about the capacity of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) to take over power in 2019, the
cohesion and singleness of purpose that
characterised the just concluded National
Convention of the Party in Port Harcourt, has
cleared the doubts with emphatic certainty that
it would. The entire country saw a new kind of
PDP in Port Harcourt. One that had the interest
of the vast majority of its members, and indeed
Nigerians, over and above the pressing needs of
critical stakeholders within it. In the razzmatazz
of the entire political somersaults, credit must
be given to the Chairman of the PDP Convention
Planning Committee, Governor Nyesom Wike of
Rivers State as well as his brother Governors in
the Party for the leadership offered and
continue to offer in rallying the Party together at
this critical moment in its history.The dexterity
displayed in the way and manner the Party
rallied itself in Port-Harcourt in the split
moment it faced its single most dangerous
challenge to its regeneration and quest to
reclaim its national governmental mandate is
second to none in the history of the Party. Here
are 10 reasons articulated to prove with a
definite certainty that should the PDP sustain its
current unifying momentum, it will succeed in
changing the dubious change imposed by the
APC on Nigerians that has left them in worse
conditions than they were over 30 years ago.
- BATTERED ECONOMY Rather than bettered,
the economy inherited by the APC from the
PDP, reputed for being Africa’s primus sine
paribus at the time of transition, has been so
severely battered by poor economic decisions
that it has become an issue of amazement, how
change can so rapidly extinguish productivity and
reverse progress in just a space of a year. Today,
job loses have become commonplace as both
the private and public sector grapple with
sustaining their enterprise. Companies continue
to close shops, the Naira is at its worst ever
value in history, prices of commodities blaze on
consistently in their astronomic adventure and
the mass of Nigerians, the very people for
whom government cannot afford to fail, are left
to grope in the wilderness of misfortune in
credit to the inability of the APC led Federal
Government to direct the ship of state on a
steady course to progress. It is such a messy
situation. Although the APC continues to blame
the PDP for being responsible for its inability to
deliver on its much touted campaign promises
of change, no proof has so far been established,
in a year of APC’s helm at the thrust of
governance, of PDP’s culpability in undermining
APC’s success either directly or otherwise,
leaving many with the disappointing conclusion
that the APC was never primed for governance;
a fact enunciated in its new christening by
Nigerians as ‘APC: ALL PROMISES CANCELLED’ as
the promise of change has become change of
promise, without apologies. CORRUPTION Hopes have been dashed,
especially in the international community, since
the APC took to power and formed its cabinet.
The greatest mockery of its strong anti-
corruption campaign was the inclusion of clearly
compromised and indicted members of the
public in its government. Some of those
included were former Governors, of whom
credible reports in the public domain appear to
show as having bankrolled the presidential
election of incumbent President Buhari with
misappropriated public funds. For many, that
was the most remarkable betrayal of the trust
reposed in the APC led government and also the
most significant move to excuse, promote and
reward corruption, thus undermining, or at best
limiting, the fight against corruption to
perceived detractors of the APC, most of whom
are innocent PDP members dreaded for their
political sagacity. To this day, not a single
investigation has commenced on any of the
litany of petitions to the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) leading to public
outcry and the condemnation of the Commission
as being biased, partisan and vindictive. The
corruption of public morals, by promoting
propaganda over truth and reality, cannot also
be wished away as an inconsequential factor in
sustaining corruption in Nigeria. In spite of the
hopes in the APC to sustain the gains by the PDP
in deploying institutional measures to tackle
corruption, no far-reaching achievement has
been attained. In fact, the perception of
corruption in Nigeria has become so
monumental that the Prime Minister of United
Kingdom, David Cameron, opined that Nigeria is
fantastically corrupt. And Our President agreed.APARTHEID POLICY One of the extreme
measures adopted as a policy of the APC is to
run government on the basis of exclusionism.
For the first time in Nigeria’s history, Nigerians
are being segregated against by their own
President on the grounds of who voted and
didn’t vote for him. The first indication of this
policy was made in the full glare of the
international community during the President’s
maiden visit to the United States of America
after being elected. Jaws dropped. Tempers
flared. Passions were inflamed and trust got
betrayed in that single moment he made the
statement excluding sections of Nigeria that
didn’t vote for him from benefiting from his
government. But it wasn’t a gaffe. It was a stoic
and bland indication, although an unintended
revelation, of what was to be elevated to
officialdom and directive principle of state
policy. Nigeria, sadly, has now deviated from the
legacy of the PDP in building cohesion among
the diverse peoples within it to become a ‘we-
versus-them’, North-versus-South contraption of
ethnic-conscious nationalities. APC’s approach to
governance clearly sustains the policy of
exclusionism and apartheid. In fact, justifications
have been made regarding the slant in
appointments in favour of the North against the
South, a region that has consistently come under
attack by Federal institutions. For instance, the
2015 General Elections in Rivers State and across
critical States in the South were not only widely
regarded as unduly annulled by the Court of
Appeal, the court-ordered rerun elections
suffered more attack by the military and would
have been compromised but for the resilience
of Rivers people. The same strategic crackdown
effort played out at the elections in Bayelsa
State and across the South, where the EFCC is
still being used to harass and victimise innocent
PDP members. The South Eastern States appear
the worst hit by the apartheid policy of the APC.
The Igbos complain of being alienated from
mainstream governance. A situation that has led
to renewed and intensified agitations for self-
determination by the Indigenous Peoples of
Biafra.ESCALATING ETHNOCENTRIC AND
EXPANSIONIST TERRORISM Until recently,
Nigerians didn’t know and would never have
believed that by voting for the APC, they would
be faced with even more daring terrorism than
was witnessed and effectively tackled during the
Jonathan years, in spite of the promise by APC
to end terrorism within its first month in
government. Today, the ethnocentric plague
known as Fulani Herdsmen, is ravaging the
breadth of the geographical enclave called
Nigeria especially Christian dominated sections
of the South. Scores have been killed. Many
more have lost valuable property by the
ravaging fundamentalist scourge. Even a national
figure, Chief Olu Falae, was reportedly
kidnapped by Fulani herdsmen and to this day,
no emphatic measure has been taken to curb
the escalating tensions generated by the
dastardly activities of the herdsmen.
Insinuations are rife that the terrifying vocation
of the herdsmen is beyond being about pastoral
preoccupation but part of a grand expansionist
plot by Northern fundamentalists to spread their
hold on Nigeria to the Atlantic Ocean. Whether
the insinuations are right or not remain a thing
to be established. But the inability of the APC to
unite Nigerians and curb the incursions of the
herdsmen on the civil liberties of Nigerians
appears to energise the assault on innocent
Nigerian citizens, a development that wouldn’t
have seen the light of day had the PDP being in
power. It is on record that all Nigerians
regardless of faith, creed or origin united under
one umbrella in the PDP. Those good days have
to return.IMPUNITY In today’s Nigeria, all that a
criminal or an economic saboteur needs to get
off the latch of the law is to establish both his
membership of the APC and his connection to a
Party bigwig. At the height of PDP’s acclaimed
transgressions, nothing like this would have
been conceived. But with change came daring
bites on values. So much so that the Inspector
General of Police will boldly take a stand against
the prosecution of a criminal. Never has it been
so heard. Never! APC members appear to be
above the law in Nigeria today. They are as much
untouchables as they are liabilities for national
development. Thus, creating a crisis for
themselves and the need to change the change
they brought.COMPROMISED INSTITUTIONS It is now
common knowledge that State institutions have
been compromised in Nigeria under the APC.
From the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) to the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC) to even the
Directorate of State Security (DSS), it’s been a
blaze of compromised values. INEC now
conducts Elections that are for the first time in
the history of the country regarded as
inconclusive simply because they are or would
have been won by the PDP. The EFCC is so
afflicted with degenerated myopia that it only
sees perceived threats to the APC as being
culpable for crimes it is unable to establish and
for which the accused are victimised with their
rights infringed and without apologies. The DSS,
the Geheime Staatspolizei of the change era,
only barks at and bites PDP members and but
for the existence of the Supreme Court that
refused to be compromised, the judiciary would
have been crippled under the leadership of the
APC led government. All these happening under
a government and political party that promised
change. To make matters worse, the APC
chooses what court orders to obey and which to
frustrate or disregard; a major deviation from
the gains of the PDP that had established the
rule of law as an intrinsic part of governance.
Thankfully, Nigerians now understand the
language of Change.DEARTH IN GOVERNMENTAL CAPACITY [/
b]APC has achieved nothing inspiring or
substantial in a year because it lacks the
capacity to do so. It has no plan to develop
Nigeria and has clearly shown a lack of
capacity in that regard beyond thriving in
partisanship. There’s no gainsaying the fact
and it has to be left as simple as it is.
[b]8. QUESTIONABLE MANDATE It is still being
doubted if the APC truly obtained its acclaimed
mandate by securing a majority vote in the 2015
General Elections or by cutting corners and
blackmailing the members of the PDP especially
of Northern origin to submission. For instance,
consider the controversy that surrounded the
death of Alhaji Munkaila Abdullahi, the Kano
State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), in a
fire incident in his home along with his wife and
two children a day after Kano delivered the
largest number of votes to the APC with just an
infinitesimal number of voided votes. The Police
is yet to make public its findings from the
investigation of the Kano REC’s death. Almost a
year later, whether by criminal conspiracy or
karma, Youths in Kano have set ablaze the
residences of serving members of the National
Assembly over unfulfilled campaign promises
raising suspicions about the credibility of APC’s
acclaimed popularity. Besides the above, the
vast majority of Nigerians especially those who
were caught unawares by the change mantra and
APC propaganda feel misled and raped. Most of
them do not need to be courted by the PDP.
They have made up their mind to change the
vicious change of the APC.
GLOBAL DISTRUST The inability of the APC to
match words with action and deliver on
campaign promises did not only pitch it against
Nigerians who feel betrayed but also resulted in
global distrust for the Party and government. To
this day, no concrete achievement has resulted
from the frequent international visits and no
one hears about the then popular and
controversial shopping list of the APC. There is
an apparent reluctance by the global community
to commit to the APC led government and it is
not for nothing. There is a complete lack of
confidence in the Party.RISK OF NIGERIA’S DISINTEGRATION The
emergence and approach to governance of the
APC-led government has further divided
Nigerians without any concerted or deliberate
move to build national cohesion. Every region in
the country is faced with either agitations for
self-determination or monumental terrorism.
The gaping holes of disunity are expanding daily
and no strategic measure is being taken to
address the issue. Most recently, militancy,
which was hitherto curbed by the PDP, has again
reared its head with blows to the nation’s
fortune. From all indications, the APC has lost
the plot and only PDP holds the ace to save the
country from being decimated. It is for this
reasons and many more that Nigerians will
surely entrust the country back to the hands of
the PDP, which history shows has a mastery for
having things flow in society. PDP is coming back
except it fails to unite. It would be most
unfortunate for it to miss this opportunity to
bounce back. The PDP has everything going for it
right now. It must seize this moment to return
Nigeria to the path of true prosperity. Nothing
else would serve the nation’s interest best.
Oraye St. Franklyn is an Aide to Rivers State
Governor on New Media
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