What does the All Progressives Congress (APC), the new party, which just approached the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to consummate its merger, want – power? What else would any political party want?
But if it is power for power’s sake, the party has a disturbing mirror before it.
For 14 agonising years, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has bellowed “Power!” has been intoxicated with power and has been completely charmed by power. Yet, its terrible lot is a classic example of power as dysfunction.
So maddened by power is PDP, that two of its best performing governors are interlocked in a party-fatal vanity war.
Akwa-Ibom’s Godswill Akpabio, credited with some stunning infrastructure development in his state, heads the reactionary bastion spurred on by presidential hubris; which insists the ruling party must prey on its members, no matter how much of assets such members are perceived.
Rivers’ Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, an underdog giving the PDP Jonathan establishment a bloody nose, despite graceless presidential muscle-flexing, heads the other column (dubbed rebellious or progressive, depending on which side of the divide you stand), which insists party membership must not equate presidential zombies.
When two elephants fight, the saying goes, the grass suffers. Inside the PDP Power Babel however, it is the reverse: the power-crazed elephant buckles, when the grass gets too hot under its unfeeling limbs!
With suspended Sokoto Governor, Aliyu Wamakko, launching a scud missile of “incompetence”, at embattled Bamanga Tukur, PDP national chairman, whose counter-missile of “indiscipline”, cracked back at Wamakko, the combat is on! The Nation of June 15 reported nine northern governors, out of 15, had backed Wamakko against Tukur.
Even among the ranks of these northern governors, things appear to be falling apart: two, Benue’s Gabriel Suswam and Bauchi’s Isa Yuguda, have reportedly pulled out, obviously suffering some post-Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) election defeat syndrome, after backing a wrong horse!
And for Jonah Jang, phoney “NGF chair”, the cruel irony of power without authority coldly mocks his “summon” to a meeting, of governors outside his moral authority. See what impunity does to the mind? As the Yoruba say: can a thorough reject raise a tune and expect his peers to back that tune?
For PDP, therefore, it is morning yet on self-destruct day! By the time the smoke clears, the party might well be buried under the rubble of own hubris!
That is what power without purpose does.
So, what direction should APC take? That of power with purpose.
The Nigerian state suffers great debilitations that need more than just power to cure. For starters, the present Nigerian presidency is unsustainable. Neither is Nigeria’s troubled federalism, no more than military unitary contraption, in false “democracy” cloak.
So, while working on its rainbow coalition so vital for success for a Nigerian power elite so prebendal at heart, even while sloganeering along progressive-conservative divides, APC must codify a nationwide charter of demands, based on felt local needs.
These felt needs must reflect what different parts of the country, using the six geo-political zones as windows, want as a matter of urgency: a sort of core demands, to offer the tottering Nigerian state a rebirth.
Of all, it would appear the South West is the most vocal, as to what it wants in a new Nigeria: fiscal federalism, regional integration, and political restructuring to make for productive federalism as opposed to the present central parasitism, perhaps using the geo-political zones as new federating units.
All these, of course, would entail paring down the humongous powers of the Nigerian president; and transferring most of the Nigerian state’s tasks to the regions – but backing such tasks with adequate cash.
How to source that cash? Not by sharing a centrally collectible pool as is the present practice. It is rather by each region working its own resources, but paying some agreed percentages to the central government. This is no innovation. It was what powered the federal Constitution at independence.
Steve Osuji, fellow The Nation columnist, always passionately writes on the “Igbo question”. But can the South East codify the Igbo question into some sort of negotiating charter with the rest of the country? That is what APC must work at. This is absolutely important, for no power elite with enlightened self-interest would shut from central power one of its most enterprising blocs and hope to live in peace.
Beyond the vicarious feel of “power”, the South-South, like the South West before it and indeed, like the North before both, must admit producing the president does not improve the lot of its masses, beyond satisfying the greed of the few in the power cockpit. So, what are that region’s felt needs? Beyond “resource control”, meaning some 100 per cent retention of petro-dollars, the South-South should write its own charter.
The North is generally the bastion of conservatism; which often translates on its insistence on “unity”: a euphemism for retaining the status quo, which the departing British skewed in its favour. Even then, its willy-nilly loss of power and influence, since the tragic presidential election annulment of 12 June 1993, has shown that gravy could not go on forever.
So, what does the North want? Whatever it is, there is an urgent need, however future Nigeria is structured, for a deliberate and sweeping emergency plan to tackle mass poverty and mass ignorance (which feeds mass insurrection under religious and other cloaks) in the North East, aside from the felt needs of the North East elite and people.
North Central? Christian-Muslim tension is explosive here. That accounts for the radicalisation of the Northern arm of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). Besides, the many peoples of North Central are eager to project and express cultural, ethnic and religious pride, in the framework of a truly federal Nigeria.
The North West, ever so privileged under the present Usman Dan Fodio-inspired system, need not lose its proud heritage. But it must come to terms with changing times; and balance its conservative Islamic temper with the religious rights of minorities, to forge a new, fair and equitable Nigeria.
The North, as a bloc, must come up with proposals on how to mine its own mineral resources, propose fair derivation for its sweat (as counterpoise to South-South’s “resource control”), and further hone its agriculture to earn foreign exchange. It must, as a rule, wean itself from hankering after proceeds from South-South’s oil, under whatever justifications, when it could build and drive its own wealth.
If APC collates these regional charters, and it wins power, it would be primed to tinker the right restructuring: mainly, paring down the humongous powers and the vast but idle resources that now come with the Nigerian Presidency; which nevertheless fuel corruption, fund subversion, and drive structural under-development. Even before formal restructuring, APC would have specific developmental tasks to tackle.
But if the party succumbs to the expediency of a North-West/South-West power grab, without addressing the structural stress of a quaking Nigerian federation, it will further drive Nigeria to the precipice. History would blame it for the final beginning of the end.
