2015 and the efficacy of APC as spare tyres

BY TOM FREDFISH

As the 2015 elections draws closer, the  major opposition party, APC appears  ready to take over power from the ruling PDP, headed by President Goodluck Jonathan. But the PDP is not ready to concede power that easily. However, proponents of both camps have had claims and counter claims of why they should be voted in or out of office by February 2015. The PDP says it has done much and deserves to be reelected, calling on Nigerians to give them more time, while the APC says the 15 years of PDP ruler ship in the country is a waste and if Nigerians do not rise up for change now, the country will sink under the present leadership. With the current state of the nation, Tom FredFish, a public policy analyst takes a look at the odds facing the ruling party as they strife to retain their unbreakable record of 15 uninterrupted years in governance as well as why the change is imperative

I am not a member of the All Progressive Congress, APC, No, for now, never. I do not speak for them as well. This piece is virginally out of principle so that truth may prevail. Since the emergence of Mohammadu Buhari as the presidential candidate of the APC, the party has been tagged with different names, depending on who levies them.

Many paid, and others, volunteer media gurus of the PDP have attempted to assess the credibility of the APC leadership. Some see them as no difference with the ruling party, PDP. While others say they are ambitious and selfish. Their view is driven by the fact that, 70 per cent of the current members of the APC are those people who had occupied political offices in the PDP and had to defect when they were ‘no longer at ease’ with their former party.

Some also call them old bred. Some say they have nothing to offer. Others call them good for nothing or yesterday’s men, (apology to ElRufai). Many sees them has spare tires. Whichever category you belong, may not be far from the truth. I however agree with those who see them as spare tires. I will dignify my reason for aligning with them through candid illustrations.

In 2006, I had a very important meeting at Ogba, in Ikeja, Lagos. I was to drive from Badagry to Ogba. I had prepared for the journey the previous evening. When servicing the vehicle, I realized I did not have a spare tire. I rushed to the automobile market and bought a brand new tire. I did not use the new tire as a spare because I felt it was new and more reliable. Not too many will think otherwise. So I asked the vulcanizer to remove the tyre done and replace it with the new tire while I converted the tired one to a spare. I was set for the journey.

After a ten minutes’ drive to Aradagun, an infinitesimal village close to Badagry, I heard a loud sound. I thought it was a gun shot.With tremendous fear, I stepped on the break and parked the car. But when I highlighted, I realized I had a flat tyre. The new tyre I bought the previously evening was punctured. Air was discharging from the realm. I turned around and luckily for me, a volcanizer was just by the corner. The volcanizer advised me to replace the new tyre with the spare. I was angry to hear that and quipped “how can I do away with this new and reliable tyre that is less than 24 hours old, you must be kidding, patch it up let me moved”. He replied yes sir and obeyed my order.

When he finished, satisfied with the job, I paid him double for a job well done. Approaching Mowo, another 5minutes’ drive from Aradagun, I heard a tiny sound from behind. What could that be, I asked myself as I parked the car to check. The same tire was punctured from another spot. I was lucky to negotiate with a volcanizer from a distance who was less busy. He came, jacked up the car and as he removed the damaged tire, he asked me in a somewhat surprised manner, “oga you no get spare tire?”

The question was confusing as well as annoying and to cover up for my malfeasance, I retorted in angst, “Am I a fool? Why I no go get spare tire? You no see say that tire whey spoil so, na new tire? Abeg patch am up make I go. I cannot depend on spare tire on this bad road”. As he rolled the tire away to where his workshop was situated, he apologized with words I could not forget to this day. He said, “oga no vex abeg, I go do as you talk but you see, some of this new tire, them be mumu (fool) for bad road like this, na only rough tyre like spare they fit to stand the bad road”.

A fifteen minutes’ drive after Mowo, around Agbara, the vehicle started wobbling. I was too confident that new tires are reliable, so I refused to change to a spare. Motorist started shouting as they zoomed past me, “wheee’reeh!!! (Madman) oga you no they see? Your tire don spoil”. To avoid embarrassment and to save the faces of those who owned a Hyundai Sonata 2003 which I drove, I decided to opt for the spare tire. 

This time, the stress was severe because there was no volcanizer around neither was there anyone to assist me to jack up the car. With my well-ironed and starched kaftan, I bent down to do a simple but tough job. I cursed the spare tire as I coupled it to the vehicle. I did not count on the spare but it turned out to be a risk worth taking.To my greatest surprise, I got to Ogba, in Ikeja and back to Badagry and drove round about Badagry town for days without remembering I was using a spare tire. Alas! The spare tire got me through the journey.

Nigeria is a moving vehicle. The people are drivers who mandated the ruling party, PDP, (which has been in governance for over 15 years), to pilot the vehicle, Nigeria. The APC whose dictum is change and has conglobated to take over power from the PDP is the spare tire. Nigeria’s journey to self-fulfillment has been marred by military coups, economic degradation, civil unrest, infrastructural degradation, unemployment and insecurity. These are impediments to the smooth flow of a prosperous nation.

The country has traverse in different direction under successive regimes till the present democratic dispensation which started in 1999 when General Adusalami Abubakar (rtd.) handed over power to a democratic elected government of PDP headed by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. Fifteen years after, the PDP still holds sway at the center with Goodluck Jonathan as the president. But there is no substantial prove that the country is heading to the right direction.

Political analysts are apt to ask what aspect of the country has improved from 1999 to date. How buoyant is Nigeria’s economy? Are the citizenry fully integrated in the democratic process? Are our leaders ready to nurture the virtues of democracy? As a people, achieving the objectives of a prosperous nation seems far-fetched.

Presently, Nigeria is struggling with challenges that are capable of crumbling its foundation under the present leadership. The audacious terrorist organization, Boko haram has left fear, tears and blood spilling over homes and villages in the north-east of Nigeria. According to a recent report by Daniel Eyre a reporter with Amnesty International, hundreds, if not thousands of people have been killed by Boko Haram in Nigeria and the report described the emerging number of victims as “too many to count”. Reports also from BBC related that Bokjo Haram have “wiped out” about 16 towns outside Baga, which consisted about 10, 000 residents, while a large number of Nigerians reportedly drowned in lake chad while trying to cross for safety. According to Reuters, the count of dead Nigerians by the Council on Foreign Relations in November 2014, notes that Boko Haram has killed about 10, 000 last year.

With the death of innocent Nigerians increasing to thousands by the day, the Nigerian military appears incapable of curbing the insurgence’s excesses. The military recently confirmed through their spokesperson, that some Nigerian territories have been captured by the terrorist, with Baga the largest city next to the state capital Maiduguri, in the hands of the terrorist group.

The Military has been utterly incapacitated. Former first lady, Senator, and Secretary of State of the United States of America, Mrs. Hillary Clinton recently raised alarm of the high level of corruption in the country which she said has contributed to the protracted failure of Nigerian Military to effectively fight and defect insurgency. She said: “Nigeria government has made bad choices, not hard choices, they have squandered their oil wealth; they have allowed corruption to fester, and now they are losing control of parts of their (own) territory because they would not make hard choices.”

The nonperformance of the Nigerian Military which used to hold their shoulders high as one of the best in West Africa is attributed to high level corruption in the country. There has been a pervasive cry by the populace for the present government to address the escalating corruption among the political class, military hierarchy and in the society. But the more they cry seeking the government’s intervention, the more they appear clueless and incapable of tackling corruption. Billions of naira and dollars are missing daily with no clue on its whereabouts. Our anti-corruption agencies earlier in this administration used to bark without biting, but today, they hardly can bark talk less of biting.

For Peter Eigher’s (Chairman Transparency) report in 2004, “corruption leaves ordinary people without essential services, such as life-serving medicine and deprives them of access to sanitation and housing. Fraudulent acts of corruption and abuse of office has made the Nigerian state to continually groan under lamentable state of infrastructure, mass unemployment, urban vagrancies, homelessness, and increased deterioration of the standard of living, regrettable diminished access to good and qualitative necessities of life such as food, good nutrition, health care facilities and educational facilities.

At the other end of the Boko Haram menace is large scale unemployment among employable youths. This has resulted to kidnapping for ransom in the West, South East and South South of the country. Unemployed youths now turned to kidnapping which has become very lucrative business due to the ineffectiveness of the Nigerian security forces. Daily, Nigerians live in fear and are kidnapped to pay huge ransom before they are released. Only few lucky ones retrieve the bodies of their dead ones from the kidnappers.

According to Ijeoma Odoh, a journalist, “The current situation in Nigeria could be likened to an inferno. Hardly a day passes in Nigeria without kidnapping incidents making the headlines. Kidnapping is now a lucrative venture with some jobless youths manning the business. No one is safe anymore. Every day, tens of Nigerians are kidnapped for various reasons ranging from economic, political and personal grievances. Some are killed before they were rescued while others are rescued by their relatives after paying ransom. The worst scenario was the kidnapping of 15 school children on their way to school once. Another gory incident involved the abduction and killing of Dr. Stanley Uche, proprietor of Victory Christian Hospital, Aba, who was murdered in spite of the payment of a N30 million ransom. The story is endless and alarming. Underlying these acts of callousness is the fact that the youths are idle and live in a society where a man’s importance is measured by his material acquisition”.

The economic situation is worse off with the naira depreciating in an alarming proportion. While other countries are swelling their reserves, Nigeria is swindling her external reserves with no concrete plans on how to build on it. No meaningful development can take place when the state officials are neck-deep in corruption. Corruption devalues authority. The level of governance corruption in Nigeria is an epidemic as it takes place at the apex of government. Those who ought to fight corruption are indeed the vanguard of corruption. Suffice to say that corruption has become legalized (especially among the ruling class).Poverty is widespread and crudely exposes the bad economic policies and inefficient leadership structure to utilize resources for development. Little wonder that development remains elusive to Nigeria in spite of her resource profile.

For now, the direction is clueless. No one can predict where the country is heading. Nigerians are fed up with the situation, and craves for alternative. The ruling PDP seems overwhelmed by the avalanche of problems befalling the nation. They have also exhausted their plans and programmes and misused the goodwill Nigerians gave them to continually coast victory in previous elections.

As the opportunity to capture power democratically through the ballot box presents itself this year, proponents of the two major political parties has made cases for themselves and why they should be elected, reelected or booted out of office. The PDP says it has done much and deserves to be reelected and calls on Nigerians to give them more time. While the APC says the 15 years of PDP ruler ship in the country is a waste and there is need for change or the country will sink under the present leadership.

The notion by the supporters of PDP that the APC are over-used hands and has nothing to offer caught my attention. In that regard the PDP wants us to believe that Nigerians are satisfied with the wanton bloodshed in the north, kidnappings in the south, unemployment, insecurity, corruption, among others too numerous to mention. If all these nomenclature is tiring to the populace, then the APC has a unique selling point; change. They are not offering to give Nigerians40, 000 megawatts of electricity in 2015; neither are they boasting about destroying the terrorist and winning the war against corruption within one year in office. They said they have identified the solutions to Nigeria’s problems and that if what we currently face, is not what we bargained for, we should opt for change using our votes in 2015. I totally agree with APC.

According to Dr. Maya an Indian essayist, “if you don’t like something, change it, if you don’t change it, change your attitude”. I do not agree that that President Goodluck Jonathan has not performed in six years in office as president. No I don’t. In any human endeavour, there is always a limit to one’s ability. He has tried to govern Nigeria to his capability. But things are not working out has planned. The more he tries, the virulent things becomes. There is obviously nothing wrong with his plans and programmes; nothing. Except that the time for change has come.

Just like the new tyre depended so much on in 2006, the PDP has wobbled and fumbled in the past 15 years, yet Nigerians savored her moments, were consumed by sentiments of who and where the President came from and depended solely on the PDP just like my emotions consumed me over my new tire till I was fed up. If we have applied sentiments to manage PDP for this long, yet they failed to serve us as expected, why not kick them out and use the spare tire.

Change is a common dialect used to sense when equipment is not working properly, and you discontinue usage. Change is to improvise. Only the sentimental Nigerians and those who benefit directly from the PDP will say everything is alright in Nigeria. Nothing seems to be working correctly. If the PDP who are responsible for making things work in Nigeria are not doing what they ought to do better, change is required.
No matter what your opinion about the crop of people in APC that is agitating for change, Nigeria truly needs change. They also said that APC is an extension of PDP.  I do not intend to defend defections but let us see defections from one political party to another as a game of football. We do have situations in football, where players are bought and can cross-carpet to any team of their choice. For Instance, if Didier Drogba and Kanu Nwankwo leave Chelsea Football Club to Arsenal FC, Arsenal will not play like Chelsea because both players are from Chelsea. Not possible, because both teams has different coaches. Even in spelling, PDP is different from APC, and both parties have different ideology and party chairmen. And like football where Drogba and Kanu can return to play in Chelsea after one or two seasons, we have seen politicians defecting from one party to the other and returning back. So what is the ruse about APC being the same people in PDP? That language is inconsequential, as far as their movement produces results.

In football, there is provision for substitution because some players may not perform better during the match. So also are vehicles with spare tyre. According to an addicted fancy-vehicle user, Mary Beth Wasmer of Baltimore, “I like the security of having a spare tyre. It gives you peace of mind”. We cannot continue using a new tire (PDP) 15 years after the restoration of democratic governance without results, when we have a spare like Buhari in the offing. If the PDP does not eschew impunity and their dictatorial methods as it relates to defiling our hard earned democratic credentials, let the Tinubus, Buharis, and so on come on board. It is not about whom this time around, it is about change.

You may be surprised; the APC may position the country better than how the PDP has done in the past 15 years. We should do away with unnecessary sentiments. Sentiments have continually kept us where we are.15 years is a long journey down the road, and the PDP hands are tired. If they have a problem with the word change, let us not change them. Let us substitute them; after all in a game of football performance is not measured by individual’s effort but by team work.

The challenges facing Nigerian people are immense. The future course of economic and political development do not only depend primarily on Nigerian leadership and decision-making organs but time and chance has given the ordinary citizens the opportunity to control government of the day through their votes. Nigerians have a unique opportunity at the pools come February14. The interest of the Nigerian people is to have a strong and stable Nigeria,and not a strong man. Regardless of our party affiliations, it is one Nigeria. If APC can make a difference, common let us vote them in, whether Jonathan or Buhari in 2015, we need results. And if change is necessary, so be it.

Tom FredFish, a Uyo-based journalist and public policy commentator writes from Uyo