Ruling party has further ridiculed Nigeria by comparing its ‘founding fathers’ with Mandela
We all like to associate with good things; but it is insulting for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to compare any of its founding fathers with the former South African President, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. The difference between Mandela and the PDP’s founding fathers is like that between heaven and earth. You don’t compare sleep with death.
Since the passage of this great African and world icon on December 5, tributes have expectedly come in torrents from all over the world. Mandela deserved all the accolades; his type is rare in most generations. I do not know if there is anything new to say by way of eulogising the man, but there have been issues that arose since his death which make localising the passage compelling in a way that it will have meaning to us here beyond just praising the Madiba.
Hear the PDP: “While Nelson Mandela, the greatest African of the living memory, ended the inhumanity of apartheid, bringing freedom to South Africans, the founding fathers of PDP liberated Nigeria from the vicious clutches of military tyranny and ushered the nation into democracy”. That was the ruling party’s own way of eulogising Mandela. Yet, nothing could be more fallacious than these claims. How can anyone who wants to be truthful to himself say this kind of thing? But when last has the PDP been truthful, even to itself? We know however that in Nigeria, such claims can be made, especially by our politicians because, as I have always argued, everything to them is politics. The truth is that Nigeria’s ruling parties have this uncanny way of attempting to rewrite history. The defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in its bid to ridicule Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the Second Republic (at least so it thought), also claimed that the first television station in Africa was established somewhere in Libya, instead of Ibadan in the then Western Region of Nigeria. Needless to say that the campaign failed.
But shouldn’t we know the limits of expensive jokes or politics? How can anyone compare Mandela with any of the PDP founding fathers, living or dead? Trust Nigerians, they have since descended on the ruling party as vultures would a rotten corpse. It is unfortunate that the party does not know that the international community has had more than enough to laugh about us; we should therefore not further ridicule our country with such comments. It is even the more fallacious to claim that “the founding fathers of PDP liberated Nigeria from the vicious clutches of military tyranny and ushered the nation into democracy”. Even if this was ever true, has the ruling party not thrown Nigerians that they have been ruling for the past 14 years into the ‘vicious clutches of civilian tyranny’? And, contrary to the PDP’s claim that it has liberated Nigerians, are they (Nigerians) not still in manacles; in which they are likely to remain until the day they know how to insist on one man, one vote?
What we know as a fact, and which is sad about democracy in the country, is that most of those now enjoying high political offices did little or nothing to bring democracy about. Whenever the history of the struggle is being written, Nigerians know those who fought the democracy fight. How many PDP top shots were in the trenches during the struggle? We still remember those who stood on June 12; we remember those who sat on it; those who knelt on it, those who trampled on it; those who slept on it; those who spat on it, those who danced on it, etc. Even the soldiers who beat a retreat in 1999 know those who made them run; their tails behind their legs. As a matter of fact, it can be argued that the PDP is mismanaging the country because it did not know how we came about democracy. Those who really fought the military to a standstill might not have misruled the country this way. Hardly can people appreciate what they never worked for.
Mandela, who fought alongside other patriots to end apartheid in South Africa, and despite the awe with which he was held by people, not only in South Africa but globally, despite his acclaimed qualities, was never interested in second term. Here was a man who spent most of his 27 years serving hard labour in Robben Island prison, off Cape Town. Although jailed for life, he was released in 1990 and received a Nobel Prize. He was later elected South Africa’s president in the country’s first multi-racial elections held in 1994. Even the white supremacists that he fought appreciated his essence.
If he had wanted a second term, perhaps life presidency, he probably would have got it on a platter of gold. Here, people, mostly non-performers cling to political offices as if their lives depend on them. It is in the PDP that an obviously sick governor would go fishing even while it is clear from motion and still pictures that the man is not in a position to catch an ant. It is in the PDP that an ailing president would not want to vacate office even while it is glaring that his health could no longer carry the weight of the enormous responsibility of office. Mandela did not belong to this category of sit-tight leaders.
Right now, second term is at the core of the crisis that has torn the ruling party apart. In some cases, even second term would not do as we witnessed in the Obasanjo presidency: baba wanted a third term! Today, people are busy arguing over whether the president signed a one-term pact and the presidency is on the defensive. What is particularly painful is that the people clamouring for more than one term in office do not have any tangible thing to point to as their achievements beyond their usual deceitful backslapping in their political party. Mandela gave his all, including his life, in the struggle to emancipate his people from the shackles of apartheid.
The PDP should stop disgracing our country in the comity of nations. It has had 14 years to etch its name in gold but has failed so far; but all hope is not lost if only it can redeem itself before 2015. As William Shakespeare observed, “some are born great; some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them”. Unlike ‘PDP’s Mandelas’, despite the fact that Nelson Mandela was born great (born to the Thembu royal family), he also worked hard to sustain his greatness, rather than have greatness thrust upon him. How many people that the PDP is placing in his class can we say the same of? Mandela went to jail for political reasons, the few persons in the PDP that had gone to jail did so for corruption. Majority of them who should be cooling their heels in jailhouses are still walking the streets free.
It would have been better for the PDP not to eulogise Mandela than ridicule the man the way it did. By the ruling party’s standards, it could talk of its own Mandelas, that is ‘PDP’s Mandelas’. After all, ‘in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’. I have always argued that there is nothing on earth that does not have a fake. Remember the advert of that analgesic? So, if it is not Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, it cannot be the same as Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela; the Madiba of whom the world sings.
Adieu Mandela, the ‘troublemaker’ with a cause.
