In recent weeks the All
Progressive Congress (APC) has been rocked with a tidal wave of defection of a
founding member in Chief Tom Ikimi and the party’s 2011 presidential candidate,
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu to the party Nigerians loathe but can’t vote out of power at
the centre, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Ikimi’s grievance with the APC hierarchy stems
from how he was barred from contesting the party’s chairmanship position.
The ease with which
politicians decamp and recamp(return to a party one has left in the past) – the
latest addition to Nigeria’s political lexicon – erodes any shadow of doubt if
any ideological basis exists for much of what goes on in Nigeria’s political
landscape. Defection has become the trade in stock of many politicians who have
found such canvassing phrases as “there is no party that is exclusively for the
good people or for the bad people,” reminding us of the sameness of the two
major political parties as basis for cross carpeting.
Close observers of
unfolding political events were not jolted by Chief Ikimi’s official resignation
of his membership of the APC, after many weeks of withdrawal from party
activities without disclosing his next political destination. His antecedents
have shown he has no particular conviction. His political sojourn has seen him
traversed the defunct APP, ANPP, ACN, PDP. The former Foreign Affairs Minister
was a founding member of the APC.
He was instrumental
in the alliance that metamorphosed into the mega opposition party. It is only a
matter of time before he recamps to the PDP. He has already expressed his
readiness to join the ruling party and bring his wealth of experience to bear
when members of the ruling party’s BoT, including Chief Tony Anenih and National
Vice Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, led by the PDP National Chairman, Adamu
Mu’azu, paid Ikimi an august visit.
Indeed, Ikimi and
Ribadu, like every other politician and Nigerian, have every right to exercise
their freedom of association with any political party in the country, but it
should be consistent with the ideology and principle that defines the character
of the politician and his political party.
However, the manner Chief
Tom Ikimi and other founding members of the party like Alhaji Attahiru
Bafawara, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, Brig-Gen Buba Marwa (rtd), Mr Marcus Gundiri
among others who helped to nurture the APC to mega status, have drifted to the
PDP calls for concern and genuine fears for the future of the progressive party.
When such party
stalwarts dump the APC in droves, it is an indication that Bola Tinubu, who
prides himself as the sole financier of the party, regrettably, is not
upholding democratic principles in the affairs of his party. If the APC retains
and wins more seats or otherwise in 2015, the party takes the credit, if not
the APC will pay the price for his highhandedness. The buck stops with him. This
is the party Nigerians are looking up to as an alternate platform to wrestle
power from the PDP.
What shall we say of
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu? He once described the PDP as a disaster and a total failure
in his heyday in the APC. In the weeks leading up to the PDP governorship
primaries for Adamawa state bye-election, the former anti-corruption czar
joined the PDP, the only party he thinks on whose platform can make him realise
his ambition to hold elective office.
These days, he
regales us with tales of the sameness of PDP and APC. He was quoted as saying
‘there is no party that is exclusively for the good people or for the bad
people’ That Ribadu has taken a walk from the APC has raised all sort of
personality and ideological issues particularly as it affects young Nigerians
who hitherto looked up to such political figures for some sort of mentorship.
Consequently, many
have called Ribadu’s character into question, especially those who were cynical
about the manner he discharged his duties as EFCC Boss. He seem to have acted
in character that is consistent with other Nigerian politicians even if his
‘intolerant’ and ‘ruthless’ stand against corruption gave him a garb of
incorruptibility. Since he joined the murky waters of Nigeria’s politics, he has
become a turncoat-in-waiting. Indeed, Ribadu the politician is different from
Ribadu the crime fighter who once sat atop Nigeria’s foremost anti-graft
agency.
Has Ribadu lost faith
and confidence in the APC for allegedly selling out in the 2011 general
elections to the PDP Goodluck Jonathan candidacy? If truly Ribadu was
sacrificed by his own party whose attitude to winning the election was at best
casual, as Ikimi submitted in his lengthy missive to Bola Tinubu, who sold out
the party?
Could it be that
Ribadu’s heart and soul has never been with the APC since then? Has he been
hobnobbing with PDP politicians all the while? Or maybe he thought to himself,
if the party could sell out at the eleventh hour in 2011, there is nothing
stopping the APC from repeating such this time?
Essentially, nothing
separates a politician in party A from another in party B. The current wave of
impeachment blowing across the country is yet another indication that politicians
do not have any genuine intention to serve the people. They seek personal
elevation and gains to quench their insatiable greed for power. It is this
brand of politics that has thrown up charlatans in political offices and the
present leadership bankruptcy in the country.
Elsewhere, lifetime
commitments to political parties and ideologies are made that even transcends
to generations unborn. Political parties have clearly defined principles that
differentiate them from other parties.
Nigerian politicians
suffer from compulsive obsessive disorder to occupy political office and will
stop at nothing; defecting from one party to another, sponsoring terrorism,
blackmail, cultism, rigging and all what not to clinch power. Their desperation
to occupy political office and lack of political character cannot deepen
democracy.
To them, principle
should never be an issue on the front burner, ideology and manifestoes mean
nothing on the premise of the fallacy that the end justifies the means.
You
can follow the writer on twitter @tilevbare.
No comments:
Post a Comment