Tag: PDP

The facile claim by most politicians in our country that politics is a game of number does not apply to indiscriminate recruitment or admittance of members of ideologically opposed political parties

As he exits the All Progressives Congress (APC) and migrates to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Nuhu Ribadu, a one-time fellow at the Centre for Global Development for his reputation as Nigeria’s anti-corruption czar thrown into irrelevance by the same party that appointed him to the country’s anti-corruption agency, re-introduced recently into the polity what Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim of Greater Nigerian People’s Party during the second republic called ‘politics without bitterness.’ In the same breath, Malam Ribadu raised the problem of the scrambling of the culture of progressive politics in the country.

Ribadu’s commitment to the politics of bitterness is unmistakable in his letter of withdrawal from the party that sponsored him as its presidential candidate in 2011: “My defection shouldn’t be seen as an initiation of political antagonism with my good friends in another party. I still hold them in high esteem, and even where there are marked differences, I believe there are decorous and honourable ways of resolving them.” He also added that there is no desire for any short-term gratification or love of ‘stomach infrastructure’ in his migration from APC to PDP, adding: “I wish to assure you that my defection is in pursuit of a good cause and never out of any selfish interests.”  Ribadu’s assurances should be believable, given the moral high ground that he occupied at the time he was head-hunted to run as ACN presidential candidate at the end of his fellowship at the Centre for Global Development in Washington.

There will be many more qualified observers of partisan politics to comment on Ribadu’s choice of PDP as a platform for him to pursue his project of good cause. Today’s piece is about how Ribadu’s abrupt exit from APC, which he co-founded with other leaders of the Action Congress of Nigeria, provides  motivation for a narrative about the threat to the tradition of progressive politics in the country’s post-military era. When individuals like Ribadu migrate from APC to PDP and others like Nyako transfer their political seat from PDP to APC, students of political affairs are bound to raise questions about the character of progressive politics and parties.

To call one party or movement progressive in the context of Nigeria is to recognise the role of ideology in the organisation of the polity and society. In Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History,” he predicted that the end of the cold war may lead to the end of major ideological conflict in the world at large. However, Fukuyama added that in countries that have not attained liberal democracy as a dominant value, the tendency for conflicts remains until such countries accept the inevitability of liberal democracy. This implies that there will be reasons for creating ideologies in transitional societies like Nigeria until the end of history, if Fukuyama’s theory is accepted as capable of explaining human historical trajectory.

From the 1950s till date, there has been the imperative for any political party created by the Yoruba to construct a clear ideology that presents its vision and mission statements to the electorate, as a means of mobilising for citizens’ support. Whether it was the Action Group, the Unity Party of Nigeria of Awolowo’s time (with no reference to the use of such names by contemporary politicians), the Social Democratic Party, the Alliance for Democracy, Action Congress, Action Congress of Nigeria, and now the All Progressives Congress, politicians in the Yoruba region have always known that any party that wants to be listened to by the generality of voters in the region must present a progressive face and agenda.

It was the belief that most Yoruba people are politically ‘to the left of the ideological spectrum’ that also explained why it was the SDP (a little to the left party) out of the two party-structures created by General Babangida that the Yoruba espoused in 1993, leaving the non-threatening number of Yoruba conservatives to NRC. The recognition among a majority of Yoruba people that government exists for the sake of the governed also explained the attraction of Yoruba intellectuals to Aminu Kano’s NEPU or Balarabe Musa’s PRP.

Now that the country’s presidential system makes it easy for politics of personalities or god-fathers to eclipse that of ideology or of ideas, it is understandable when governors or former governors catch headlines when they migrate out of and into parties whimsically. The fact that political parties no longer scrutinise the ideological leanings or credentials of politicians crossing into their folds should be a source of worry for truly progressive politicians and thinkers. Most of the nomadic politicians that move from one party to the other are more besotted to power than to service to the people. This also explains why most of such politicians have no qualms in moving back to their first political party when their assessment of their new political party changes. To such itinerant politicians, a political party’s normative vision is of no relevance. What matters is the opportunity to use their belonging to or disengaging from political parties as a bargaining chip for power and privilege.

It is too soon to point at what made Ribadu run from APC to PDP. It is also premature to say that he will not run back to APC from PDP later. What is important is for political parties that are progressive and want to be seen to be progressive not to leave the gate to the party wide open. There needs to be a mechanism within the culture of progressive parties to resist the temptation of being ensnared or seduced by individuals capable largely of generating sound bites and hype. What makes multi-party democracy meaningful is the distinctiveness in the vision and mission of each political party in contest with others for state power, not the readiness of parties to serve as fall-out shelters for members of other political parties.

What has been obvious in the last fifteen years of post-military governance is the search by the ruling party for a one-party system. The saying that the PDP will be the party in power for the next 65 years is a code to other parties seeking power at all cost and with immediate effect to merge with the ruling party. It is the desire for absolute power that must have pushed the ruling power at the centre to stigmatise opposition political parties periodically as working and talking to undermine the party in power. While it is right and respectable for opposition political parties to resist being swelled by the ruling party, it is a puerile strategy for opposition parties, especially those that carry the image of progressiveness, to open their doors wide for politicians that may have differences other than ideological disagreement with their home parties.

The facile claim by most politicians in our country that politics is a game of number does not apply to indiscriminate recruitment or admittance of members of ideologically opposed political parties. The game of number principle applies to the electorate. It is the number of voters that political parties can woo to their sides on account of the relevance of their vision and mission statements to the citizenry that matters in a proper democracy, not the number of individuals in office or seeking office who choose to change political parties without any reference to the ideological stance of such parties.

Just as Malam Ribadu has pledged to avoid any acrimony with members of the APC during his stay in the PDP, so should APC leaders and their image makers refrain from demonising him for what may appear to be political nomadism in a country where whatever goes up politically must always come down.