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One Party Mindset: A Recipe for Disaster and Dictatorship in Nigeria By Dr. Wumi Akintide
If both
governments fumble or fail the people, they should be thrown out at the
next election. That is what Democracy and the 4 or 8 year ritual of
holding elections should be all about. That is why you never hear of
military coups in the ideal democratic countries around the world.
The
success of the first black politician becoming President in
America on the platform of the opposition party has exemplified that
better than i can ever try to do in this article. It is the height of
insanity for any party, however, benevolent, to believe it should rule
forever, because no party or individual leader has a monopoly of wisdom.
American
leaders and voters understand that and so should Nigerians if they mean
well for our country. The Labor Party in
Britain has been in power for the eleven years of Tony Blair who was
forced to resign as leader and to pass the Barton to Mr. Brown until the
next election. In the meantime the Conservative Party in Britain has been
trying to reinvent itself from the bottom up, in line with what they think
the nation wants.
They have
elected a new young and dynamic leader in the mode of Tony Blair when he
became Prime Minister and they are trying to position themselves for
taking over power again and they will, because that is the way the system
is designed
For eight
years, the Republican Party in America have occupied the White House, but
because of the bad policies of their fumbling president and his
administration, the American voters have settled for a change they can
believe in by electing their first black candidate from the opposition.
Barack
Obama did not just win for winning sake, he won because Americans were
tired of the Republicans and they wanted to give the Democrats a chance to
prove what they promised during the campaigns. They gave the nod, by a
landslide, to the candidate with the best idea on how to move
America forward. Barack Obama won because he was able to articulate a
central message that won the hearts of the great majority of Americans. He
won because he promised to govern from the center. He won because he said
there was no red America or blue America, there is only the United States
of America.
We can all
see from the battle for the stimulus package that Barack Obama and his
Party have been trying to keep that promise by making serious efforts to
pass a bi-partisan package that would be supported by both the left and
the right of the great divide in American Politics That is something
Nigeria ought to emulate. But if you look at what is happening today in
Nigeria, as i always do with some introspection, you can clearly see that
most of the Nigerian leaders, most especially Obasanjo, his erstwhile
Deputy Atiku Abubakar and Ibrahim Babangida are still living in the past.
They all
don't get it that a virile opposition is a "sine qua non" for success in a
Democracy. Probably the one Nigerian leader that seems to have shown a
modicum of that mindset is Mohammadu Buhari, but he does not appear able
to articulate that consensus in ways that Barack Obama, the great
communicator was able to do here in
America. Secondly the rag tag army of the opposition in Nigeria has been
so polarized and discouraged that many of them, instead of joining forces
to create a vigorous opposition like the type Awolowo had rooted for in
his life time, are ambivalent or totally confused on what should
be their ultimate mission. They are just letting the PDP steamroll them
without a fight, and that is a tragedy for Nigeria.
Few of
those leaders like, Bisi Akande, Balarabe Musa, Abubakar Rimi and the
strong man of Lagos, Tinubu are acting a bit confused about what is it
they really want to do. As a matter of fact, the latest move by Atiku
Abubakar to reconcile with his nemesis, Olusegun Obasanjo and to return
back to the PDP under cover of darkness while leaving most of his
supporters dumbfounded and speechless, has further compounded the problem
of the Opposition and their hopelessness across the country. The PDP, as
presently constituted and led, cannot be the answer to
Nigeria's problems. I see the party as a huge part of the Nigerian
problems, believe it or not.
Ibrahim
Babangida the first of the former Military presidents to toy with the idea
of creating two major political parties that could possibly have led to
the kind of mindset I am talking about in this article, went about doing
it in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons when he had the opportunity.
Did he not annul the election of M.K.O Abiola whose SDP victory had
shattered the myth of the ruling Party whose candidate was Alhaji
BashirTofa? There you go. There was a time IBB again toyed with the idea
of presenting himself as the candidate of the Opposition, but a powerful
cross section of the Opposition did not trust him, and when that failed,
he returned, in full force, as a power broker and kingmaker to the PDP
that finally emerged as the Alfa and omega in the Nigerian Politics.
President-want-to-be Professor Utomi and Chief Oluyemi Falae were about
the only emerging Nigerian opposition leaders of consequence to share some
of the idealistic values and instincts of a Barack Obama but they lacked
the political acumen and support at the grass root level to make a
difference. Nigeria is never going to move forward until Nigerian political leaders shed their mindset and naive belief in a one party system which is really a metaphor for disaster and dictatorship down the road for Nigeria.
I rest my
case. |