| Why the PDP will win the 2007 Elections |
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| Written by Taslim Anibaba | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 22 April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"When the cock crows at dawn, the lazy man blames the night for being too short." (Binta & Friends - a popular television drama series) For the avoidance of doubt I want to inform you that I am not a card carrying member of the PDP (the ruling party in Nigeria) but I have sympathies for the party. I am not particularly pleased with some of the ways and manners that the party has played politics in the last four years but I do not consider it my business to teach her what best suits her. I am not also an insider and so this article is a summary of my observation of some of the activities policy thrusts and strategies of the party as reported in the media in the last four years. In view of this, I want to implore the reader to view my comments, deductions and conclusions as my interpretation of the events that took place. Perhaps an insider with superior information is almost likely to arrive at conclusions that are different from mine. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is the ruling party in
1. How did PDP win in 2007 In Nigeria, it is customary to have the incumbent government doing all it can to ensure continuity applying both pleasant and not too pleasant tactics. However, the incumbency factor was rendered ineffective in some places during the second republic and under the new dispensation. However, for PDP I make bold to say that the party worked assiduously to achieve success in the 2007 elections. 1. The first four years of the pdp government can be described as ineffective. Our President was a traveling President and left the governance of the country in the hands of the party and his lieutenants (Chief Gani Fawehinmi has details of the number of trips that OBJ made out of Nigeria). It is also the culture in Nigerian politics, and perhaps in some other countries of the world that the party had tremendous influence on governance. Appointments were made based on consultations (and in our own case federal character, religion, gender, etc). Consequently, the appointments made during the first term of the administration followed the established pattern resulting in the re-cycling of the men and women of yesterday. Somehow PDP managed to return to power in 2003. That marked the turning point in the affairs of PDP and our dear nation. With the benefit of hindsight, the party started to prepare for the 2007 election in 2003
2. The Restructuring in PDP The party did something which had never been done in the history of our country. She undertook the re-registration of members which also resulted in the de-listing of some of her members. It was an audacious but dangerous move that saw the party deliberately reforming membership with a view to reducing it to a manageable size. It is also possible that the restructuring was undertaken to benefit OBJ and to whittle down the influences of the founding fathers of the party. Of course, several thousands left the party including most of the founding fathers and the nation also witnessed the appointment of professionals as ministers, special advisers etc. This brought the likes of Chukwuma Soludo, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Dora Akinyuli, Nasir El-Rufai, Frank Nweke (Jnr), Mallam Ribadu and a host of others into governance. Perhaps if we were to go by the culture of “ party appointmentments” the country would have been denied the services of these brilliant Nigerians. In political circles, patronages were dispensed based on “those who worked for us” Inspite of this exercise, the party remained stronger than any other party including the Action Congress which was formed by those who were forced to leave PDP.
3. Registration of Political Parties Not long after the restructuring in PDP, the government of Nigeria decided to register more political parties. This culminated in the registration of over 30 political parties and the emergence of about 25 presidential candidates. It is amazing that inspite of the geographical spread of these political parties they posed no serious threat to PDP. Indeed the ranks of PDP got swollen with new members decamping on a daily basis to join the party. Perhaps most Nigerians believe that you can only realize your ambitions if you stay with the ruling party, ideologies and such other niceties are usually thrown into the dustbin. (the human factor and their aspirations). Most of the parties had no structures on the ground such that a particular party succeeded in fielding only a presidential candidate, no governorship, national assembly or state house of assembly candidates! How can such a party ever make any impact.
4. The Yar’Adua/ Goodluck Effect If there was one factor that endeared my heart to this party and to respect the soundness of mind of those running the party, it was the decision to field this pair for the presidential elections. Firstly, little was known about them which meant that the ever “pessimistic and mischievous” press did not have negative stories to splash on their front pages about the duo. Secondly, they are well educated. The yearning of some Nigerians prior to the elections was that we should have a president who is a graduate. Thirdly and most importantly, the Niger Delta was on the burner and choosing someone from, what would otherwise have been referred to as “the region of minorities” was not only a courageous, sensible decision, it also showed that the party was conscious of the aspirations of the people. Fourthly, the choice of Yar’Adua removed the platform upon which the vice president had built his political machinery - the platform he inherited as a result of the death of Tafida (Musa Yar’Adua who happens to be the brother of Umaru Yar’Adua). It is common to say that one should kill two birds with one stone, but amazingly this stone killed several birds!
5. The Supreme Court Judgement in favour of Atiku Prior to that judgement and the uncertainties surrounding the outcome of the legal battles, Buhari’s ratings began to soar (especially in the southwest) and the AC machinery appeared to be sympathetic towards him. However, the supreme court judgement changed all of that . While it was too late for Atiku to make any appreciable progress, the support for Buhari nose-dived and the ranks of opposition thrown into disarray, further polarized and sharply divided. It was not surprising that the meetings held by opposition was deadlocked!
6. The Solid party structure One thing that you cannot take away from the party is the solid party structure and an efficient secretariat. The excellent organizational ability/team work as well as an efficient secretariat run by Ojo Maduekwe which culminated in the organization of conferences, refresher courses, lectures, briefings etc on a regular basis for their elected/selected officials is commendable. Chief Ojo Maduekwe deserves to be commended. His press conferences were colourful, vibrant and decisive.
7. Emphasis on goal-getters Emphasis on goal-getters or those who can “deliver” which sometimes resulted in the violation of the principles of due process, fairness to aggrieved members and trampling on the rights of aggrieved members. This may be viewed as negative by some but the truth is that in any organized group every member is expected to subjugate his rights to that of the group.
8. Mischief/Pessimism of Opposition Using the failed third term bid as a guide, only very few in the camp of the opposition believed that elections will hold. They appeared not ready to take chances and so did not undertake the project whole-heartedly. It wasn’t until about two weeks to the elections when they were briefed on the state of preparedness of INEC, major players in the opposition realized that the elections will indeed take place. Nothing captures this better than President Obasanjo’s statement to the press on
“There is no party that campaigned like our party. In one day I campaigned in three states. Our campaign train visited all the states with our candidates; some states two or three times. Tell me which of the parties with their candidates campaigned in all the states of Nigeria. All they are waiting for is that the election will not take place” (Suday Punch 22/04/2007 page 10). It is indeed amazing that the opposition that was fighting against tenure elongation could turn around to ask for indefinite postponement of elections! Closely related to this was that most of the parties spend most of their time and resources discrediting INEC (the umpire) instead of wooing voters and selling their manifestoes(?)
9. Sundry Issues Rigging - it was common across board Media - I have said so much about them already. They were busy reporting the politicking in the political parties and did not attend to reporting governance and setting agenda for the nation. They were even accused of tailoring their reporting to suit their benefactors! They also over-concentrated on pulling down INEC instead of attending to other important issues and stakeholders in the electoral process.
Lessons to Learn · If you desire success in life you must work assiduously to achieve it · As the Yorubas will say “Owuro lojo” - you must set forth at dawn. No short cut to success · The principle that “to succeed in life you must destabilize others” has its limitations as “whoever must kill in order to succeed must have death as sentinel at the door of his own success · The road to the success of our country and her peoples is one that should be trodden with the mentality that it is a marathon and not a one hundred meters dash · Voter education should be encouraged and NGOs and other such bodies should be actively involved in nation building instead of just waiting for grants from overseas donors and making noise in the media · Our politics should be restructured in way that it will be ideology-based. Indeed is our economy based on capitalism, socialism or it is still what was called a “mixed economy” · Our press need to wake up and move away from such unprofitable ventures as character assassination, mishchief, misinformation,spreading hatred and division among Nigerians. · If you want to beat PDP then you have to work harder – the taste of the pudding is in the eating. · Politicians should be encouraged to be patriotic in their utterances especially when dealing with the foreign media. These foreigners have their own problems. The recently concluded elections in France witnessed all that ours witnessed - irregularities, shootings, violence etc. Thanks for having read this piece.
Taslim O. Anibaba (FCA)
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Posted by Robot| 22.04.2007 09:38