|
‘No PDP, No Nigeria’ : Letter To General Buhari And The People Of Our Country By Aonduna Tondu
In 2003, I wrote an admonition calling on fellow Nigerians to follow their conscience and vote out the fumbling and incompetent PDP-led regime of the incumbent despot, Olusegun Obasanjo. Alas, as we all know, the will of the people was truncated in a charade that has only served to compound our collective woes. The electoral fiasco of that year did heighten the pessimism of the populace regarding the nation’s political leadership and governance in general. As a nation, we are now paying a terrible price, and doubly so, first, for the brigandage that threw up a monster in the form of Obasanjo’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its election-rigging impunity and, secondly, for our refusal to heed the voice of reason by decisively rejecting the ‘selections’ referred to in local parlance as “419”.
The immediate pre-2007 election period should therefore be seen as a golden opportunity for the country to make amends – to re-invent ourselves, so to speak . Citizens will be called upon once more to reflect on where we went wrong the last time around. We should denounce and repudiate garrison-style politics as espoused by the owners of the PDP. In short, Nigeria will be better-off with the disappearance of that behemoth called the PDP ( and what it stands for) from the nation’s political map. Mine is thus a clarion call to all the patriotic forces of our country to work arduously for the defeat of the PDP in the forthcoming elections. This should be seen as a solemn national pledge for the eradication from our polity of what has sadly become the embodiment of treachery and perfidy. Whether or not he wins the ticket of his party, the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) for the 2007 presidential election, General Buhari is expected to play a critical role in what should be a concerted effort on the part of development-conscious citizens to reject the grim transformation of our country into an endless Bacchanalia catering to the hedonistic proclivities of a lawless cabal and its coterie of sycophants and hangers-on. Indeed, Muhammadu Buhari is eminently qualified to lead Nigeria.
As presently constituted, the ruling party at the centre – the strangely named People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – is little more than an association composed largely of the more repulsive elements in the Nigerian political firmament. It is an enclave of buccaneers, sinister predators, dangerous tin gods purporting to be godfathers, shameless turn coats, lowly brigands and touts in the service of a rapacious tyranny. And as has been aptly noted, Obasanjo’s PDP is a nest of killers. It is a gang of usurpers and imposters with scant or no regard for decency and the rule of law. These bacchants defile the nation’s cherished values and institutions. They defecate on our country’s constitutional order and trample on the democratic aspirations of the people. They are a clear and present danger to Project Nigeria. That is why they must be confined to the dustbin of history and the divisive cum hypocritical rhetoric of their ring leaders discarded as toxic waste.
The other day, the individual who is today exerting a devious stranglehold on the PDP’s rigging machine reportedly told the so-called National Executive Committee of the party in his characteristically crude and unguarded manner that Nigeria might disintegrate if his vote-snatching vehicle collapses or is defeated in the 2007 polls. “The failure of the PDP at this point will be calamitous for this country. It is even unthinkable because when you look at the other parties, they have nothing to offer. All the other parties that started with us are idle. The only one that is active is now only a caricature of its former self. But here we are, growing from strength to strength. Whatever our adversaries may say about us is only a grudging acceptance of the dominance and eminence of the PDP in the political horizon of Nigeria. We never claim to be perfect, but we are the only party that is doing the right thing. The others are either sleeping or are comatose. They keep saying they will continue with our reforms. If all they want to do is to continue what we are doing. Why should we leave it for them to continue? Why can’t we continue what we are doing? The PDP will continue its reform. There will, of course, be a change of personality, but there will be no change of the PDP, insha Allah.” ( The Punch, Wed., Nov., 22, 2006) These are some of the deeply offensive remarks accredited to the Nigerian dictator, General Obasanjo. The caption by the daily,The Punch, said it all. “No PDP, NO Nigeria” !
It will be naïve to dismiss the offending words as pep talk intended for those charged with the task of getting out the vote in order to ensure a democratic victory for the party. The antecedents of both the operator and his magic-machine of electoral wonders are such that inspire no confidence in the average Nigerian. So, when the boss speaks to his confederates in the likes of Anenih, Chris Uba, Gemade, Ahmadu Ali, Bode George, Andy Uba and el-Rufai, he is invariably giving instructions as to how he wants things done. Nigerians can only shudder at the prospect of yet another rigging spree by the usual culprits. Or more correctly, another imposition through the use of the police, the military and other so-called security forces with Nuhu Ribadu’s pro-regime Gestapo nicknamed the EFCC playing its part. “No PDP, No Nigeria”. This must be a sick joke. It is arrant nonsense to imagine that, to quote the tyrant, “the failure of the PDP …will be calamitous for this country”. Au contraire, the defeat of the PDP coupled with the demise, politically speaking, of its current owners should be good news for the citizenry. The kind of dangerous rhetoric which tries to portray the PDP and by extension, “the father of modern Nigeria” - , that is Kabiyesi, as the ultimate defender, if not the symbol of Nigeria’s constitutional democracy is an exercise in futility. It is both dishonest and insensitive for those who have through their criminal and wayward acts of administrative dereliction of duty inflicted so much suffering on the masses of our people to impudently and brazenly profess national salvation as their raison d’être.
As for the spurious claim that the PDP is “growing from strength to strength”, it can only mean one thing – that is impunity and unbridled recklessness that have taken their toll on the Nigerian nation.
Also, when Obasanjo and his party vaunt their so-called reforms, the questions Nigerians should confront them with is the stark reality of unprecedented and widespread poverty of the abject kind stalking the land, all that despite the fact that under the current dictator, Nigeria has enjoyed unusually high revenues accruing from the sale of oil. The parroting of a reform agenda that impoverishes the vast majority of the people while at the same time providing shelter to those that loot the common patrimony and basically advertise their disdain for the people should be enough reason to disqualify any candidate in the 2007 presidential election. We should kick against clones of Obasanjo and his PDP. Singly or together, the later spell doom and disaster for the country.
I address my appeal to General Buhari, but mostly to the rest of Nigeria. Buhari is one of those rare public figures who has, relatively speaking, the odds notwithstanding, consistently and objectively exhibited an uncommon valour and a sense of decency in the fight for the common good. His contributions to the advancement of Nigerian democracy as is evidenced in his dogged determination through the use of legal and democratic channels to challenge the illegitimacy of the PDP-led reign of terror that is a direct product of the 2003 electoral debacle do enhance his stature as a rallying symbol against the centrifugal onslaught of the marauding forces led by Obasanjo and his myopic clique. The desperation by the PDP and its high priests does pose a special challenge to the citizenry in general. In the days, weeks and months ahead, Nigerians will need the emblematic standing of the likes of Buhari whose pragmatism and sense of duty will be brought to bear on the necessary fight that must be fought for Nigeria to reclaim her sanity. In practical terms, what this means is that in each and every corner of the country, the people must show a determination to register and protect their vote. They will reject the programmed failure of INEC by its puppeteers. The respective leadership of APGA, the AC, and the ANPP, for instance, should bring out the vote and ensure that this time around the will of the people is respected. Any intimidation on the part of Obasanjo and his thugs should be met with a decisive rejection. And in lieu of the unabashedly inane mantra of ‘No PDP, No Nigeria’, candidates and their parties should present to prospective voters a credible issue-based platform. It is hoped that those segments of the civil society whose responsibility it is to help enlighten the public will do their job and avoid past errors which contributed in turning some of them into de facto propaganda organs of a debauched autocracy.
Aonduna Tondu New York |