnic, more than ideological reasons, were later to produce disjointed alliances in the First Republic. Events in the Second Republic politics did not show that there was a serious deviation from that pattern…”
Now, the question is: has there been any deviation from that pattern of the First and Second Republic during this period of the Third Republic? I mean, since 1999 till date? The answer is no. If there has been any deviation from the former pattern, it is definitely on the negative side. This negative side, obviously against the interest of Nigerian masses, is that the gap between the Conservatives and the Liberals in Nigerian politics have continued to shrink, almost closing up.
The Conservatives who have long been managing all the streams of national income including the oil wells of the Niger Delta have used their immense wealth dubiously acquired at the expense of the country, to buy out the Liberals who did not hesitate to sell out.
As a civilian President during Nigerian First and only experiment in Diarchy as a system of government, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida promoted the process of destroying and finally nailed the coffin of Liberal politics in Nigeria through his weird, corruptive and experimental ‘Political Engineering’ and the Machiavellian ingenuity of ‘Settlement’ the Nigerian way.
Through mass bribery, Conservative politicians have decimated Liberal politics in Nigeria. For example, what was thought to be Progressive politics in Nigeria during the NADECO days of emergency Progressives revealed itself to be weak Liberalism with such ‘Progressive; NADECO chieftains as Asiwaju the Jagaban carrying tons of Naira to his Ikoyi home with bullion vans. Mass bribery which I ironically called ‘pouching’ in that work of 28 years ago have ensured the near strangulation of Liberal politics in Nigeria with few Liberal politicians remaining. In that work, I also wrote that “Some Liberal politicians, bemused with the hopelessness of their futile attempts at power, have been rendered political errand boys, trying to get it”. I Insisted that “The defeat of Nigerian civil war has also contributed to the deteriorating state of affairs with the Liberal politicians….. make no mistake, not only were the Igbos defeated in that civil war, the Yorubas, and indeed the rest of Nigeria were defeated by the people who waged the war – the Conservatives”
“Ever since then, their political fortune has been on the ascendancy. Like today, the Conservatives, wearing the gab of a united Nigeria have always used such weapons like the annulment of election result, coup d’etets, pounching, and a war to conquer Nigeria”.
The above observations were made by me after conducting a research on the evolution of politics in Nigeria since Independence in the wake of the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential elections and published as already said.
Now, the question is: What has changed since then, I ask again? Absolutely nothing, I repeat! Another negative change that I have observed is the change in tactics by the Conservatives, and the fact that they have ‘upped ‘ their game of ‘pouching’ on the Liberal politicians with more ”settlement”, the Nigerian way.
As a matter of fact, it can never be an overstatement to say that the Conservative camp have swallowed the Liberal camp, leaving Nigerians at the mercy of the wicked, heartless politicians who continue to impoverish them. Testimony to this is the increasing wave of cross-carpeting by politicians across the political parties wherefore Nigerians do not understand the ideological differences between the ruling party and the opposition party.
Like it was 28 years ago, self-interest and not political ideology is still the sole determinant factor for Nigerian politicians in their choice of political affiliations. This truth was not clear to Nigerians before until the hitherto masked abracadabra faces of the APC and the PDP politicians were eventually unveiled to the surprise and consternation of Nigerians who had wrongly believed that the present Nigerian political class will take them to the proverbial paradise.
One of the purposes for this discourse is to sensitize Nigerians to understand that being again at the cross-roads as they were after the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential election results, another opportunity is just coming up with the 2023 general elections to solve the stubborn and persisting political equation of the country.
If Nigerians allow this second opportunity to elude them, I am afraid that we shall all be in for great suffering and untold hardships for only-God-knows-how-long. The only way to permanently solve the political equation of the country is for Nigerians to take up the task of re-directing the course of the ship of the nation in their hands, and vote for a President who will quickly change the Constitution of the Federal Republic to reflect true fiscal federalism that guarantees certain autonomies for the federating units.
The recently concluded shambolic national conventions of the APC and the PDP which threw up the elected officers to handle the affairs of the two political parties as the steam of the 2023 general elections gather, have proven that Nigerian politicians – all conservatives – have reached a common understanding to the effect that Nigeria is their farm land where Nigerians are the tools to effect the harvest. This common understanding is the swindling and the oppression of Nigerian masses.
Let us look at the elected officers after the recently-concluded conventions of the APC and the PDP to prove the fact that present Nigerian politicians are there to serve themselves and not Nigerians. In what is jocularly referred to in the Nigerian social media as Nigerian Politicians Transfer Window 2023, the following observations have been made about the former party affiliations of newly elected national officers of Nigeria’s two major political parties:
APC LINE UP FOR 2023
- National Chairman: Abdullahi Adamu (decamped from PDP)
- National Secretary: Iyiola Omisore (decamped from PDP)
- National Women Leader: Beta Edu (decamped from PDP)
- National Legal Adviser: Barrister Ahmed El-Marzuk (decamped from PDP)
- National Treasurer: Uguru Matthew Ofoka (decamped from PDP)
- National Auditor: Senator Abubakar Maikafi (decamped from PDP)
- National Welfare Secretary: Barrister F.N Nwosu (decamped from PDP)
- Deputy National Chairman South East: Emmanuel Enukwu (decamped from PDP)
- National Vice Chairman North Central: Muazu Bawa Rjau (decamped from PDP)
- National Vice Chairman North East: Mustapha Salihu (decamped from PDP)
- Deputy National Secretary: Barrister Festus Fuanter (decamped from PDP)
- Deputy National Organizing Secretary: Nze Chidi Duru (decamped from PDP)
PDP LINE UP FOR 2023
- National Chairman: Iyorchia Ayu (decamped from APC)
- Deputy National Chairman South: Taofeek Arapaja (decamped from APC)
- Deputy National Chairman North: Umar Damagun (decamped from APC)
- National Secretary: Samuel Anyanwu (decamped from APC)
- National Treasurer: Ahmad Mohammed (decamped from APC)
- National Organizing Secretary: Umar Bature (decamped from APC)
- National Legal Adviser: Kamaldeen Ajibade (decamped from APC)
- Deputy National Publicity Secretary: Ibrahim Abdullahi (decamped from APC)
- Deputy National Women Leader: Hajara Wanka (decamped from APC)
The PDP and APC line-ups for the 2023 general elections in Nigeria presents a picture of the optimum utilization of the type of Transfer Window usually provided by FIFA during international football tournaments such as the European League, the Bundesliga, the Spanish League and the World Cup. Using Nigerians as their footballs, Nigerian politicians have turned Nigerian politics into a political tournament where the end justifies the means in a winner-takes-it-all ruthless duel. This ruthless duel is organized and executed on the playing ground of the collective destinies of Nigerians.
The only ideology which the present Nigerian political elites share in common is the oppression of Nigerians. This is why they freely move from one political party to the other without qualms, feeling no moral obligations to both themselves and to Nigerians as they do that. But this must end and it is the collective duty of Nigerians to end it fast.
I have followed up closely listening and reading the Declaration speeches of the aspirants to the office of Nigerian President who have so far presented themselves to Nigeria, and I found out that all of them, except one man in his early fifties have directly addressed the problems of the country.
None of these other Presidential aspirants have discovered any need to address such structural defects in the Federal Republic such as the strange, Nigerian-type Federal- Unitary system of government (instead of fiscal federalism) and other skewed fundamental tenets of the 1999 Constitution hoisted on Nigerians by a military dictatorship sponsored by an inconspicuous and audacious ethnic nationality in Nigeria whose impunity have never been challenged as a result of its chameleonic attitude to take over and retain power.
It seems that all of these Presidential aspirants who have so far declared their intentions to run are either afraid to change the system that Nigerians detest, they are part and parcel of the system Nigerians are suffering and dying to change or they are sponsored by the chameleonic agents of the status quo.
But the truth is that not until the present political structure of the country is tinkered on through a far-reaching amendment of the 1999 Constitution to reflect true Presidential system of government whereby an in-built financial autonomy through fiscal federalism is encouraged, Nigeria will know no peace and continue to remain a dysfunctional country, which in the words of Mr. Peter Obi, a former executive governor of Anambra state is akin to a rickety vehicle that fails to serve its purposes whose owner, rather than change the engine and refurbish his vehicle to ensure effective and optimal performance, is tied and bogged down with the unwise rigmarole of changing the vehicle’s drivers blaming all of them for the non-performance of his vehicle.
A polity that practices Quota System and endorses Federal Character Formula as primary conditions for passing common entrance examination for admission into secondary schools, as well as polytechnics and universities and employs same for employment in the Federal Civil Service, appointment of senior officers in sundry federal offices, also applying same method in promotions in the Federal Civil Service and allotment of political offices, and with it leadership positions in all strata of government, is only enthroning mediocrity as an indispensable national policy because it has inadvertently allowed dull students, less bright than their classmates who are better and naturally qualified than them to call the shots. This obnoxious system allows the intellectually weak to climb to the top echelons of power and run the affairs of the country. Unfortunately for Nigeria and Nigerians, most of the people who have been at the helm of affairs of government, including many of her civilian Presidents and military dictators, Senators, House of Assembly members, Governors, Federal Ministers and other Federal Government appointees, belong to this group of Nigerians.
For this reason, Nigerians must be very careful in choosing their leaders in the 2023 general elections because many politicians will present themselves with the hand of Esau though they are enclosed in the body of Jacob. An Igbo proverb says that “A bird that flies off the ground and perches on an anthill has not gone away from its environment”. It is not the tradition of Igbos to interpret proverbs. Actually, it is a taboo to interpret proverbs in Igbo land where it is assumed that no dowry may have been paid on the mother of the person to whom a proverb is being interpreted – an ironical way to say that an Igbo man or woman to whom a proverb is interpreted is a bastard.
But because of the multi-ethnic audience to whom this work is addressed, I shall interpret the proverb. The proverb can be viewed from the perspective of a warning sign for people who dare to take decisions. It advises that decisions must be taken devoid of sentiments and emotions, otherwise people will discover that they have not actually solved the problems which make them initiate and take decisions to change a subsisting and unpleasant condition.
Correspondingly, Nigerians with their extreme sad experience in the hands of the apostles of “Change 2015” will not have achieved anything if they miss the opportunity that will soon come up in 2023 to vote out politicians who, though they have tried in their various (crooked) ways to solve the problems of the country as has just been echoed by the Chief Imam of Apo Central Mosque, Abuja, FCT, Sheikh Nuru Khalid, are unable to solve those problems. Like the Sheikh said, their best is not good enough for Nigerians. They most quit or be voted out.
As a political analyst of some experience in Nigeria, I believe that there can never be a better time to try out the capacities of a new breed of Nigerian politicians to heal the wounds of the country, than now.
Unless Nigerians are ready to continue to wallow in poverty, penury and disease, all the members of the present and recycled political class should be heading for retirement or made to head for retirement through mass denial of the votes of the Nigerian electorate. By the way, using the good, the bad and the ugly methods, the present political class will fight back to retain power. But they will not be able to subdue all of us at the same time.
Nigerians must come out in 2023 to massively vote them out and take up the political stage in order to drive true progressivism in Nigeria. In this regard, I am concluding this discourse with the same warning as I did in that work of 28 years ago that, “The alternative to this is popular empowerment, and because of the burning hatred now among the people, popular empowerment in Nigeria may not go without upheavals. It may turn out to be a costly option.”
ABUCHI OBIORA
abuchiobiora@gmail.com
For: Global Upfront Newspapers
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