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Olanrewaju AjiboyeTuesday, July 7, 2015
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WHY APC MUST JUSTIFY THE FEAT

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t is expected. When the good, the bad and the ugly grouped under a common cause that subdued the ugliest, there must be a fall out after the victory.

The dilemma is that without the combination of war secrets of the good, the bad and the ugly, there was no way the ugliest could have been dislodged.

The chicken is coming home to roost and this is the time for the people of goodwill, people of peace and people of conscience to bend backward over to appeal to all sides of the victorious triumvirate in APC to embrace the spirit of give and take and where that is impossible, �the good� in the group should be persuaded to sacrifice the more in order to avoid a situation where an untimely stitch of a laceration cannot save nine or even snowballing beyond the status quo ante of the era of� the ugliest� that necessitated the coming together of the good , the bad and ugly in the first instance, to halt the assured precipice destination of the ugliest.

All is said to be� fair in love and war� you would say. But another saying of wisdom is that there should be �honor among thieves.�

In case the above narrative is not lucid enough, the concern is for the seeming innocuous but deeply invidious discord that is quietly raging within the APC on the account of the power struggle among the groups of the good, the bad and the ugly that circumstances and necessities forced to come together in pursuit of a common interest; to defeat the behemoth called PDP which did happen.

Applying literature fictions may not drive home the point as in giving practical examples from within our own history as a country after a Union of mutual suspicions was successfully delivered on 1st of October, 1960.

Parliamentary system was the system adopted at Nigeria�s independence. Virtually there were politics of desperation among various political interests and individuals. To be practically objective, were all the practitioners then were to be recalled today and given same opportunity under the same scenario, with the consequences that followed their actions and inactions then, many of them would have been wiser and would do things differently.

It was a minor imbalance and few missteps that eventually led to a chain of consequences that has continued to haunt us as a people and as a country.

For more clarity, the employment and deployment of surreptitiousness in politics and governance by all players of the period in question snowballed from a small crisis to a massive hurricane of negative occurrences that brought death, dislocation, imprisonment, coups and counter coups and more unfortunately �pogrom� that led to further bloodshed in a fratricidal war. The war must have robbed us of potential erudite scholars, industrialists, scientists, teachers, philanthropists, inventors and so many others.

Just as the players in APC are refusing to learn from history now, same it was in the second republic after a break that was sufficient enough to mellow the memory of the unfortunate occurrences of the first republic.

Major players of the period especially those at the center were pliant to acts of perfidy, subterfuge, domination and unwholesome electioneering processes. The refusal to learn by the rule culminated in the truncation of the democratic process that had been badly desecrated upon to justify its abrupt end. Again, it brought about anguish, pains, abridgement of freedom and personal liberty and even deaths in custody of some members of the elite and their cronies who were players in the ousted government.

Mutual distrust, fight back and intra group rebellion were to later lead to further consequences that almost brought the country to a cliff through the deceit and shenanigans of the military government that ousted the previous military regime that had earlier dislodged the democratic government that had lost legitimacy on the account of skewed 1983 general elections.

Another very good example is the third republic debacle. Intra party squabbles of the then victorious SDP that had yet to assume power cracked the wall for the lizards in the then major opposition, the NRC to perch the inner walls of the victorious party, the SDP, even though the election was fraudulently regarded inconclusive, a situation the third force- the military capitalized upon to seize power.

Just like today�s APC, the then Social Democratic Party SDP, though a contraption of a fraudulent military government, was an amalgamation of the good, the bad and the ugly. An undesirable supremacy contest from among the groups, insignificant as it appeared metamorphosed into a bigger and bitter intrigue that resulted in far reaching undesired consequences. Far reaching was its spiral effects that it almost imploded the country. It resulted into many deaths of ordinary citizens and it also claimed the lives of many members of the elite, be it from amongst the political elite or the military or the professional groups. It consumed the life of the personage at the center of it all, M.K.O. Abiola who incidentally is being remembered today as he died 17 years ago.

The most recent history the APC ought to learn from is the causes and effects of what led to their having the opportunity to be in government. If the PDP had embraced the spirit of give and take, humility and pro-activeness, perhaps their desire to rule for sixty years would have at least yielded them another four years in government vide the March 28 2015 election. But due to their arrogance and misreading of the capacity of whitlow to affect the entire body comfort which is the path of self destruct being presently towed by the APC.

Put in another language, the APC represents three groups; a.� the true believers� who are �the good�, b.�the double thinkers� who are �the bad� and lastly �the opportunists� who are �the ugly�. A �No retreat, No surrender� situation among the groups forebodes danger for the whole country hence the need to leave no stone unturned in order for the different groups in APC to secure the social contract they entered into, which is to gain power and implement changes in the order of how government is run.

As a patriotic citizen and an incurable optimist in the Nigeria project where rule of law, good governance, freedom and liberty as well as smooth transfer of power reign supreme, this privilege is to admonish and to also persuade the true believer group within the APC to sheathe their swords.

The true believer group should borrow wisdom from the Bible account of the dispute between two women who were contesting the ownership of a child and the matter was taken before Solomon the King. When King Solomon pulled a fast one on both women that the child in contention would be cut into two, the liar mother consented but the real mother pleaded that the child should rather be given to the impostor mother instead of the innocent child being killed.

The wisdom for the true believer group in the above reference is that they have all to lose should the problem be allowed to incubate and hatch into a monster. The true believers have been very consistent in their belief that Nigeria can be better re- engineered; re- directed and put on the path of greatness, the ideals they have long suffered for. The double thinkers in APC are like parasites whose only philosophy for survival is at the expense of others. Lastly the opportunists in the party�s midst stand for no principle; no honor; and no integrity. They are lepers who lack the understanding to make cheese but can spill milk in seconds. If a war is avoidable by sacrificing for peace so be it, because though war can bring peace, it is at a greater expense unless it is inevitable.

The APC is a beautiful edifice meticulously envisioned by a small group of patriots who however must solicit the support of the bad and the ugly due to the deep flaw in democracy as a system of government. The real APC dreamers who are living their dreams must do everything by demonstrating uncanny calmness and perseverance to survive this harrowing period. APC must survive; Nigeria must change for the better.

Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

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