The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Third Force

  • The third Force

    THIS is not about former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s politically motivated ‘Coalition for Nigeria Movement’. It is not also the South Africa’s Third Force, a term used by leaders of the ANC during the late 1980s and early 1990s to refer to a clandestine force believed to be responsible for a surge in violence in KwaZulu-Natal, and townships around and south of the Witwatersrand. It is about a revolution in the Nigerian film industry that will not onto tell the original African story, but deploys the Hollywood-like whiz kid to rake in the kind of money that ‘Black Panther’ made.

    Incidentally, there is a section of Nollywood muting the idea of a Third Force, each time they talked about the exploit of South Africa, as it concerns arty films, award-winning films, technical ingenuity, culture of film funds, and film collaboration with the West.

    Outside the usual lip service paid the potential of film business in Nigeria, how can we use the Hollywood model to tell our stories, as it appears Hollywood is bereft of original stories, and like petrol, they have come for our crude and made even more money selling the finished product to the world.

    Let us first look at the area of historical distortion that most Africa-centered Hollywood films are known for. In a piece by Malena Amusa on February 21, 2018, the writer said: “As a visionary and creative professional, “Black Panther” truly inspired me. But as a historian and benefactor of the black struggle for liberation, the movie left me shocked and hurt.”

    Her argument was that the movie’s neocolonial politics killed the true spirit of the Black Panther, and anyone hoping for a refreshing and futuristic road map to black liberation.

    She said: “Rather than giving us hope, “Black Panther” engaged in perverse colonial fantasy, telling America it can come in Africa and take whatever it wants with no measures of accountability. The movie outright slights the main argument of its original comic, which challenged the West, not acquiesced to its agenda.”

    This is what we get when we leave our potentials untapped. Hollywood sure knows the power of black films. Records have been created with the likes of ‘Moonlight’, an almost entire black cast movie which won Best Picture at the Oscar. There is also ‘Hidden Figures’ which made $165.5 million in the US and an additional $48.8 million overseas in 2016, just as ‘Straight Outta Compton’ wowed with about $200 million for a film directed by a black filmmaker.

    Now, ‘Black Panther’ didn’t just outdo box office records with $218m on debut weekend, it has also finally revealed how well, movies telling stories about black people, with black actors travel.

    My concern here is how Nigerians can tell a similar story that will make N135 million in the first three days in Nigeria alone.

    Going by the current structure in Nollywood whereby Bank of Industry gives loan to filmmakers, I do not see $200 million being the production cost of ‘Black Panther’ too much for BoI to dole out, should the DFI be sure of a film project returning N135 million in three days. As a matter of fact, in seven days, the movie had hit the N200 million mark. And I heard it made more money in Ghana in the opening weekend than it made in Nigeria.

    At the risk of saying that the cast of a movie is a better determinant the production house, with $200 million, not only is a Nollywood film sure of the best African actors in Hollywood, our local stars stand the chance of being integrated into the Hollywood space through this subtle approach. If a foreign DoP, all the effects and grading are what will take us to Hollywood to get a perfect finished product, so be it. for all I know, we would have started a new journey that sooner or later, will make us own our product 100 percent. When that happens, selling a full Africa film project in Hollywood may not be a problem, as we would have been integrated into the market.

  • Olawepo-Hashim is ‘third force’ candidate

    Business mogul and frontline presidential candidate Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim has consolidated his presidential bid with his emergence at the weekend as a third force presidential candidate.

    The candidate is now  in a prime position to challenge President Mohammadu Buhari  of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    Olawepo-Hashim, who is running on the platform of the People’s Trust (PT), had earlier won the party’s presidential ticket, following a fusion of over 10 political parties, including the Olisa Agbakoba lead National Intervention Movement (NIM).

    His name has since been submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    Reliable sources have also confirmed that more parties are likely to fuss into the growing alliance, following a new zeal to join forces against the duo of Buhari and Abubakar, in what will give a lie to the impression that next year’s election is a two horse race.

    The growing integration of the third force includes the majority of members of Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), even though a fraction of the party still went ahead and presented a presidential candidate.

    The Middle-Belt Forum had earlier shortlisted Olawepo-Hashim among four of its prominent indigenes as likely presidential candidates to represent the region in next year’s presidential poll

    Others who had made the list were a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana; former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank Dr. Obadiah Mailafia; and former Plateau State Governor Senator Jonah Jang, among a dozen candidates that went through the rigorous screening.

    Chaired by Air Commodore Dan Suleiman, the panel reportedly shortlisted Olawepo-Hashim, the youngest among the four, for his deep knowledge of the economy arising from his successful  business endeavours, spanning the breadth of oil and gas , power, communications and marketing.

    The businessman’s urbane and cerebral qualities partly reflected in his feats in the University of Lagos and the Buckingham University where he was best student in his cohort, winning the MaxBerlof Award for Global Affairs were also advantages.

    The first elected National Deputy Publicity Secretary of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Olawepo-Hashim, the youngest of the aspirants screened, is seen as a potential force from the Middle-Belt region, good enough to attract first-time voters on the national voter register numbering over fifteen million apart from potential voters from the region and elsewhere.

    Other than this are his pro-democracy credentials beginning from his University of Lagos days and growing into his real life experiences, leading to his recognition as Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience in 1989.

    Detribalised with strong bridge-building credentials, his international exposure additionally appealed to the 18-member screening committee, spread across fourteen Middle-Belt states.

    Aside Commodore Dan Suleiman, who is former military administrator and one- time Nigerian envoy to Russia, other personalities on the then screening panel included former Adjutant-General of the Nigerian Army, Major-General Zamani Lekwot, former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Ishaya Bamaiyi, former Governor of old Gongola State, Mr. Wilberforce Juta, former Governor of old Kwara State, Chief Cornelius Adebayo, Mr. Sam Ada Maagbe and Chief John Odakun.

  • Where’s the ‘third force’?

    It was former President Olusegun Obasanjo who, in recent history, touted the doctrine of a third force in Nigerian politics.

    In a fiery open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari last January, he shredded the incumbent’s performance credentials and pitched in against his seeking another term of office. Obasanjo, however, sensed he was up against a brick wall with his gratuitous counsel as far as it pertains to the president and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC); but he also foreclosed a return to the old path of nationhood when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in the saddle. And so, he threw up the idea of a third force as his proposed alternative.

    The former head of state said the PDP now in opposition had not shown better behavioural traits than when it was in power. “As the leader of that party for eight years as president of Nigeria, I can categorically say there is nothing to write home about in their new team. We have only one choice left to take us out of Egypt to the Promised Land, and that is the coalition of the concerned and the willing – ready for positive and drastic change, progress and involvement,” he wrote.

    Obasanjo didn’t seem to think through how the third force would emerge as a veritable force, independent of the first and second forces that he sought to consign to the history bin though. Besides, his conceptualisation of the new force was notoriously foggy. But he did make some attempt at sketching its basics, saying the force should be a movement that need not be a political party – one to which all well-meaning Nigerians can belong. “That movement must be a coalition for democracy, good governance, social and economic well-being and progress, a coalition to salvage and redeem our country,” he explained.

    Although he granted that nothing should in the course of time stop such a movement from satisfying prescribed conditions for fielding candidates for elections, the ex-president said he would relinquish its membership at that point so that he could, for his part, remain non-partisan.

    Obasanjo presented his idea of a third force as a civic action and public-centred movement, if only in the short to medium term by his envisioning. His motives have never been widely trusted to be altruistic, and he seems too fixated already with a personal agenda to orchestrate Buhari out of power. But we must isolate the ‘third force’ idea, which on face value touts a promise to widen the scope of citizens role-playing in the political space. Few other groupings have touted a similar promise, such as the National Intervention Movement led by eminent rights lawyer Olisa Agbakoba and the Red Card Movement inspired by respected civil activist Oby Ezekwesili. None has, however, mustered the political impact of Obasanjo’s proposition.

    Perhaps owing to the ex-president’s spurious motive, the third force idea was still-birthed on arrival and Obasanjo is himself back in the partisan fray. But that is to be expected, because from the moment he broached the idea, noting has stayed true to the avowed fundamentals. On the heels of Obasanjo outing with the proposal, for instance, his political ally and former Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, stepped up to arrowhead a membership drive. But like Oyinlola, notable responders were mainly political actors recycled from this country’s inglorious past.

    In apparent desperation to get into electoral action, the purported movement was hastily collapsed last May into a political party, namely the African Democratic Congress (ADC). The ADC itself has since then pooled with a number of other political groupings to integrate their 2019 agenda with that of the PDP through a recent memorandum of understanding. That, perhaps, explains why most PDP presidential aspirants have visited Obasanjo at his Abeokuta, Ogun State, base to seek his blessing.

    On the other hand, some other parties have signed up to a working alliance with the APC in pursuit of Buhari’s re-election bid in 2019. Hence, the political space remains dominated by two-force contestation.

    It isn’t that our country is under-served in terms of existing political parties. Nigeria presently has a motley crowd of 91 parties – with 23 new parties registered recently by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in addition to the 68 that previously existed on the commission’s roll. Only that most of those parties are no more than what they ostensibly are: nominal existences on INEC’s records.

    Worse is that with no restrictive criteria in our electoral laws for parties to be placed on the ballot, the huge number of registered parties promises to compound INEC’s logistics for conducting future elections. Consider, for instance, the bogus size of ballot paper that would be required to reflect every political party – pretenders as well as true contenders – fielding candidates in an election.  Besides, nominal parties have a hidden potential to play the spoiler in electoral outcomes by nitpicking rules for the conduct of elections and laying ambush against inadvertent lapses by other players in the process to contend the validity of results. Yet, INEC must keep registering new parties as our country’s electoral law provides once minimum conditions are met.

    It isn’t that the huge number of parties is in itself the challenge. India perhaps has the largest number of political parties – totalling 2,075 as at April 2018, and with more yet getting registered. But the Indian system clearly defines territorial relevance for its parties, such that the country has only two parties namely the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC), simply called Congress, dominating its national politics. Israel, with a voter population of just about 6million persons, as well has numerous political parties. The country, however, operates the proportional representation system that accommodates many of those parties in its 120-seat Knesset (parliament) and compels every emerging prime minister and his/her party to negotiate coalitions with other parties.

    Nigeria, for her part, operates the first-pass-the-post, winner-takes-all model that gives dominant political parties a permanent edge over all others; hence the unyielding two-force nature of our electoral space. The United States from which we adopted the model as well has dozens of political parties, but few ever get to qualify for ballot placement because there are stipulated preconditions that vary from state to state.

    Besides, many of those parties have sundry objectives that are not limited to seeking electoral offices; these include climate change, environmental issues, and as well controversial rules of social conduct like same sex rights and marijuana use. Only the Republican and Democratic parties cross-cut all 50 states and Washington DC in seeking offices, hence the bi-party nature of that country’s electoral system. The difference in Nigeria is that there are no restrictions for ballot access, and so weak parties wheel and deal in and out of electoral contestations without offering the electorate any real alternative.

    But we do need the third force – to be sure, not according to Obasanjo’s warped image of it – to moderate the mutually aggressive contestation for power by the existing two-force blocs, and make space for ordinary citizens to play a greater role in the political process. Among other things, we need that third force to instill the code that politicians can’t prostitute with membership of political parties out of sheer self-interest, without bearing the cost in the form of rejection by voters at future elections. We need the third force to prove the point that political power lies with the people, it is only delegated and could well be withdrawn from partisans during elections.

    The beauty is: you can be a part of that force simply by getting your voter card ready for the impending 2019 elections.

    • Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation. 

    (This piece was first used some four weeks ago. It has been slightly updated and is being reused here in view of the topicality of its focus).

  • Olawepo-Hashim: ANN is third force

    Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim is a presidential aspirant on the platform of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), which recently held its first national convention in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He spoke with reporters on his ambition and why Nigerians should vote for his party in next year’s elections. Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU was there..

    Specifically, why do you want to be President?

    I can put Nigeria back together. Nigeria is badly divided and it needs a unifier and a bridge builder. Secondly, Nigeria’s economy needs to be rescued from complete collapse. Even the growth rate of seven percent that we have for about 15 years until 2015 was not a good enough number to grow Nigeria out of poverty. We need our GDP to expand sevenfold to be able to be at par with the countries that were in the same rank as Nigeria’s like Malaysia at independence. We want to evolve a middle income country, having per capita income of between $16,000 to around $25,000 and if we are going to be at that level, we need to grow within ten years, our GDP by sevenfold. I understand how the modern economy is organized and I’m an investor myself in different countries and I have done business for 27 years. So, I have practical understanding of how to expand our GDP and grow our economy, as one who is on top of both economy, practically and theoretically. There are very few people in Nigeria who have the privilege of having strong level of political training and also sound economics and that’s important for Nigeria. We have to unite the country and at the same time, we have to deal with the economic challenges. So, they are twin issues and in fact they are related. At the bottom of some of these challenges in the country is competition for resources and massive poverty. It also contribute to the number of these upheavals that we are having in different parts of the country. Some of the realities are quite scary and needs the urgency of now to arrest them. Otherwise, if the trend continues, things can really run out of hand. Some months ago, we were discussing with some people who came to visit us from Shiroro (Niger state) and we were talking about insecurity, they said the kind of insecurity we are seeing now is not just about herdsmen and farmers clashes; that in Shiroro now, once they bury their yams in the ground around the planting season, some people will go and unearth the yams; some will even go and sell the seedlings in the market in order to have some money. So, what they do now is they mark the yam seedlings with paints so that when it shows up at the market, everybody will know that this is a stolen yam. This is where we have come to in Shiroro in Niger State. So, are you going to send policemen to be manning every farm in Nigeria? This is a huge social economic crisis. That one is no longer just security problem. It’s a serious problem of chronic poverty and collapse of all the economic lever of hope. This matter is an urgent matter. You cannot discuss some of these security challenges outside the issue of poverty and the collapse of the economic support system for the people to live to be human beings in the first place. That demands an urgency of now.

    But, the discussions and analysis of 2019 leaves all these practical questions out. It’s about what is about what are the chances of this person; how many House of Reps members are following him? How many Governors do they have? The real issues are left out and we will ensure by the grace of God that 2019 election is going to be about issues. It’s not just going to be about the shenanigans of politics.

    You were the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP at its inceptiion. Why did you dump the party.

    I left PDP in November 2006 about 12 years ago. I had issues at that time with the PDP and I think the party now is worse than then. The issues we had were issues of internal democracy and the standards were even pretty high in terms of values and we even questioned those standards then that they were not adequate. So, you can imagine what it has become now. I think it’s pretty worse now than when we formed the party. We started with issues of internal democracy right from around year 2000 and 2001, when some of our colleagues in the National Working Committee (NWC) wanted automatic extension of their tenure from two years to four years. Late Harry Marshal, myself, and others challenged it, even though we were supposed to be beneficiaries of that extension. We felt it was objectionable. We had just come from military dictatorship and coming into democracy, we were not supposed to be conducting ourselves with impunity. So, that was the fight then around 2000, almost two decades ago now.

    Then, by 2006, it was clear that the party was not ready to reform itself and a lot of people exited the party including the founders of the party that made victory possible. That was why you saw that the 2007 election was perhaps the worst election that Nigeria ever had. 2007 election was like warfare because they had lost support of most of the members that made victory possible. So, they needed to rig election massively. That was the election conducted by Prof. Maurice Iwu with soldiers; very terrible election. Some of these people who became Governors in that era on the PDP platform didn’t really win elections. Some of them afterwards continued their careers and transformed themselves to Senators and all that. So, the perfidy did not just start today. The perfidy started from that era and of course it began to go from bad to worst.

    But, the other dimension was that as you had people who were not reflecting genuine popularity, who were helped into office through rigging and all that, they had less loyalty to people’s welfare. So, it also took a toll on the quality of leadership. You had some Governors who were going to hand over to their successors, virtually just making their houseboys Governors. Some of them made their cash officers or account officers in banks to become Governors. Some of them never had any kind of political tutelage of anytime. You can imagine, I just make my account officer in the bank; I say I’m going; you are the one who can cover my track. Come and become a Governor. The guy had never participated in politics. He had never even been a student union leader. He has never been a leader in the CAN or a Muslim organization where we have some rudiments of organizing people, and straight, he becomes Chief Executive of a State.

    Are you not generalising the situation?

    All these things have consequences – when you turn out leaders who do not have political tutelage, no ideological training. So, they just come into public office and just behave like rascals. That’s what you had in the PDP and of course, the APC that succeeded PDP is not any different. In fact, it’s the worst because they are not even a political party. It was just a conspiracy to remove (Goodluck) Jonathan out of office and as soon as they came, they were confused. They were completely confused about how to approach the economy, how to approach politics and they were running a disorganized government. The National Assembly under the APC government was a different party entirely from those in the Executive and they were perennially at war from beginning to the end of that government. So, they were worse than even the PDP.

    Today, you are contesting from the FCT. Why?

    That’s the Nigeria I want. That’s the Nigeria the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) wants.  I‘ve lived in Abuja at least for a while, doing business for more than twenty something years. So, you shouldn’t have a problem with Mrs. Clinton doing politics and then going back to New York to contest for Senate, or in Nigeria, (Governor Rauf) Aregbesola moving from Lagos. So, this is not the first time we are having this type of thing. The country we want to build is the country where your regional descent should not define you politically. In my case, of course, I have heritage in about three states and apart from that, I have lived abroad for about 10 years of my life. So, I’m completely a cosmopolitan person and we have a lot of Nigerians having dual citizenship. I don’t have dual citizenship. I have only the Nigerian passport. I’ve had the opportunity of taking citizenship of other countries but I had never done that. What I’m saying is that you have people who were born abroad who could even contest to become British Prime Minister. So, why should that be a big issue in Nigeria?

    So, the Nigeria of our dream is the Nigeria where any Nigerian can get up from anywhere and contest for public office and that was the beauty of Nigeria before. I was just talking about Sir. Kashim Ibrahim running election in Benue – a Borno man in a predominantly Christian state, a Muslim and he was elected into the Northern Assembly.  You talk about Zik of Africa who was elected into the Western House of Assembly. I think what we have now is a complete degeneracy in our polity in this era. The founding fathers of our Republic were more progressive and more forward looking, whether they were from the North or West or from wherever. They were more nationalistic and more patriotic. It beats my imagination that the younger generation who claims to be more educated and more exposed, are regressing into clannishness which wasn’t even the case in the First Republic.  So, we need to take Nigeria back to those values that gave Nigeria independence; a Nigeria where an Igala man can become the Mayor of Enugu and Enugu people will have no qualms about it.  That’s the Nigeria our founding fathers left for us.  So we cannot bequeath a Nigeria of the herdsmen that will start slitting the throats of citizens. That’s not the Nigeria we want to leave for our children.

    I think there is lots of irresponsibility on the part of the leadership where the body language of the various leaders have been encouraging division, rather than bringing Nigeria together.  So, the fact that I’m happy to say that Abuja is my base now, we are also sending a message that that is the Nigeria we want to build.  That is the Nigeria we want to have, where you can play politics from where you live and you don’t have to retreat to your ancestral origin before you can do politics. That’s the new Nigeria we want to build.

    How is your party planning to get to number one from the perceived number three positions it is now?

    The two horses are on their way to death already. They are bleeding very horribly. They are both APC and PDP. One thing that is interesting is that you have almost 10 million voters who are going to be voting for the first time in Nigeria. Most of them are not followers of these two horses you are talking about. In fact, they are the crop of people who ordinarily were not showing interest in politics, who are incensed by the shenanigans of those two major parties, that they don’t want to vote for either of these parties. These are the first line of support for the ANN.  In a three-way race, if you start with 70 percent of that vote, you are already halfway through and you can do your research. These ones are unlikely to vote for PDP or APC. So, that is the starting point.

    Then, you have a number of patriotic people even in the APC and PDP who have been trapped in that politics and these people have been given the impression that it’s either this one or that one. But the ANN is offering a ray of hope that captures their imagination. They are already leaving the two parties in droves. Ordinarily, a lot of Nigerians are forward looking and they are really yearning for a new Nigeria, a new polity. You can also do your independent findings. If you try to find out who these people are likely to vote for, you will see that majority of electorates, apart from those who make a living of politics, are not interested in APC or PDP.

    What is this programme or the ideology of the ANN that you profess?

    Number one, you will see that majority of the people in ANN are people who have something they are doing with their hands. They are not professional politicians who live on politics. The party believes in productive engagement. That is number one and consequently, the focus of the party is not to distribute handouts, but to make sure that we have sustainable employment that is tied to industry, that is tied to manufacturing. Job is central to that. Creative people who are utilizing their creative energy to make value for society is central to that. These are the kinds of people you want to encourage in politics. They are the kinds of people you want to use your political platform to empower.

    Then we want a Nigeria that is not going to be driven on the basis of ethnicity or religious bigotry. We want a Nigeria where merit will determine a lot of things that will drive the values that society runs on. These are things that are quite different. That’s not what you see in the two biggest parties in Nigeria. Anytime they are talking, it’s about zoning; it’s about whether the President is going to be from the South or from the East and all that.

    That is the conversation all the time. There is no serious focus on how do we grow infrastructure. There is no conversation on how do we create jobs. There is no conversation on how do we expand the GDP and the economy. That’s not the conversation. Their conversation is who is leaving the PDP tomorrow for APC; what is the next permutation. That is all the conversation and that is nonsense, bunkum. Nigeria’s conversation about politics should be about jobs, about economy and that is when people cannot escape responsibilities. But when you make the conversation all about religion and all that, these are inanities and lot of people can run away with a lot of things. It’s that conversation that has fowled the atmosphere so much now and you see criminals who should be in jail will escape with the loot because when you want to arrest them, they will say I’m from this corner or that corner. Then people from their village will go and make a public display that they are persecuting our son because the whole conversation is about ethnicity. So, it makes nonsense of anti-corruption. It makes nonsense of failure in governance. But when you elevate the issues, then people cannot hide and escape the consequences of their criminal actions.

    You have put a lot of energy in reorganizing the ANN, if you don’t get the presidential ticket, what will you do?

    I will still continue in ANN. But members of ANN are not stupid. They want to put their best foot forward for Nigerians so that the party can win and that is what we are working hard on.

    How can your party match the level of vote buying we have seen in recent elections?

    That is a job for all of us, including the media. But the level of poverty in the country encourages it. I also think that those who have stolen a lot of money from government also encourage it. So, once you de-market certain categories of people and that is the job of all of us, I think the vote buying will reduce, especially de-marketing them by making the election about issues. But when the choices are not very sharp, or when the differences in the political platform are not clear, then the electorate will say they are the same; why should I choose one over the other, except the one that offers me something because there is no difference between APC and PDP. Tell me why anybody should prefer PDP to APC? There is no reason to be honest with you. So, that’s an incentive for vote buying, when there is no difference between the political parties. But when there is a clear difference, I think the scope of vote buying will become narrower.

    Is that why you call yourselves technoticians? Can you explain?

    That’s a term in ANN. It means basically technocrats, lawyers, doctors, professionals who are also interested in politics. That is that slang in ANN. If I want to make it simpler, it’s people who have something they are doing with their hands.

    Do you see your ambition being hampered in one way or the other by the so called issues of politics, which you called shenanigans of politics, zoning, ethnicity, which appear still widespread right now?

    I don’t see how my ambition is limited by that. If anything at all, I think Nigerians want a truly Nigerian President. So I don’t see how that limits me. It only helps in a period of great division. Nigerians need at this point a President that will be a true Commander in Chief of all Nigerians regardless of where they come from or regardless of their State. That is the President that Nigerians need and that person is me.

    ENDS

     

  • Where’s the ‘third force’?

    It was former President Olusegun Obasanjo that, in recent history, touted the doctrine of a third force in Nigerian politics.

    In a fiery open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari last January, he shredded the incumbent’s performance credentials and pitched in against his seeking another term of office. Obasanjo, however, sensed he was up against a brick wall with his gratuitous counsel as far as it pertains to the president and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC); but he also foreclosed a return to the old path of nationhood when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in the saddle. And so, he threw up the idea of a third force as his proposed alternative.

    The former head of state said the PDP now in opposition had not shown better behavioural traits than when it was in power. “As the leader of that party for eight years as president of Nigeria, I can categorically say there is nothing to write home about in their new team. We have only one choice left to take us out of Egypt to the Promised Land, and that is the coalition of the concerned and the willing – ready for positive and drastic change, progress and involvement,” he wrote.

    Obasanjo didn’t seem to think through how the third force would emerge as a veritable force, independent of the first and second forces he sought to consign to the history bin. Besides, his conceptualisation of the new force was notoriously foggy. But he did make some attempt at sketching its rudimentary profile, saying the force should be a movement that need not be a political party – one to which all well-meaning Nigerians can belong. “That movement must be a coalition for democracy, good governance, social and economic well-being and progress, a coalition to salvage and redeem our country,” he explained.

    Although he granted that nothing should in the course of time stop such a movement from satisfying prescribed conditions for fielding candidates for elections, the ex-president said he would, for his part, relinquish its membership at that point so that he could personally remain non-partisan.

    In other words, Obasanjo presented his idea of a third force as a civic action and public-centred movement, even if only in the short to medium term by his envisioning. His motives have never been widely trusted to be altruistic, and he seems already fixated with a sole agenda to orchestrate Buhari out of power. But we must isolate the third force idea, which on face value touts a promise to widen the scope of citizens role-playing in the political space. Few other groupings have touted a similar promise, like the National Intervention Movement led by eminent rights lawyer Olisa Agbakoba and the Red Card Movement inspired by respected civil activist Oby Ezekwesili. None has, however, galvanised the political renown of Obasanjo’s proposition.

    Apparently owing to the ex-president’s dubious agenda, the third force idea was still-birthed on arrival and Obasanjo is himself back in the partisan fray. But that is to be expected, because from the moment he broached the idea, noting has stayed true to its avowed fundamentals. On the heels of Obasanjo outing with the proposal, for instance, his political ally and former Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, stepped up to arrowhead a membership drive. But like Oyinlola, notable responders were mainly political actors recycled from this country’s inglorious past.

    In apparent desperation to get into electoral action, the purported movement was hastily collapsed last May into a political party, namely the African Democratic Congress (ADC). And the ADC itself has since then pooled with a number of other political groupings to integrate their 2019 aspirations with that of the PDP through a recent memorandum of understanding. Consequently, nearly all the presidential aspirants on PDP platform have staged random pilgrimages to Obasanjo at his Abeokuta, Ogun State, base to seek his blessings. On the other hand, some other parties have signed up to a working alliance with the APC in pursuit of Buhari’s re-election bid in 2019. And so, the political space remains dominated by two-force contestation.

    It isn’t really that our country is under-served in terms of existing political parties. Nigeria presently has a motley crowd of 91 parties – with 23 new parties registered only last week by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to top up the 68 parties that previously existed on the commission’s roll. Only most of those parties are no more than what they are: registered names on INEC’s records.

    Worse is that with no restrictive criteria in our electoral laws for parties to be placed on the ballot, the huge number of registered parties can’t but compound INEC’s logistics for conducting elections. Consider, for instance, the bogus size of ballot paper that would be required to reflect every political party fielding candidates in an election.  Besides, nominal parties could well play the spoiler in electoral outcomes by nitpicking on guidelines for the conduct of elections and laying ambush against inadvertent omissions. Meanwhile, INEC must keep registering new parties as our electoral law provides once minimum conditions are met.

    Not that the huge number of parties is in itself the challenge. India perhaps has the largest number of political parties – totalling 2,075 as at April 2018, and with more yet getting registered. But the Indian system clearly defines territorial relevance for its parties, and so the country has two parties namely Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC), simply called Congress, dominating its national politics.

    Israel, with a voter population of just about 6million persons, as well has numerous political parties. The country, however, operates the proportional representation system that accommodates many of those parties in its 120-seat Knesset (parliament) and compels every emerging prime minister and his/her party to negotiate coalitions with other parties.

    Nigeria, on the other hand, operates the first-pass-the-post, winner-takes-all model that gives the dominant political parties a permanent edge over all others; hence the unyielding two-force structure. The United States from which we adopted the model also has dozens of political parties, but few get to qualify for ballot placement upon meeting certain requirements that vary from state to state. Many of those parties have sundry missions other than seeking electoral offices – like climate change and environmental issues. Only the Republican and Democratic parties cross-cut all 50 states and Washington DC in seeking offices, hence the bi-party nature of its electoral system. The catch is, Nigeria has no restrictions for ballot access, and so weak parties wheel and deal in and out of electoral contestations without offering the electorate real alternative.

    But we do need a third force – to be sure, not according to Obasanjo’s agenda – to moderate the mutually aggressive contestation for power by the existing two-force blocs and ensure necessary safeguards for ordinary citizens. In our circumstance, a vocal civil society and enlightened voter population seem best placed to constitute that force.

    Among other things, we need the third force to instill the code that politicians can’t prostitute with membership of political parties out of sheer self-interest, without bearing the costs in the form of rejection at future elections. We need the force to let it be known that the Police can’t lock up harmless journalists for no other reason than ethically practising their trade like they did with Premium Times’ Samuel Ogundipe last week, and as well Jones Abiri who was just released after two years of detention without arraignment.  We need the force to make the point that political power ideally reposes in the people, it is only delegated and could well be withdrawn from partisans during elections.

    To be a part of that force, all you need is get your voter card ready for the impending 2019 elections.

     

    • Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

  • ‘It’s too early to dismiss idea of third force’

    Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Downstream Joseph Akinlaja, who represents Ondo East/West Federal Constituency on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform spoke to reporters in Lagos on a wide of national issues. Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI was there.

    The issue of killings by herdsmen has been a source of concern. What do you think is the solution?

    It is sad that Nigeria is gradually being turned into a state of blood as a result of killings by herdsmen and clashes between them and farmers. From Benue to Taraba, to Nasarawa, Zamfara and other places, including some the southern part of the country, killings by the herdsmen has become a worrisome development. But we must find a way to provide a lasting solution, because for a farmer who plants crops do so in order to reap profits. For them, farming is a means of livelihood, just as the cows of the Fulani herdsmen must survive; they must graze. Then, what is the solution? The solution is for cattle owners to start building ranches. Cattle rearing is big business; a big commercial venture, so those who are involved must be ready to spend money to secure their business and the only way to do that is for them to start building ranches, as it is done in other parts of the world. It is only in Nigeria that cows have become kings of the road. They have become a big threat and nuisance to other road users. Look at the pathetic case of that young promising Nigerian goalkeeper, Joseph Dosu, his career was terminated abruptly when he had a life threatening accident when some herds of cows ran into his car some years ago on a Lagos highway and thereby causing the young man to sustain serious spinal cord injuries. It was God that saved his life. The best way to avoid killings by herdsmen or prevent them from becoming a nuisance to farmers and road users is to build ranches for the cows. That is the modern practice and through that way, there will be peace; enough of bloodletting.

    Some observers say though the number of parties is unwieldy, INEC is still registering more. What’s your view on that?

    I’m also of the view that we have too many political parties. However, INEC should not be blamed for the registration of new political parties. INEC is just complying with the provision of the nation’s electoral act which stipulates certain criteria and conditions to be met by those wishing to float new political parties. Any group or association that met those criteria is bound to be registered by INEC. There is nothing anybody can do about the new parties; it is left for Nigerians to accept or reject them.

    Some Nigerians are canvassing for a third force to wrest power from the PDP and the APC. What is your reaction to that?

    There is nothing wrong with a third force. It is part of politics, and in politics political alignment is nothing strange. There is nothing wrong with it. It is part of political processes, but what I disagree with is the habit of some of our politicians who can’t tolerate the idea of being in opposition for a second. There are some politicians, the moment their party loses power, you see them cross-carpeting to the new ruling party. That’s not genuine politics, but it is the popular thing in this clime. Look at a country like the United Kingdom (UK), there was a time the Labour Party was in opposition for 18 years, and yet none of the party members left to join the then ruling Conservative Party. But, in Nigeria, that’s not the practice. Look at the number of PDP members that have defected to the APC. Is that progressive politics?

    It is sad that many people who profess to be politicians in Nigeria are just looking for what to eat, and that is why they are not principled and reliable; you only see them in places where their bread can be buttered. This is what I call pocketism; what can I get for my pocket, and not how best can I serve my people. Most of the so-called politicians in Nigeria don’t have principle – they lack political ideology.

    How do you see the Coalition Movement for Nigeria being floated by former President Obasanjo?

    Apart from Obasanjo, I don’t know much yet about other characters that are part of the movement. Although Obasanjo’s voice is very strong, but I don’t know how he wants to go about the whole thing. I don’t know how he wants to get the desired change he craves for Nigeria. Why do I say this? Without having a political platform, it will be difficult to effect any change, and Obasanjo’s coalition movement is not a political party. If Obasanjo’s coalition movement doesn’t transform into a political platform or party, nothing will come out of its efforts. Agreed, Obasanjo is a very strong personality, without a political platform, there is nothing he can do or achieve regarding the change he claims he desires for Nigeria.

    Do you see the prospects of an alternative to the APC and the PDP?

    We should not dismiss those people and groups involved in the ongoing alignment and realignment of forces with a wave of the hand yet. Nobody knows what can happen tomorrow. Before 2015 general elections when those groups that eventually crystalised into the APC started meeting, some Nigerians didn’t take them serious, but at the end of the day we all know what happened; how the APC eventually defeated the PDP. In politics, anything can happen. Nobody or group should be underrated. I don’t underrate anybody in politics. The only group that I know that could have formidable political party if they are united is Nigerian workers. If Nigerian workers have been united, the Labour Party would have been a formidable party. But, unfortunately, Nigerian workers even though have very strong structure, are not united.

    How do you see the PDP faring in 2019?

    Like I said earlier, in politics anything can happen. Nobody should underrate the PDP. It will bounce back in a very big way, if we can get our acts right. We must however realize that the PDP bouncing back will not be on a platter of gold. We have to work very hard. Again, everything will depend on how the party’s affairs are being steered by the national leadership. For the PDP to bounce back in a big way, it is going to be a collective effort, but surely it will be suicidal for APC to underrate PDP or write the PDP off.

    What’s your take on the re-ordering of 2019 general elections by the National Assembly?

    There is nothing you do in this country that people will not read meaning into. What members of the National Assembly have done by re-ordering the 2019 general elections to start with the National Assembly elections were done in the best interest of democracy and Nigerians. More so, this is not the first time that general elections will start with the National Assembly first. The fact that we reordered that elections should not start with the Presidential election first as it was done the last time in 2015 didn’t mean that our action is targeted at President Buhari or any other individual. Those saying that President Buhari is being targeted are being mischievous.

    The question Nigerians should ask those saying that is, whether APC lawmakers were not part of the decision? Or is President Buhari no longer an APC member? What about Senate President and the House Speaker, are they not APC members like President Buhari? National Assembly members in their own wisdom have decided that National Assembly elections should come first, and this is the consensus by all members and our decision was taken in national interest, Nigerians should ignore those people reading meaning into our actions. As lawmakers, we are patriots and in whatever we do, Nigeria comes first.

    You were a former Secretary-General of NUPENG. What is your reaction to the perennial fuel crisis in the country?

    It is a big shame that Nigeria as an oil-producing nation is having this problem. Our hope is that things will be sorted out very soon. The National Assembly and other stakeholders have also intervened, and we are taking measures that we hope will resolve the problem once and for all. There is a lot of confusion in the oil industry, and this is why the sector needs to be sanitized. Successive governments have been spending a lot of money on Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of our refineries, but yet there have been no tangible result, as we still continue to have fuel crisis every now and then. Our refineries need to be operating at maximum level, but sadly it is still far from that. It is unfair, very unfair for Nigerians, to be suffering from perennial fuel crisis when they are aware that their nation is an oil producing country.

    What is your take on the APC’s new position on restructuring?

    For those doubting the APC, certainly they have their reasons. But, one of the reasons which I know that is making some Nigerians doubt the APC’s sincerity is that until now the party had expressed reservations about restructuring; actually it opposed the idea. This is why some Nigerians are baffled by the party’s sudden u-turn on the issue. But my own take is that if the APC is serious about restructuring, let it do it now, before the 2019 general elections. Otherwise, the promise will be seen as an election gimmick. The APC is the party in power and if it wants it done, it can be done.

     

  • 2019: Is SDP the third force?

    2019: Is SDP the third force?

    Following ongoing merger negotiations, continuous defection of top politicians to SDP in the last week and the party’s open claim of being the much-awaited Third Force, Associate Editor, Sam Egburonu and Assistant Editor, Dare Odufowokan examine viability of the emerging political union and its prospects at the 2019 general elections

    THE National Secretariat of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Abuja was evidently the busiest party office late last week and all through this week. Aside the various meetings held there, The Nation observed unusual stream of visitations both by top politicians from the various parts of the country and curious observers.

    Since former President Olusegun Obasanjo called for the emergence of a third force that would defeat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the 2019 General Elections, Nigerians have awaited its advent with a great sense of apprehension.

    Some of their concerns included the fear that none of the existing political parties could easily muster the capacity to dislodge the two big parties. They also argued that if the envisaged third force turns out to be a newly registered political party, it may be choked by time factor, inadequate funds; lack of influential politicians and absence of established nationwide structure?

    But following last week’s signing of a Memorandum of Association (MoA) at Ladi Kwali Hall in Sheraton Hotel, Abuja by Chief Olu Falae-led Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Professor Jerry Gana-led Movement for a New Political Order, some informed observers, who described the development as one of the most recent and significant political mergers ahead 2019 elections, have declared that SDP may have indeed emerged the much talked about third force.

    According to them, the country’s political theatre has been jolted since then, following reports of SDP merging with the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Peoples Salvation Party (PSP) and Obasanjo’s Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM), which was formally referred to as the “Third Force.”

    The implication of the emerging scenario, according to politicians who spoke to us this week is deep. This is because, besides the importance of the ongoing merger discussions of various political associations with SDP, observers who declared the party as the current third force also did so because of the caliber of political leaders that have so far defected from PDP and other parties to SDP since the signing of the Memorandum of Association.

    Leading the pack of top politicians that recently defected to the party are former ministers Professor Jerry Gana and Professor Tunde Adeniran. Elder Godsday Orubebe, who was named later denied leaving PDP.

    Also on Thursday this week, Second Republic lawmaker, Dr. Junaid Mohammed and the former National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Prof. Rufai Ahmed Alkali, reportedly joined SDP. Their membership were confirmed when Gana, who was named the SDP National Steering Committee Chairman formally presented new members of the National Working Committee (NWC).

    According to the list, Chief Olu Falae remains the SDP National Chairman, while Dr. Abdul Ahmed Isiaq is the Deputy National Chairman.

    Other members of the NWC include Shehu Musa Gabam, National Secretary; Dr. Junaid Mohammed, National Vice Chairman, North-West; Sen. Ebezezer Ikeyina, National Vice Chairman, South-East; Barrister Supo Sonibare, National Vice Chairman, South-West; and Sen. E.B Henshaw, National Vice Chairman, South-South.

    Others are Joseph Abu, National Legal Adviser; Chief Nnamdi Clarkson, National Treasurer; Barrister Emeka Atuma, National Organising Secretary; Kehinde Ayoola, National Financial Secretary; Alhaji Alfa Muhammed, Deputy National Publicity Secretary; Lady Maryam Batubu, Women Leader, and Comrade Stanley Nwaka; Youth Leader.

    Gana also announced that Mr. Adakole Ijogi and Mr. Akinbode Oluyemi are to serve in Communication  Strategy  Committee.

    The SDP National Chairman, Chief Falae, in his remarks, said the party was “ready to fill the leadership vacuum and provide a serious government whose priority was the welfare of the people since Nigeria was in dire need of a political platform that would take her to the Promised Land.”

    Confirming the allegation that SDP is assuming the role of the envisaged third force, Falae said the party was negotiating with many movements, adding that SDP is ready to welcome everybody into its fold.

    “We are in dialogue with many of them and the dialogue is positive. You will hear more news. SDP is a very ambitious party. If all Nigerians decide to join SDP, I will welcome them all,” he said.

    While reacting to a question that sought to know the reason he left the PDP, Prof. Gana said, “When men and women of principles see good ideas, majority will flock into the movement. You can see with me Prof. Alkali, Prof. Tunde Adeniran. This will be an attraction. Many people are also contacting us.”

    Gana, who is the chairman of the SDP National Steering Committee, said at the press conference that the party was still in transition period between now and April when it would hold its convention.

    Apart from Gana himself and Prof. Adeniran, other personalities present included Dr. Olu Agunloye, the former Chief Executive of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) who was also a one-time Minister.

    Other big names that are now associated with SDP include former Military Administrator of Katsina State, Sen. Joseph Akaagerger; former Governor of Jigawa State, Saminu Turaki and former Chief of Staff to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Mike Oghiadhome, among many others.

    Leaders of the Nigerian Intervention Movement (NIM), like Dr. Jhalil Tafawa Balewa and civil society organisations, like the Civil Liberties Organisations (CLO), have also been mentioned to be part of the ongoing political discussions and re-engineering.

    Some SDP sources even claimed, during the week, that the development has the “full support of socio-cultural organisations like the Middle Belt Forum, Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the South-South Assembly.”

    But Comrade Wilfred Frank Ogbotobo, the Coordinator of South-South Legacy Forum, told The Nation on Friday that the so-called Third Force and SDP’s new schemes is not what is needed today in Nigeria. As he puts it: “The SDP or any other ad hoc contraption being canvassed cannot be an immediate alternative to the two predominant political parties – the APC and the PDP. Can the key players in these ventures accept and offer Nigerians the unfolding convergence in the SDP as an attraction of ideological old flames or an amalgam of saints? I don’t think so. Talking about alternatives, and their prospects, I don’t see the possibility of any viable and patriotic alternative taking form at this critical point. Remember that the first attempt at merger between Tinubu and Buhari didn’t work in spite of the fact that each of them had an enviable, almost quasi-institutionalized political ideology and pedigree. Now, when you look at the unfolding drama, almost all the characters are the culprits. Is there any that has not participated or contributed his quota on one ignoble for or another to our present realities? The fact is we are faced with certain outcomes of years of recklessness, lawlessness, indiscipline and corruption. What is converging is not patriotism or a genuine desire to do anything different but a grand design to abort the anti-corruption war and PMB’s ultimate plan to finally effect a shift in Nigeria’s leadership.”

    Taking cognizance of the current political tempo and recent developments, not all Nigerians would dismiss the newly emerging force with a wave of the hand. The Nation investigation during the week confirms that the new ‘Third Force,’ has some things going for it though it also has some important challenges it must overcome in order to play the role effectively.

    A fresh option

    One of the things that may go for the new political force is the idea of it offering a fresh option to Nigerians. “For us in the SDP, we believe very strongly that ours is the fresh and new option Nigerians are yearning for. Here is a party without the numerous scandals, disappointments and failures for which both the APC and the PDP are well known for.

    “It is this newness we are banking on to attract Nigerians to our side. We have no blemish. We have no baggage and Nigerians can easily identify with us as a party of patriots who haven’t deceived the people in any way.

    “The same way Nigerians looked forward to and accepted APC when it came; we believe Nigerians will rally round the SDP ahead of the 2019 General Election. The difference is that we will not promise what we will not do.”

    The above were the words of Hon. Babatunde Enigbokun, a chieftain of the SDP in Lagos State, while describing the party as the much awaited ‘alternative’ for Nigeria, especially at the centre.

    Enigbokun, a former state official of the Action Alliance, revealed that one of the selling-point for the new mega party being spearheaded by the SDP is its newness. According to him, Nigerians are yearning for change.

    “And this time, they want real change. A total departure from all that represents the past and present is what Nigerians want as we speak. The APC and the PDP are Siamese twins of failure and disappointment. Nigerians are done with both,” he said.

    The Ikorodu-born politician is not the only person who sees SDP as a scandal-free vehicle aboard which Nigerians should ride to the next level. Even Professor Adeniran shares his view.

    The former minister, while justifying the new coalition, said it is very important for Nigerians who believe in real change anchored on sustainable democracy at all levels to come together and save the situation.

    Adeniran said ahead of the 2019 General Election, the SDP and other coalition partners will be urging sincere Nigerians to come and join hands with them to rid the country of leadership by parties that have no internal democracy at play.

    But antagonists of the SDP coalition disagree. And one of the usually cited reasons for disagreeing is alleged involvement of the party in the arms scandal. It would be recalled that the SDP allegedly received N100m from the then ruling PDP to work for the re-election of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

    “When they talk about being scandal free, I laugh. Is it not the same SDP currently struggling to explain its involvement in the arms fund scandal to Nigerians? Falae got N100m from Dasuki on behalf of the party.

    “So, what are they telling us? That Nigerians have short memories or that Falae and others are now born-again? They are starting with the wrong foot forward. They need to first explain how they got involved before asking for our support,” a chieftain of the APC said, adding that “SDP as we speak today, is gradually being peopled by chieftains formerly of either APC or SDP. Where is the newness they claim,” he asked?

    But Elder Bode Duyile, a SDP leader in Ondo state, says the N100m has nothing to do with the arms purchase fund. He said it is therefore not in any way a scandal that will prevent Nigerians from identifying with the coalition.

    “When people don’t really have anything concrete against you, they begin to come up with frivolous allegations. This is what I think we are seeing now. The N100m saga was resolved almost immediately.

    “Why are they raising it now? The release of the fund was the outcome of inter- party cooperation between PDP and SDP back then. And the proposal was thoroughly debated at the national executive meeting of the party before a decision was taken to work for the re-election of the former president,” he recalled.

    Structure

    Before its decision to open its door for other political parties, groups and individuals to join it in a coalition that is expected to berth a mega party ahead of the next general election, the SDP, according to political observers, could not boast of a political structure that can confront either the ruling APC or the opposition PDP.

    And as the party announced its readiness to step into the gap as the third force, pundits are skeptical of its chances, largely due to its not too impressive structure across the country.

    For Dele Kuti, Lagos State Director of Voters’ Right Agenda (VoRA), it is too early for SDP and its new partners to boast of dislodging the ruling party. Like many other people, the pro-democracy activist says he cannot see SDP’s structure anywhere in the country just yet.

    “The SDP is attractive in name. Now, with more known political personalities going its way, it is coming up as a political party. But that is not enough for it to declare itself as the third force. It lacks the structure needed to do that.

    “During the last general election, aside Oyo State, where Seyi Makinde’s political structure made the SDP a household name and Ogun State where former Governor Segun Osoba’s political family upped its game, the SDP was not strong anywhere.

    “Today, Makinde is back in the PDP with his people and structure. The Osoba group is also back in the APC. Even in Falae’s Ondo State, the SDP is not known. So, where is the structure they intend to use to actualise their presidential dream?”

    But like people determined to do the seemingly impossible against all odds, leaders of the SDP have been allaying fears raised about its political structure, saying with the ongoing coalition arrangement, the party will be the one to beat in the next general election.

    Speaking on the matter, Adeniran revealed that members of the Coalition for New Nigeria (CNM) will join the party, ahead of next year’s elections. He said the SDP will contest and win the presidential election because Nigerians will reject the PDP and the APC at the polls.

    Adeniran said with CNM members resolving to join the SDP, the platform has become the third force. The former minister said the SDP will satisfy the yearning of Nigerians in their clamour for change in 2019.  As he puts it: “We are contesting the presidential election and we are wining.”

    To further strengthen the party nationwide, the SDP this week announced a shake-up in its leadership to accommodate new partners expected to strengthen it with their structures in various states.

    Time factor

    Closely related to the challenge of structure is the time factor which the new coalition must contend with before the next general election coming up in less than 12 months. Commenting on the challenge, Dr. Ephraim Nwokoma, who said he was approached to mobilise for the new force in the South-East, admitted that time is an important factor in their mobilisation effort. “The coalition is bigger than the SDP we all knew before. It is a new political group that we must market and establish in all the parts of the country. Ordinarily, ten months is too small to be effectively established in all the parts of the country. But we are hopeful because we know that average Nigerians are not happy with both APC and PDP and are set to reject them at the polls. That is why we are certain to win the election in 2019. Besides the general rejection of the so-called big parties, you will be amazed at the massive mobilisation we are carrying out at the remote villages across the country.”

    Birds of different feathers

    Another concern so far expressed over the newly emerging political union ready to contest 2019 election on the platform of SDP is the fact that some of their influential members so far have been identified as birds of different feathers. It however remains to be seen how the members would put aside their differences in order to contest as a group.

    Finance

    Finance is another major factor that may affect SDP as it dreams of defeating the ruling APC and the PDP at the general elections in 2019. “Although SDP is busy splashing long list of alleged defectors, one is yet to be told how it plans to finance effective and massive mobilisation for grassroots establishment. If you go to most remote villages today and talk about the so-called third force, it will still sound like a folk tale and yet election is just months away. Election in Nigeria is not a joke. It costs money to campaign and so any political party that is serious to contend with the ruling party and an opposition party like the PDP, must at least be able to finance basic campaigns. I still can’t see SDP mustering such capacity,” Chief Geoffrey Udom said.

    But Comrade Patrick Desmond, who identified himself as a supporter of the new political movement, countered that politics of money must be frowned at if Nigeria wants to move forward. “What is happening in our political theatre is the way forward. The group may not have stolen billions to sink into elections but we, the electorates are behind them because we are tired of stolen mandate. If the big parties are planning to buy votes in 2019, I can assure them that they will be disappointed. Nigerians are wiser today.”

    So how far can SDP go?

    Notwithstanding the progress it made in the last two weeks in its drive for credible and influential members, some observers still dismiss SDP as a lightweight in 2019 General Elections.

    For example, Wilfred Ogbotobo, the Coordinator of South-South Legacy Forum, dismissed the top politicians so far associated with the group as “mere turncoats,” who he said have nothing new to offer. “In our present condition, any war against corruption is about challenging the very foundation of our corporate existence. Every weakness and fault will be animated for exploitation. That’s how fantastically deep the tentacles of corruption have embedded in the system. Where are these holier than thou in 2003, 2007 and 2011 when slide began? This is not the time for turncoats or latter day saints. We must join the genuine work to rebuild Nigeria, which I believe PMB is fully committed to,” he said.

    Former member of the House of Representatives, Dr. Junaid Mohammed has a different view. Commenting on why he joined the group, he said: “I am an optimist. I believe SDP will make a great impact. The main reason I want to be associated with it is because it is ideologically driven. Even if it was not ideologically driven before, it has to be ideologically driven.”

    As the events unfold and some analysts hint on possible emergence of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as the party’s presidential candidate, though he is yet to admit it, informed observers said so much will depend on who will finally fly the party’s presidential ticket. “If a credible candidate flies our flag, all these issues you highlighted as challenges will fade out. Nigerians want real change and that is what SDP is offering,” Desmond said.

  • 2019: We must put horse first before the cart, says Obasanjo

    2019: We must put horse first before the cart, says Obasanjo

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Wednesday, declared that the  way to go and make the country great again is to put the youth and women forward where they would realise their legitimate interest and power in governance.

    Obasanjo said he has unalloyed passion for greater Nigeria but added that he neither has a candidate nor is backing anyone for an elective office in 2019.

    The Ebora Owu, who is championing a Third Force – Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM),  to galvanize Nigerians  to demand a paradigm shift in the  present system of things,  noted that he would not budge in his earlier resolve  to remain an elder statesman.

    He spoke at his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, when a youth group from Delta State, led a governorship aspirant, Frank Ufuoma Esanubi, to pay him a courtesy visit.

    He reiterated that the CNM would remain a socio-political movement, insisting he would cease to be a member of the Coalition if it turns partisan.

    The ex – President explained that that transitions that had taken place in the country since independence neglected the people at the grassroots.

    According to him, his letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, was not meant to belittle the office of the president or embarrass the occupant, but to articulate his position about the situations in the country and offer sincere advice.

    Obasanjo said the press statement was well thought out, and not a product of frivolity.

    “In the year 2015, I said I would no longer participate in partisan politics. And I still stand by my decision. Everybody, irrespective of his or her political affiliation is free to come here for advice, I will gladly do that. I have no candidate, whatsoever, for any political office. I just believe that things must be done differently in Nigeria to get different result.

    “If you study our transitions since the colonial era, they have all taken place without taking the people of the grassroots into consideration. So, CNM is about the people at the grassroots. It is a socio-economic movement where youth and women, especially, will be given opportunity to appreciate their interests and power. Unlike before, I believe we must put the horse before the cart.

    “If the system and the platform sync, I believe Nigeria will get there. And like I said, the moment the Coalition gets involved in candidate sponsoring or participates in partisan politics, I will opt out of it,” Obasanjo said.

    Earlier, Esanubi said his group’s visit to Obasanjo was to pay homage to him and intimate him on their resolve to heed his clarion call for Nigerians to come together under the CNM, for a better Nigeria.

     

  • Waiting for a Third Force (1)

    Waiting for a Third Force (1)

    Power, to the ambitious, is like an aphrodisiac. It creates the enabling self-satisfying platform for the realisation of other pursuits and wants that can only be assuaged by a higher dose of its finer or baser attributes. It has been used by leaders to subjugate and strangulate the opposition in the selfish race to personalise or colonise it. Others want power for its sake as a development tool or a vehicle to emancipate a larger mass of the people they lead. An admixture of these variants sometimes occurs.

    In its pristine form, the beauty of politics is the allure and aura of power. In the Nigerian context, there is the added tendency for some of the wearers of the power toga to use it to accumulate economic capital for self and cronies. It is not enough to apportion the accruing “dividends of democracy” as many of those within the periphery of the power modem develop a sense of “resource control” and “self-help,” as the case may be.

    It is in the light of the foregoing that we must situate the desperate and precipitate actions, activities and utterances of a certain section of the political class that has indulged in wanton disregard for constituted authority and rebellious activities designed to instigate other sections of the society to do same with intent to undermine the freely-elected president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and his administration by overt and covert means.

    The present cadre of politicians believe that the art of politicking is another dimension of war that must be fought with bile, angst and uncommon but intense vehemence to achieve the primary aim of acquiring power and all other “appurtenances” that will, necessarily, follow. Ordinarily, the foibles of the average politician are mainly predicated on the need to have a space in the market place of ideas to drive his quest for power.

    In recent times, the Nigerian polity has witnessed a subtle but clearly discernible jostle for political power with the most strident and baleful politicking in the nation’s history. It exhibits the frightful potentials for exacerbating the already taut and fragile security situation in certain parts of the country and the crippling economic recession, the existence of which many people believe some of the politicians are culpable.

    Conversely, a section of the political class, with hidden drum majors, has been fanning the embers of discord, hatred and bare-faced manipulation of the people’s set views through inciting statements, activities and proxy media interventions. These are carried out with pre-determined anti-establishment focus, bent and impact, to rock the boat of focused governance, preparatory to a final assault on the presidency in 2019. A very important area that most people are not paying any attention to is the frenetic and subterranean moves and posturing for the presidential elections of 2019. This is even so as the government of President Muhammadu Buhari is still tottering and trying to consolidate on the tenets of good governance it espoused during the 2015 campaigns.

    There is no gainsaying the fact that the virtual ‘war’ for the soul of the National Assembly, on the issue of the election of its principal officers, was one fought solely to position certain persons for prime positions at the presidency in 2019 and beyond. Among the top echelon and rank-and-file of the APC, there is talk of the likelihood of President Buhari doing one term and leaving the terrain to the likes of Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Abubakar Bukola Saraki (who is currently in the visible and powerful position of President of the Senate) and lately, the diminutive Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has silently crept into the emerging presidential list of possible successors in 2019.

    It is pertinent to note that Mallam el-Rufai is steadily building bridges of understanding and networking among the power bases in the six geo-political zones of the country as a dress rehearsal for 2019. He was physically present at the annual Ojude-Oba festival in 2016, an assembly of prominent Ijebu sons and daughters in Ijebu-Ode, three days after the Eid-El-Kabir festival. It is patterned along the ancient Durbar that is also held at about the same time in many cities in the northern parts of the country.

    A member of Buhari’s kitchen cabinet, el-Rufai is believed to be one of the brain-boxes of the CPC that co-joined with two other legacy parties to form the APC. Being at the epicentre of the scheming and posturing within the APC, he sees himself as that technocrat who is honing his skills to succeed a geriatric Buhari. The fireworks are expected to be set off as soon as President Buhari engages the home-bend in the dusk of his current term. This is mindful of the possible scenario that the president’s foot-soldiers will, either by self-help or prodding from the principal himself, plot a second term which he is constitutionally-entitled to and in the process, rubbish the ambition(s) of those who are rearing to go after his job.

    As it is, President Buhari has a date with history, positively or negatively, depending on how he will ultimately solve the myriad of problems and challenges besetting his present term of office. With the present dismal indices, he will either be remembered for assuaging the dire circumstances assailing the larger mass of the Nigerian people or for compounding them.

    It is believed that the most glaring leadership flaw that President Buhari has, as usual, is his susceptibility to being hijacked by a powerful cartel or cabal to take decisions and provide direction. It is this shortcoming that el-Rufai feels he is in the best position to reverse through the effective combination of goals and methods in the practice of good governance. In the camp of those disposed to a new presidency in 2019, the current president has been silently consigned to an Old Peoples’ Home even while he is the de jure occupant of Aso Rock Villa, a fact that is reinforced by the held perception by many Nigerians that President Buhari lacks the required “magic” wand to turn around the crippling downturn that is currently assailing the heart and hub of the Nigerian economy and by extension the people’s living standard.

    Purveyors of this empirical theory are wont to postulate that: if Buhari at age 73 is wobbling and fumbling to steady the similarly wobbling and tottering Nigerian economy without visible success, what do you expect when he is in the throes of age 80 and above?

    It is the younger cadre of APC faithful that is throwing up an el-Rufai or any other ‘Young Turk’ with a vaunting ambition to shove and shunt a geriatric Buhari aside and replace him with a young and mentally-active president who will be his own man. He will solve the nation’s problems and challenges through a digital approach and alacrity shorn of the drudgery and “slow motion” that is presently the rule of the day.

    It is rather ironical that el-Rufai had at a forum on October 5, 2010, shot down Buhari’s decision to run again in a fresh presidential election. Hear him in the following words which are still very profound and true in today’s circumstances: “… Babangida and General Buhari should just disappear. They should give way to a new set of people with new ideas. Young people, preferably… Obama is 48 and Cameron is 43, for God’s sake. So, why are we recycling leaders that ruled this country very well or very badly, 25 years ago?”

    Many also believe that a long list of possible successors are scheming on the side-lines and are building structures to actualise their projections. Saraki’s sly politicking that made him the president of the Senate has resulted in the orchestrated scheming to remove and disconnect him from the very visible role of the Senate President which many political watchers believe he is using to test waters and mainly to reinvent himself as a welfarist and caring bridge-builder.

  • Not OBJ’s third force

    SIR: It was Professor Wole Soyinka that first introduced the word “Third Force” into Nigeria’s political lexicon. In 1967, during the Nigerian civil war, Biafran forces led by Brigadier Victor Banjo, a Yoruba, overran the Mid-West and were speedily heading towards Lagos to unseat General Yakubu Gowon and capture Nigeria’s federal capital city when they suddenly stopped at Ore, a town in Ondo State. Brigadier Banjo, apparently unwilling to shed Yoruba blood, had sent Soyinka as an emissary to deliver a message to Major Olusegun Obasanjo, who was the commander of the forces in the Western Region, to allow easy passage of Biafran troops to Lagos. He also revealed that his true intentions was not to divide Nigeria but to unify the country as part of a Third Force comprising of soldiers both in Nigeria and Biafra, who saw the war as a clash of egos between two men (Ojukwu and Gowon) and proposed a solution to the crises by toppling both regimes, bringing an end to the war, and unifying the country.

    Obasanjo snitched on Soyinka to the federal authorities who promptly clamped him into detention until the end of the war.

    The recent call for a Third Force by the same person who frustrated the success of the initial Third Force is not unconnected with the failure of the First Force (PDP) and the Second Force (APC), to satisfy the yearnings and aspirations of the people. However, here is a caveat, we must not mistake Obasanjo’s Coalition for Nigeria Movement as the Third Force that we desire or seek. As a matter of fact, Obasanjo’s new group must be avoided like a plague by all well-meaning Nigerians truly desirous of change.

    My reason for saying this is neither far-fetched nor are my fears unfounded. The Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) is largely made up of political disciples of the former president some of whom were accused of vote rigging in times past and evicted from power by judicial pronouncement from the temple of justice. Others have corruption cases hanging over their heads like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.

    What we need is a granite coalition made up of several interest groups and stakeholders in the Nigerian Project. The Nigerian Intervention Movement, the Red Card Movement, Civil Society Organisations, labour unions, professional bodies and even CNM should coalesce together to form the Third Force. It should transmute from a political movement into a political party that would present credible and competent candidates at all levels of governance in this country in the 2019 elections.

    Nigeria is arguably the only federal republic in the world that has about 62 items on its exclusive list. That implies too much workload on the federal government and that is why whenever anything bad happens in any part of Nigeria, we blame it all on the president. For example, if we have state police and even community police, why would anyone blame President Muhammadu Buhari for the killings by supposed Fulani herdsmen in various parts of Nigeria?

    • Peter Ovie Akus,

    Ifo, Ogun State.