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FRIDAY DISCOURSE By Dr. Aliyu Tilde
Since people in power are hardly given to self-censorship due to their preoccupation with affairs of state and the screening effect of its indulgence, it will be difficult for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria to adequately examine itself after the failure of third term project and take all steps necessary for its future prospects. Nigerians, I believe, should come to its rescue. We still need the PDP, at least to serve as an opposition party in future dispensation. This article, therefore, is neither a post-mortem nor a eulogy for what was once the greatest party in Africa. In it we are only holding a mirror for the leaders of the party to see what remains of the beautiful face it was wearing when it was formed in 1998.
We still remember vividly the thirst for democracy which dominated our political atmosphere after June 12 1993 and the high hopes generated by the demise of General Sani Abacha. So desperate was the situation that we were ready to welcome just anyone who will head a democratic government. Our situation was like that of a drowning person that was eloquently captured by the late Egytian diva, Ummu Kulthum, in Al Atlaal, where she said, “And a hand extending towards me, like the hand that was extended to the drowning person from underneath the waves.” In what now appears to the final step of a cleverly contrived arrangement by the international community, Abdulsalami Abubakar, within a twinkle, rushed to restore democracy.
It was in that atmosphere that PDP was formed first by the G34 which was an amalgam of politicians opposed to General Abacha’s metamorphosis into a civilian President. In the absence a common ideology that underlined it, we are left with no option but reading the party through its greatest symbol, its name. From the name, founders of the association intended it to have three major characteristics: one, it should be a party of the people; two, it should be democratic; and, three, it should be a political organisation qualified to be called a party. It is to these three basic characteristics that we will limit our domain of analysis.
Beginning with the first, one could say that in 1999 the party was indeed a peoples’ party in terms of patronage because hardly can we find in the history of this country another party which was received at debut by such a broad spectrum of Nigerian society. The presidential elections of 1999 clearly indicated that, except in the Southwest, the party was well received throughout the country. Its manifesto, like those of other parties, did also claim an intention to form a government that is people oriented in programs. It promised to harness national unity, improve security, reduce poverty, fight corruption, revive education, rebuild infrastructure, etc. Nice talk.
However, as soon as it came to power, it became clear that we – the people – were hoodwinked. Our desperation for democracy was exploited by a cluster of self-centred parasites who have been exploiting us for decades. We raised the alarm very early in the life of the administration that the PDP government is going to fail woefully. Wrong approaches were given to everything and corruption continued to pervert the entire fabric of government. It appeared that the party was ill-prepared for governance. It did not find it relevant to study and comprehend the extent of our problems let alone fathom the necessary solutions. It could not, for example, see that poverty in this county can never be decreased without investing heavily in agriculture which is the largest contributor to our GDP, reviving industries through adequate provision of power, and wiping out corruption. Instead, this government is known to pay on a lip service to agriculture and despite over a trillion naira which the PDP government spent in the power sector, electricity supply to the average Nigerian is dwindling, regardless of its claims. Various reasons are given, including the presence of a snake at a time in Kainji Dam! Now, admitting the failure of the many promises it made in the last seven years, it has shifted the date for adequate supply of electricity from December 2000 to 2056!! So factories are forced to close and workers are losing jobs daily, instead of gaining them as the party promised.
No progress was made since 1999 on other things which the PDP government has promised. Security is still eluding us. Thousands of Nigerians continue to lose their lives in streets as a result of communal and sectarian clashes more than during the tenure of any previous regime; thousands again have lost their lives to armed robbers and assassins in their homes and on highways, and not a single case of the victims was adequately investigated by the government. Not even high profile assassinations like those of a serving Minister of Justice – Chief Bola Ige – or that of a renowned political leader – Chief Marshall Harry – could be conclusively investigated. Even housewives were not spared, when we remember the case of Saudatu Abubakar Rimi.
Even in the social sector, like education and health, the government has failed to make any difference to what it inherited from the military. Public schools are still looking depressing with very little learning taking place there. And a catastrophe, like that of UPE, is about to happen in that sub-sector with the UBE program which fused junior secondary schools with primary schools, the same schools that failed to deliver primary education syllabus. At the apex, the national union of university teachers, ASUU, is about to embark on an indefinite national strike for the umpteenth time to protest the sad condition of learning in the ivory towers. Hospitals are still much in their former deplorable conditions. Where they are repaired, they are ill-equipped and patients have to foot their bills personally, no matter how little. If they are poor, they die.
To aggravate the poverty of the masses, government has failed to revive fertilizer plants, resuscitate railways, repair refineries, and supply the ordinary citizen with affordable fuel. Instead, the people watched this PDP government hike the price of petrol, in utter disregard to labour protests and appeals, from N11.00 per litre to N75.00, with scarcity still prevalent! Even corporate organisations like NEPA cannot get enough diesel to power their plants in a country that is the sixth exporter of crude oil in the world. In short, as I have repeatedly said, the government has failed to solve a single social problem that it inherited in 1999.
What it cannot manage, it resolved to sell to multinationals and self-seeking public servants through its program on privatization. There too, it is met with another series of failures and scandals: NITEL, NAFCON, Ajakouta, ALSCON, NEPA, NPA, federal estates and what have you.
While it failed to make any impact in the social sector, the government has failed to rid itself of corruption, despite its rhetoric.N300 billion within the first two years were swindled in the Ministry of Works; $200 million dollars on national identity card project; another over $200 unaccounted for in the NNPC account; it overspent over N50billion in the national theatre project, over and above the base estimate of N19billion; billions also were spent on bribing the national assembly either to impeach their leaders or to support the third term project; the President collected over N7billion ‘donations’ for his personal library; over N17billion were stolen by the former Inspector General of Police, while the police stayed for six months without salaries; and so on. The list is legion, an entire catalogue of criminality. This is not to mention the corrupt practices of over twenty-seven governors on which documents were tendered to the ICPC and on which the government is either unwilling to investigate or at best chosen to treat selectively. It is now abundantly clear that the chief organ of the government for fighting corruption, EFCC, is nothing but a weapon used against political opponents of the PDP government.
We do not need to spend much time discussing the democratic credentials of the PDP. Over the years, the President has managed to transform the party into his personal estate by employing ‘use and dump’ policy in his bid to become a life-president. Except for Jerry Gana, who are ready to patronise any government, all the original members of the G34 group have been marginalised in the party; many have left and joined opposition groups. Last year, the party held its congresses from ward to national level and not a single election took place into any of its offices. What a democratic party! Officials were nominated by the President and Governors and the delegates were allowed only to adopt them.
We also remember how a ‘peoples’ democratic party’ subverted the will of the people and avoided every democratic ethic to perpetuate itself in power during the 2003 elections, a crime which the then leader of the party, Chief Audu Ogbeh, publicly admitted complicity. We remember the emasculation of the electoral body, INEC, and its complicity, in confederation with the judiciary, to desecrate our will to elect a better leadership. People, whom the party named itself after theirs, were subjected to an outrageous regime of state terror and a very liberal use of thugs to prevent them from voting especially in the Southeast and South-South.
Could a party which subverted elections to this extent be qualified to use the ‘democratic’ adjective? What is annoying about all of this is the shameless attitude of its leaders. One of them was publicly saying at a rally: “we have been in power yesterday, we are on it today and we will continue forever. We will destroy whoever we wish…” And neither is the President nor any of his lieutenants is showing any remorse. After destroying the party through his inordinate ambition, he did not have the courage to apologize; instead, he rationalised his defeat – which came at the cost of several billions of naira and many lives – as a victory for democracy. Now, reports early this week indicated that Tony Anenih, the most influential member of the party after the President, is asking the legislators who collected the multimillion naira bribe to return it! And Ribadu is as silent as Mantu and Fani Kayode.
The last question is: Does PDP deserve to be called a political party, in the democratic sense of the word? Though we cannot deny it the epithet of a party, it cannot claim by any stretch of imagination any right to a democratic connotation. It is a political party in name, but a syndicate in fact. It should better answer the name Peoples’ Deception Party, still PDP. We cannot see any difference between it and other instrument of dictatorship throughout the world.
What is the future of PDP then? In my last article, I have alluded to the bleak prospects of the party beyond 2007. We cannot undertake its salvation; it alone can do so. On the other hand, it can continue to be a haven for people who believe in corruption, in the supremacy of self interest, in the life presidency of Obasanjo, in winning elections through deceit and rigging, in impoverishing our population, and in undermining every democratic institution.
I will join other Nigerians in appealing to the PDP to redeem itself. If it fails, I will further advise that those of its members who truly believe in democracy should decamp from the party, each at the appropriate time, to where democratic ideals will govern their conduct and people will remain their focus. The collapse of the PDP will send a strong signal to politicians that no coconut headed person will ever contemplate taking our interest for granted, no matter the resources he wields. The nation has the ability to pull him down. We must remain a free country. In that case also, the party may rest in pieces, as did NPC, NPN and UNCP in the past.
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