Pendulum: Has APC Bewitched PDP Or What?

By Dele Momodu

Fellow Nigerians, it is difficult for any keen observer of
Nigerian politics not to reach the same conclusion with me, that
the main opposition party, PDP, has been in a somnambulist state in
the last six years. It has blatantly refused to take advantage of
the failed Buhari Presidency and offer itself as a vibrant
alternative and viable opposition to what has been a turgid even
torrid and toxic government for Nigerians to deal with. I will
explain comprehensively in this epistle why I have come to that
logical conclusion.

As far back as 2018, I had reasonably concluded that APC was far
worse, in government, than the PDP administration that it had
cleverly and adroitly sacked from power by beguiling and
mesmerising Nigerians with sweet words that had by 2018 led to
little or no action. PDP had suffered almost irredeemably from the
blistering propaganda attacks against its apparatchiks and certain
colourful and powerful personages, in particular. Two things stood
out in those poisonous campaigns of calumny mounted against the PDP
by some of the best in the business; one, that PDP was the most
corrupt political party in Africa and that some of its Ministers
vamoosed with looted cash running into billions of dollars; two,
that PDP lacked the capacity to tackle the abysmal security failure
in the country and that only one Messiah, Major General Muhammadu
Buhari, was the only saint left on earth to tackle both major
weaknesses of the then PDP government. There was no doubt that most
Nigerians bought into that superlative narrative as they trooped
out en masse and expectantly to vote for the gentle and taciturn
General.

However, as you know, if lies run upfront for 20 years, truth
would catch up with it in just one day. APC had built a castle of
spittle that was ever so brittle and only a mere dew would collapse
it in no time. Many discerning Nigerians were quick to realize that
they have been fooled by the new, but really only rebranded Party
called the APC, .and taken on a flight of fancy. They were not
different from the inconsolable preys of 419, victims of an
abracadabra that makes it possible for someone to obtain huge sums
from you, instalmentally and exponentially, by false pretence!

What you would have expected a serious political party to do
upon losing the elections in the manner that they did was to
quickly embark on a meticulous re-appraisal and reorganize its home
in preparation for the next election. Instead, the Party seemed to
have gone into total disarray. Its frontline men were suddenly
abandoning a ship that was not really sinking but was only flailing
in a turbulent sea.

Unfortunately, that’s the nature of Nigeria’s politicians. The
belief is that once you join the APC, the vaunted protector of
anti-corruption, you would be safe notwithstanding the public
stance. The aphorism is “sinners join the APC and have your sins
wiped away and sin no more” even if seen to still be doing so. I am
even of the opinion that if the ousted President Jonathan had had
the guts to take on President Muhammadu Buhari in the same manner
his good friend, former President John Dramani Mahama, did in
Ghana, Nigeria would not have been thrown into what now seems to be
a one-party state, today. He should have immediately become the
leader of opposition who would rally his footsoldiers nationwide.
This apparent lacuna in a strong and versatile leadership of the
PDP inadvertently gave Buhari the power of life and death over us
all. Despite this obvious fact, the PDP could still not paper over
its divisions and close its ranks. Rather it continued to fight a
war of attrition amongst its senior members. The air was stale and
heavy with the bile of envy, jealousy and meanness.

In 2018, after I had finally given up on Buhari, I visited the
former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in Abuja and asked him a
pertinent question? “Sir, don’t you think PDP has become a damaged
brand and it may need urgent rebranding before the next election?
No matter what you say, that name PDP would always evoke negative
emotions in Nigerians, even if we now know that APC is much worse!”
His response: “Dele, you’re very right, we need to rebrand PDP but
there are serious challenges, more so, time is not on our side.

A lot of resources have gone into producing souvenirs and such
items…” That sounded reasonable but of course, I was not totally
convinced. It was at that point that it physically dawned on me
that we were living in a failed State and that we are all doomed.
There was clearly no opposition worth mentioning in existence. It
was indeed a great joke, but we still had to support the candidate
thrown up by the PDP because the choice of the Party in power
seemed anathema to us. Giving the huge failings we had seen by then
and our prognosis of what the future entailed, it was clear that an
unfocussed PDP was still better than a tried and tested APC
Government that had shown itself as an expert in maladministration,
graft, insecurity, nepotism, bigotry and anarchy. Notwithstanding
our stance as the Fourth Estate of the Realm, the APC crushed the
PDP in obviously manipulated elections. This was made possible
because the PDP had simply gone AWOL (absent without Leave)…

But what happened after the 2019 elections when a failed
political party still won the elections? It was more of the same.
PDP has simply not gotten its act together. Instead, the petty
squabbles have increased and there is no clear leadership path in
the Party Secretariat. I wonder! Should it not have occurred to PDP
that it needed to undertake major surgical procedures in order to
stay alive. Rather, the Party simply went into deeper slumber,
sleeping and snoring.

The PDP even failed to correct some of the exaggerated and
preposterous allegations and indictments against its prominent
members and officials. How come APC has not found it necessary to
prosecute any alleged major culprit of the previous government? If
APC knew those who stole billions of dollars, how come it has not
attempted to abduct and crate them (a la Umaru Dikko) back to
Nigeria to face justice instead of borrowing recklessly from the
Chinese banks to plug the gaping financial hole that the APC
government has sunk us into? At least we now know that this level
of perfidy and crudeness is not beyond this government in the light
of the Nnamdi Kanu debacle and the detention of the Igbo freedom
fighter. The story of Chief Sunday Igboho Adeyemo is not too
different.

In my view, PDP has bungled many chances because of its docile
nature and tepid leadership. Everything is wrong with the country
and yet we do not see any bright spark from the PDP. It is so
painful.
Our economy is in tatters. The Naira has gone totally South. The
President’s apparition of a country with its currency at almost
parity with the US Dollar has been revealed as being exactly that,
an apparition for the President, and a continuing nightmare for the
citizenry forced to endure rates never before experienced for any
sustained period. And we are told, by those who should know, that
this is just the beginning.

The country is constantly plunged into darkness. The promises by
our Ministers in charge of Power, that this would be a thing of the
past within a short period of the assumption into office by the
government in each of its two terms, has proven to be a mirage.
There is no solution in sight. On the contrary the country seems to
adopt half-baked policies which are badly implemented to solve what
others have found to be a basic problem that does not need rocket
science solutions. We must simply brace up for greater darkness. It
is probably a fitting epithet to this Government, which prided
itself as the Party of light, that gloom, darkness and doom abounds
and follows it around.

Corruption has gripped the nation by the jugular. The very
fabric of government and its appurtenances is woven up in a web of
deceit, lack of integrity and astonishing and amazing corrupt
practices that make the antics of previous governments pilloried
and crucified for their corruption as mere child’s play. We have
simply never had it so bad. It is unbelievable and mind
boggling.

Insecurity has become a cancer eating voraciously and rapidly at
the very heart and soul of the nation. It is not just tolerated by
the government; it is being festered and fostered by it. Bandits,
hoodlums and terrorists hold sway all over the land. They control
and command significant territories, particularly in Northern
Nigeria. People are afraid of their well-being. There is not much
they can do, except hope and pray. Recourse to prayer is becoming
unfashionable because the problems seem to be growing in leaps and
bounds rather than them abating. Our Pastors, Imams, Alfas and
Marabouts are definitely getting it violently wrong, or we are fast
becoming an accursed nation with the very worst devils springing
from the pits of hell to come and torment, torture and traumatise
us.
Nepotism, parochialism, bigotry and ethnicity have become the order
of the day. The President seems to favour one part of the country
at the expense of all the other parts. They are so far in the
ascendancy and believe in their invincibility because they have
their patron in power.

To top it all, it is a fact that if you remove Buhari from APC,
the Party will fall yakata and smash into smithereens. And
inexorably, the time constitutionally appointed to vote the new
President draws nearer and nearer. One would have thought that an
efficient opposition Party would realise this fact, and coupled
with the gargantuan challenges currently facing the country, they
would seize the moment, seize the initiative and drive the APC out
of power. What do I see instead, indolence and inaction? This
grieves my spirit because it means there’s virtually no hope for
the country, if we allow a one party State to ultimately
emerge!

No other opposition party currently has the structure,
experience and exposure to take on the APC behemoth apart from the
PDP. I have told many of my friends who are still nursing
Presidential ambition that they should all gather in the two
mainstream Parties or perish the thought completely. PDP remains
formidable and potent if it allows itself to be well organised and
well drilled.

Politics is a game of money and PDP controls some of the richest
and most viable states in Nigeria. They are Akwa Ibom, Rivers,
Delta, Bayelsa and a few others. But for Rivers and Lagos in 2015,
it would have been most difficult for Buhari to win on his fourth
attempt. PDP still possesses the magic wand to produce the next
President, if Nigeria remains intact by then, and the hawks of
power do not succeed with their selfish rascality and dangerous
plans.

In order to regain power from an obviously desperate APC that is
hell bent on retaining power, PDP must rebrand urgently, change its
name, attract younger folks and all those already disenfranchised,
solidify its base in the South East, South South and grab a
substantial chunk of South West. It already has some serious
footholds in the North Central as well as North West and North
East. If the next election holds, it is unlikely that APC would be
able to replicate a Buhari phenomenon again. PDP should jazz up its
game by changing its tactics and becoming more serious. At the
moment it does not appear that the Party or its members have faith
in themselves. They appear to be stumbling along and are happy to
accept whatever PDP dictates to them. ImI’m yet to see any evidence
of panic and needful reactions as APC countinues the onslaught of
poaching more and more of PDP members.

Part of the necessary rebranding would be for PDP to begin to
showcase the amazing performances of its Governors. Most people
agree today that the PDP states are performing far better than the
Federal Government and its allied states. States such as Rivers,
Akwa Ibom, Oyo have become poster boards for the party. If PDP
decides to stick to its old ways and refuses to be more audaciously
creative, they should forget coming back to power soon.

I will urge those who do not like PDP to also try and
proliferate APC. We should stop dissipating our energies and
resources on new political parties. It is obvious that Nigeria is
not ready for more than two major parties at the moment.

As for APC, all is not lost. It can still drag itself away from
the precipice of defeat, It needs to consolidate on the strong
talents and brains it has in the current government, starting from
the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. The Party must retrace
its steps and abandon the path to destruction and oblivion on which
it has currently firmly placed itself and the country. It must
eschew sectionalism, ethnicity and tribalism. It must act
equitably, fairly and judiciously in the spread of appointments. It
must be seen not to deploy favouritism and bias as its hallmark and
handiwork. By doing that, it would also engage the cankerworm of
insecurity and begin to win the war against bandits, terrorists and
insurrection.

For me, it is not about which Party eventually wins the coveted
prize. No, it must always be about which Party is best for our
country at any particular time. Which party offers the array of
talent that can take us from the age of backwardness to the
technological age of hope and prosperity. Nigeria is too blessed to
be controlled endlessly by its dregs. For too long now, we have
been largely ruled by mediocres. Both PDP and APC have a chance to
stop the rot and field the best. From this, only the nation and our
dear pulverised and pummelled citizens can be the beneficiaries. I
align with the recent thoughts and postulations of former President
Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida on this sentiment. We all must learn
useful lessons from the past and make necessary changes
urgently.
If the PDP assumes its proper role and status, as the conscience
and critic of the ruling Party, we will see tremendous improvement
in both Parties and in the governance of our great country.
Let’s hope, it is not all a mirage…

By Dele Momodu

Fellow Nigerians, it is difficult for any keen observer of
Nigerian politics not to reach the same conclusion with me, that
the main opposition party, PDP, has been in a somnambulist state in
the last six years. It has blatantly refused to take advantage of
the failed Buhari Presidency and offer itself as a vibrant
alternative and viable opposition to what has been a turgid even
torrid and toxic government for Nigerians to deal with. I will
explain comprehensively in this epistle why I have come to that
logical conclusion.

As far back as 2018, I had reasonably concluded that APC was far
worse, in government, than the PDP administration that it had
cleverly and adroitly sacked from power by beguiling and
mesmerising Nigerians with sweet words that had by 2018 led to
little or no action. PDP had suffered almost irredeemably from the
blistering propaganda attacks against its apparatchiks and certain
colourful and powerful personages, in particular. Two things stood
out in those poisonous campaigns of calumny mounted against the PDP
by some of the best in the business; one, that PDP was the most
corrupt political party in Africa and that some of its Ministers
vamoosed with looted cash running into billions of dollars; two,
that PDP lacked the capacity to tackle the abysmal security failure
in the country and that only one Messiah, Major General Muhammadu
Buhari, was the only saint left on earth to tackle both major
weaknesses of the then PDP government. There was no doubt that most
Nigerians bought into that superlative narrative as they trooped
out en masse and expectantly to vote for the gentle and taciturn
General.

However, as you know, if lies run upfront for 20 years, truth
would catch up with it in just one day. APC had built a castle of
spittle that was ever so brittle and only a mere dew would collapse
it in no time. Many discerning Nigerians were quick to realize that
they have been fooled by the new, but really only rebranded Party
called the APC, .and taken on a flight of fancy. They were not
different from the inconsolable preys of 419, victims of an
abracadabra that makes it possible for someone to obtain huge sums
from you, instalmentally and exponentially, by false pretence!

What you would have expected a serious political party to do
upon losing the elections in the manner that they did was to
quickly embark on a meticulous re-appraisal and reorganize its home
in preparation for the next election. Instead, the Party seemed to
have gone into total disarray. Its frontline men were suddenly
abandoning a ship that was not really sinking but was only flailing
in a turbulent sea.

Unfortunately, that’s the nature of Nigeria’s politicians. The
belief is that once you join the APC, the vaunted protector of
anti-corruption, you would be safe notwithstanding the public
stance. The aphorism is “sinners join the APC and have your sins
wiped away and sin no more” even if seen to still be doing so. I am
even of the opinion that if the ousted President Jonathan had had
the guts to take on President Muhammadu Buhari in the same manner
his good friend, former President John Dramani Mahama, did in
Ghana, Nigeria would not have been thrown into what now seems to be
a one-party state, today. He should have immediately become the
leader of opposition who would rally his footsoldiers nationwide.
This apparent lacuna in a strong and versatile leadership of the
PDP inadvertently gave Buhari the power of life and death over us
all. Despite this obvious fact, the PDP could still not paper over
its divisions and close its ranks. Rather it continued to fight a
war of attrition amongst its senior members. The air was stale and
heavy with the bile of envy, jealousy and meanness.

In 2018, after I had finally given up on Buhari, I visited the
former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in Abuja and asked him a
pertinent question? “Sir, don’t you think PDP has become a damaged
brand and it may need urgent rebranding before the next election?
No matter what you say, that name PDP would always evoke negative
emotions in Nigerians, even if we now know that APC is much worse!”
His response: “Dele, you’re very right, we need to rebrand PDP but
there are serious challenges, more so, time is not on our side.

A lot of resources have gone into producing souvenirs and such
items…” That sounded reasonable but of course, I was not totally
convinced. It was at that point that it physically dawned on me
that we were living in a failed State and that we are all doomed.
There was clearly no opposition worth mentioning in existence. It
was indeed a great joke, but we still had to support the candidate
thrown up by the PDP because the choice of the Party in power
seemed anathema to us. Giving the huge failings we had seen by then
and our prognosis of what the future entailed, it was clear that an
unfocussed PDP was still better than a tried and tested APC
Government that had shown itself as an expert in maladministration,
graft, insecurity, nepotism, bigotry and anarchy. Notwithstanding
our stance as the Fourth Estate of the Realm, the APC crushed the
PDP in obviously manipulated elections. This was made possible
because the PDP had simply gone AWOL (absent without Leave)…

But what happened after the 2019 elections when a failed
political party still won the elections? It was more of the same.
PDP has simply not gotten its act together. Instead, the petty
squabbles have increased and there is no clear leadership path in
the Party Secretariat. I wonder! Should it not have occurred to PDP
that it needed to undertake major surgical procedures in order to
stay alive. Rather, the Party simply went into deeper slumber,
sleeping and snoring.

The PDP even failed to correct some of the exaggerated and
preposterous allegations and indictments against its prominent
members and officials. How come APC has not found it necessary to
prosecute any alleged major culprit of the previous government? If
APC knew those who stole billions of dollars, how come it has not
attempted to abduct and crate them (a la Umaru Dikko) back to
Nigeria to face justice instead of borrowing recklessly from the
Chinese banks to plug the gaping financial hole that the APC
government has sunk us into? At least we now know that this level
of perfidy and crudeness is not beyond this government in the light
of the Nnamdi Kanu debacle and the detention of the Igbo freedom
fighter. The story of Chief Sunday Igboho Adeyemo is not too
different.

In my view, PDP has bungled many chances because of its docile
nature and tepid leadership. Everything is wrong with the country
and yet we do not see any bright spark from the PDP. It is so
painful.
Our economy is in tatters. The Naira has gone totally South. The
President’s apparition of a country with its currency at almost
parity with the US Dollar has been revealed as being exactly that,
an apparition for the President, and a continuing nightmare for the
citizenry forced to endure rates never before experienced for any
sustained period. And we are told, by those who should know, that
this is just the beginning.

The country is constantly plunged into darkness. The promises by
our Ministers in charge of Power, that this would be a thing of the
past within a short period of the assumption into office by the
government in each of its two terms, has proven to be a mirage.
There is no solution in sight. On the contrary the country seems to
adopt half-baked policies which are badly implemented to solve what
others have found to be a basic problem that does not need rocket
science solutions. We must simply brace up for greater darkness. It
is probably a fitting epithet to this Government, which prided
itself as the Party of light, that gloom, darkness and doom abounds
and follows it around.

Corruption has gripped the nation by the jugular. The very
fabric of government and its appurtenances is woven up in a web of
deceit, lack of integrity and astonishing and amazing corrupt
practices that make the antics of previous governments pilloried
and crucified for their corruption as mere child’s play. We have
simply never had it so bad. It is unbelievable and mind
boggling.

Insecurity has become a cancer eating voraciously and rapidly at
the very heart and soul of the nation. It is not just tolerated by
the government; it is being festered and fostered by it. Bandits,
hoodlums and terrorists hold sway all over the land. They control
and command significant territories, particularly in Northern
Nigeria. People are afraid of their well-being. There is not much
they can do, except hope and pray. Recourse to prayer is becoming
unfashionable because the problems seem to be growing in leaps and
bounds rather than them abating. Our Pastors, Imams, Alfas and
Marabouts are definitely getting it violently wrong, or we are fast
becoming an accursed nation with the very worst devils springing
from the pits of hell to come and torment, torture and traumatise
us.
Nepotism, parochialism, bigotry and ethnicity have become the order
of the day. The President seems to favour one part of the country
at the expense of all the other parts. They are so far in the
ascendancy and believe in their invincibility because they have
their patron in power.

To top it all, it is a fact that if you remove Buhari from APC,
the Party will fall yakata and smash into smithereens. And
inexorably, the time constitutionally appointed to vote the new
President draws nearer and nearer. One would have thought that an
efficient opposition Party would realise this fact, and coupled
with the gargantuan challenges currently facing the country, they
would seize the moment, seize the initiative and drive the APC out
of power. What do I see instead, indolence and inaction? This
grieves my spirit because it means there’s virtually no hope for
the country, if we allow a one party State to ultimately
emerge!

No other opposition party currently has the structure,
experience and exposure to take on the APC behemoth apart from the
PDP. I have told many of my friends who are still nursing
Presidential ambition that they should all gather in the two
mainstream Parties or perish the thought completely. PDP remains
formidable and potent if it allows itself to be well organised and
well drilled.

Politics is a game of money and PDP controls some of the richest
and most viable states in Nigeria. They are Akwa Ibom, Rivers,
Delta, Bayelsa and a few others. But for Rivers and Lagos in 2015,
it would have been most difficult for Buhari to win on his fourth
attempt. PDP still possesses the magic wand to produce the next
President, if Nigeria remains intact by then, and the hawks of
power do not succeed with their selfish rascality and dangerous
plans.

In order to regain power from an obviously desperate APC that is
hell bent on retaining power, PDP must rebrand urgently, change its
name, attract younger folks and all those already disenfranchised,
solidify its base in the South East, South South and grab a
substantial chunk of South West. It already has some serious
footholds in the North Central as well as North West and North
East. If the next election holds, it is unlikely that APC would be
able to replicate a Buhari phenomenon again. PDP should jazz up its
game by changing its tactics and becoming more serious. At the
moment it does not appear that the Party or its members have faith
in themselves. They appear to be stumbling along and are happy to
accept whatever PDP dictates to them. ImI’m yet to see any evidence
of panic and needful reactions as APC countinues the onslaught of
poaching more and more of PDP members.

Part of the necessary rebranding would be for PDP to begin to
showcase the amazing performances of its Governors. Most people
agree today that the PDP states are performing far better than the
Federal Government and its allied states. States such as Rivers,
Akwa Ibom, Oyo have become poster boards for the party. If PDP
decides to stick to its old ways and refuses to be more audaciously
creative, they should forget coming back to power soon.

I will urge those who do not like PDP to also try and
proliferate APC. We should stop dissipating our energies and
resources on new political parties. It is obvious that Nigeria is
not ready for more than two major parties at the moment.

As for APC, all is not lost. It can still drag itself away from
the precipice of defeat, It needs to consolidate on the strong
talents and brains it has in the current government, starting from
the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. The Party must retrace
its steps and abandon the path to destruction and oblivion on which
it has currently firmly placed itself and the country. It must
eschew sectionalism, ethnicity and tribalism. It must act
equitably, fairly and judiciously in the spread of appointments. It
must be seen not to deploy favouritism and bias as its hallmark and
handiwork. By doing that, it would also engage the cankerworm of
insecurity and begin to win the war against bandits, terrorists and
insurrection.

For me, it is not about which Party eventually wins the coveted
prize. No, it must always be about which Party is best for our
country at any particular time. Which party offers the array of
talent that can take us from the age of backwardness to the
technological age of hope and prosperity. Nigeria is too blessed to
be controlled endlessly by its dregs. For too long now, we have
been largely ruled by mediocres. Both PDP and APC have a chance to
stop the rot and field the best. From this, only the nation and our
dear pulverised and pummelled citizens can be the beneficiaries. I
align with the recent thoughts and postulations of former President
Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida on this sentiment. We all must learn
useful lessons from the past and make necessary changes
urgently.
If the PDP assumes its proper role and status, as the conscience
and critic of the ruling Party, we will see tremendous improvement
in both Parties and in the governance of our great country.
Let’s hope, it is not all a mirage…