By Femi Aribisala
There are so many things wrong with the PDP. It is an understatement to insist it is a very imperfect political party. But for everything that is wrong with the PDP, the APC is worse. It is ludicrous to pretend the APC is squeaky-clean while the PDP is corrupt when a large chunk of APC members were formerly in the PDP. Today, both the Senate president and the speaker of the House of Representatives, for example, are former PDP members. These turncoats did not become new creations when they crossed over to the APC.
When queried about why APC’s so-called anti-corruption campaign is mostly directed at PDP opposition members, the APC party chairman John Odigie-Oyegun insists the PDP has been the party in power for the last 16 years. This is disingenuous because the APC and its legacy parties have also been in power for the last 16 years. ACN/APC has ruled Lagos for the last 16 years. Let EFCC beam its anti-corruption searchlight on that state and let us see if it will not throw up a cesspool of corruption.
If EFCC can probe Sule Lamido who was governor of Jigawa for eight years, what prevents it from probing Rotimi Amaechi who was governor of Rivers State also for eight years? Even if we were to accept the ridiculous APC treatise that there is a corruptible seed in the PDP which immediately disappears when a PDP member becomes an APC member, then it becomes necessary to probe Amaechi in the years he was still a PDP governor, before he became a new creation of the APC. The same would apply, for example, to Rabiu Kwankwaso as PDP governor of Kano before he switched to the APC.
Jonathan’s statesmanship
To win the last presidential election, APC had to match the political rigmaroles of the PDP. Indeed, APC prevailed because it was ultimately more unscrupulous. APC successfully exaggerated the vote in its areas of strength in the North-West far more than the PDP did in the South-South and the South-East. In the process, twice the number of people were alleged to have voted in old Kano (Kano and Jigawa) than did in Lagos. So meticulous were Kano voters that they did not void a single ballot out of over two million votes cast. If you believe that, you can believe anything.
In the final analysis, APC won the election because of the humanity and political maturity of one man: Goodluck Jonathan. Presidents don’t lose elections in Nigeria. The Nigerian president possesses the power and resources to manipulate any and every election to his advantage. Make no mistake about it, Goodluck Jonathan wanted to win the last election. However, he did not want to win at all costs. He lost the election because, from the get-go, he was prepared to lose for the sake of advancing the democratic process in Nigeria.
The evidence is there for all to see. Out of five elections conducted between 2011 and 2015, the PDP lost four, in spite of being the party in power at the centre. It lost in Ondo. It lost in Edo. It lost in Anambra. It lost in Osun. It only won in Ekiti. In effect, the presidential election was paradoxically the icing on the cake. The PDP not only lost that election, Jonathan accepted defeat even before the final results were tallied, in spite of all the rigmarole that attended it. He did not ask for dogs and baboons to be soaked in blood.
APC winner-take-all
It should be clear to Nigerians today that we are now in the grip of a very different captivity in the APC. During the campaign for the last elections, APC members were lavish with threats of fire and brimstone should their party lose. They told Nigerians in no uncertain terms that if they lost, they would not accept defeat but would even form their own kangaroo government. Now that the APC has captured power at the centre, they are hell-bent on prosecuting the principle of winner-takes-all.
Today, the APC not only controls the presidency, it prevails in 22 of the 36 states in Nigeria. The PDP, on the other hand, controls only 13 states; with the remaining solitary state held by APGA. However, the APC is not satisfied with this supremacy. It is determined to contest the verdict of the election virtually everywhere it lost. While it claims the 2015 election was free and fair where it won, it insists the election was crooked where it lost. In short, the APC is determined to have its cake and eat it too.
Immediately President Buhari was elected, he started preparing the grounds for 2019. This involves releasing EFCC dogs against 2019 presidential hopefuls. During the congratulatory visit of a delegation from Benue, he said jokingly: “I beg Senator Akume and the governor-elect not to make my 2019 attempt too difficult.” Jokes often reveal true intentions. Otega Emerhor, APC governorship candidate in Delta State, spoke the mind of the APC during a congratulatory visit to the newly-elected Buhari. He told the president:
“As you are aware, Delta State, along with Akwa Ibom and Rivers, are rich in oil resources and PDP is determined to hold on to these states at all cost to utilise the huge revenue base of these states to re-launch itself to national reckoning. It is, therefore, strategic for APC and your administration to pay particular attention and to assist us put in place modalities to break the stronghold of PDP in Delta and the other states.”
Cash-cow states
This agenda has been executed with single-minded APC rascality. APC challenged the outcome of elections in the oil-rich Southern states. It then embarked on an onslaught of intimidatory attacks on the judiciary to make it fall in line with its agenda. To ensure it prevailed, some tribunal chairmen were summarily dismissed, replaced with more maleable choices. Some cases were even transferred to APC’s presidential stronghold in Abuja on spurious grounds. So doing, APC secured the verdicts it wanted. The tribunals cancelled the elections in Rivers, Abia and Akwa Ibom, requiring them to be rerun.
However, APC met a firewall in the Supreme Court. The apex court refused to be intimidated, in spite of President Buhari’s loaded statement in far-away Ethiopia that the Nigerian judiciary is his major “headache” in the fight against corruption. It overturned the doctored verdicts of the appeal courts in Rivers, Abia and Akwa Ibom, restoring the mandate of their PDP governors. So doing, the “Supremes” immediately became public enemy number one of the APC
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