FEATURE ARTICLE

Dr. Wumi AkintideSunday, January 16, 2011
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New York, NY, USA

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SHED NO TEARS FOR ATIKU OR GLOAT ABOUT JONATHAN

his would be my candid advice to Nigerians across the board as I reflect on the outcome of the PDP primaries in Nigeria. My advice is targeted at the youths and the newly registered voters who would be voting for the first time in the coming elections and could borrow a script from America where the youths and the computer generations led the movement to massively vote for change in America for once by electing the least likely of all the candidates running for President in 2008. Only a fool can deny that Obama was easily the best, if we put sentiments aside, and as his track records have proved to the whole world and Americans in his first 2 years in the White House.


Jonathan, Atiku and Jibril at the party presidential convention.
PHOTO: The Guardian

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Even though a young Republican from Indiana and a son of a former Vice President, Dan Quail has foolishly described Obama as the worst candidate in order to win the support of his conservative base, it was one statement the young man would forever live to regret if he ever runs for a nation-wide office like his father. He himself is fully aware he has predictably mortgaged his future in American politics by making such a false and patently stupid a statement. That is why the young man has quickly embarked on damage control by running away from his self-serving statement while asking the nation to now work together and to stop demonizing opponents. Chris Matthew caught that political stunt or somersault yesterday, January 14, 2011 in his "Hard Ball" talk show and so did I. I know that History would record Obama as one of the greatest Presidents of his generation, if he keeps doing what he is doing. He got the Nobel peace award within a year in office and he has so far recorded many a first in some of his presidential initiatives. I can tell you he is right on his way to a glorified second term as the economy is going to pick up and as events like the serial assassinations unfold clearly show to Americans the unique caliber of the first black couple to ever sleep in the Lincoln bedroom.

Please forgive my little digression. The point I really want to make is that Nigerians should be voting for a total change in 2011 because change is what Nigeria needs and not semantics. Nigeria has had enough of that after 50 years of Independence which the conservative elements in Nigeria have dominated with very little to show for it. Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as a PDP Presidential candidate was definitely a better choice than Atiku, all things considered, not because of his Ph.D or by being the first Ijaw man from South/South which produces the oil wealth for Nigeria, but because he has come to the job saying much of what he thinks Nigerians want to hear but failing to fully appreciate the true yearning of Nigerians for a change in this election year.

I don't see the PDP as representing the best hope for that change or Jonathan as the catalyst for that change, if the truth must be told. The PDP has had a chance in the last 12 years to prove to Nigeria that it had what it took to bring about that change, but the party which is said to be too big to fail, has woefully failed in my judgment. If the PDP were to be an American Party, forget it. If you don't believe me I urge you to go read a masterpiece of a serial article authored by Temple C. Ubochi, titled, "Some of the missteps of President Jonathan" posted on the Nigeriaworld website, as we speak. Gentleman Ubochi had done a masterful job in those articles by speaking the truth to power and helping readers and Nigerian voters to appreciate that not everything that glitters is gold and that Jonathan for all his years as Deputy Governor in Bayelsa and Vice President to Yar Adua is still very much an eaglet learning to fly, if you get my point. He is still learning on the job like Ribadu is going to do for his first few months. The real difference is that Ribadu will be coming to office fully prepared and ready to make a difference as the first civilian candidate from the north to be elected President not based on some born-to-rule crap as his resume has shown. The landslide victory recorded by Jonathan in the PDP primaries just concluded in Abuja has just confirmed that the power of incumbency as I predicted in one of my articles on the same subject not too lomg ago, is too much of a steamroller in Nigeria for any objective analyst to ignore. Obasanjo for all his weaknesses and shortcomings as a leader and image maker has today become a recurring decimal in Nigerian Politics for precisely the same reason. He held that power for close to 12 years on the platform of the conservatives in Nigeria. He had tried to extend his mandate for another 4 or 8 years if Nigerians had let him. Obasanjo had raised a lot of hope when he first came. He did a few things that stand out, but he remains a bundle of contradictions if you factor in his merits and demerits but I score him highly on making it possible for Nigerians looking back in time, to have a second opinion of Obafemi Awolowo arguably the greatest leader of the Yorubas after Oodua himself.

I shed no tears for Atiku Abubakar and neither do I gloat about Jonathan's landslide victory and so should majority of Nigerians because the outcome has represented no major shift in the status quo and it is going to lead Nigeria nowhere. Mark my words. President Jonathan in accepting his nomination immediately threw an Olive branch to Atiku and his supporters as he should, and he announced what his predecessors in the conservative flank have always said that he is going to work harder to keep Nigeria united as if doing that is going to solve all of the major problems Nigeria has faced in the last 50 years but more so in the last 12 when the PDP has completely dominated Nigeria with their more than 2/3 majority in both the Senate and the House of Assembly and all of the 36 states of Nigeria put together.

If the PDP could not change Nigeria with that kind of lopsided majority in the three tiers of Government, you can take it from me they have no plan to change anything and will never contrary to what they are saying for public consumption. Most Governments in the State of Israel have always governed with a majority of one or two and by forming coalition with other parties in order to be able to form a Government. They still perform wonders and do not use that as an excuse for non-performance. If they do, they will not survive the next election. In Nigeria, PDP wins 28 out of 36 states and could easily amend any aspect of the Nigerian Constitution that is not working and do it expeditiously because there was no opposition to stop them. Their only opposition are their own members. How could such a party continue to win time after time? Rather than do that, all they are busy doing is looting the treasury and paying the Senate President and House Speaker and members outrageous salaries and allowances that bankrupt the nation while ordinary Nigerians are going to the garbage can to look for food. What does keeping Nigeria united do for you and me if we do not have enough money or food to live a good life?

I don't know about you. I personally have no problems if Nigeria breaks up tomorrow if the break up will end power outages in Nigeria, end kidnapping in our cities and villages, end armed robberies and Police involvement in them, create gainful employment for all and sundry and guarantee security, happiness and freedom for all and life more abundant not just for the privileged few but for the great majority of our people. President Jonathan was talking about unity as if Nuhu Ribadu or Mohammadu Buhari or any other candidate elected is going to compromise or threaten that unity. Keeping Nigeria one is not the exclusive preserve of the conservatives or the PDP. The progressives if elected could also do it and do it better is my point.

If Obafemi Awolowo had been elected President, the Nigerian union could predictably have grown stronger because Awolowo understood the concept of power and how to use it to promote the welfare of the great majority of Nigerians like he did in the old West which has remained a pace setter for Nigeria in so many areas up till now and long after Awo's exit. Awolowo did not at any time aspire to rule over a divided Nigeria and he said it loud and clear in all of his books because he saw a big strength in the size of Nigeria and its economic potential and possibilities that many of his critics could not see because they are intellectually blind..

Nigerian voters for once must give the opposition in Nigeria a chance to prove that there is always an alternative to the PDP stranglehold on power in a country as big as Nigeria. Democracy functions better when no party, however strong, is allowed to monopolize power forever. PDP has no motivation to change anything as long as it is allowed to continue to manipulate elections for the purpose of retaining power. Dr. Jomathan cannot be running to lose. Therefore whatever corners he can cut to win he will surely do. The PDP coming to power for a short time in the Southwest has afforded the people of the Southwest an opportunity to be able to compare and contrast the PDP with the AD or the old Action Group. That is precisely why the great majority of voters in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, and Osun have fought to reclaim their stolen mandates from the PDP with some help from the Judiciary because they can tell that the PDP has done more harm than good.

I can tell you that if the next elections in the Southwest are free and fair, Oyo and Ogun states will return back to the progressive column, and so will many states in the old North and the Middle Belt. A few more states in the old Calabar, Ogoja and River (COR) axis will do the same, and power configuration in Nigeria will never be the same again. It is very doubtful, however, if Attahiru Jega and his INEC will be able to create a level playing field that would allow voters to freely elect their leaders and representatives across the board. That is the problem. If Professor Jega's INEC is not able to conduct the Delta rerun elections without problems and recriminations, how could he be trusted to successfully conduct nation-wide elections like the one Professor Adeniran has just conducted in the PDP primaries in Abuja where transparency was the first order of business. I know Professor Tunde Adeniran. He is as transparent as they come. I don't know what he is doing in the PDP.

Why for goodness sake would most Lagos voters not vote for Raji Fashola and the ACN in Lagos, given the Governor's track record? Why would Governor Obi and his party not win again based on the impressive job the man has done? Election should be seen as a reward for performance and a rejection at the polls should be seen as serving notice to the ruling party to shape up or shape out. That is what Politics should be all about in every country. The PDP deserves to lose the next elections at the Federal level for failing Nigeria. It was very disappointing to observe the NTA giving a 24 hour TV coverage to the PDP primaries in Abuja while barely paying any attention at all to the ACN primaries. That observation, in of itself, is the beginning of rigging. The NTA does not belong to the PDP alone. President Jonathan should not have allowed that to happen if he is truly different from his predecessors. Nuhu Ribadu is a candidate to watch in the coming elections and I believe that he can pull off a rainbow coalition of support to give President Jonathan a run for his money. The North should be proud they are able to finally produce a candidate like Ribadu, Abubakar Rimi, Balarabe Musa, Jerry Gana, Lamido Sanusi and several others who can match any candidate from the South pound for pound. The North has come a long way.

If President Jonathan would not allow Nigerians to freely choose our leaders by insisting on free and fair elections, he has no business leading the movement to stop Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast from stealing Quattara's mandate in the recently concluded elections in that country. The world is closely watching President Jonathan and how he handles the situation in Ivory Coast as the current chairman of ECOWAS.

This takes me to the chances of Nuhu Ribadu and Mohammadu Buhari both of whom have emerged the presidential candidates of ACN and the Congress for progressive Change (CPC) in Nigeria. They are both northerners and respectable ones for that matter. If the advocates of the consensus candidate in the North like Adamu Ciroma, IBB, Gusau, Atiku and Saraki say it is the turn of the North to hold Aso Rock for another 4 years again, and they are honest about it, what stops them from throwing their support now to either Ribadu or Buhari? Is Atiku more northerner than either of them? If they are talking of experience on the job and a no nonsense streak, Buhari evidently has them all. If they are talking about new blood and youthfulness with a track record for performance and dynamism, Nuhu definitely has them? With these two choices, why must the next President come from the PDP with its abysmal track record? It is a legitimate question to ask and I am asking it with all the emphasis at my command. It is time for the PDP to go.

Now the battle lines are drawn. Three strong candidates have emerged and more could still emerge. Let the News Media in Nigeria or private organization sponsor a debate between the major candidates and let each of them tell us why Nigerians need to vote for them or hire them like is done in America. I listen to the acceptance speech of Nuhu Ribadu and I compare and contrast it to the acceptance speech of President Jonathan. All I see is a carbon copy of Barack Obama when he started running for the presidency of the greatest nation in the Universe. Ribadu does not have as much baggage or paper trail as any of the other two candidates but he surely has something going for him that the other two do not have or match. He is one Policeman in Nigeria with a difference. I am supporting him because he has earned it even though I am not a card-carrying member of the CAN.

He is young and vibrant and he has correctly identified the yearnings of Nigerians for nothing but a change in this election. You cannot solve a problem you do not understand and cannot define. I agree that Buhari too has harped on the same note and he has some credibility doing it, but not as forcefully and as eloquently as Mr. Ribadu has done. You have to give kudos to the ACN as the successor of the Action Group's progressive agenda for Nigeria for having the courage to nominate a northerner as their presidential candidate for the second time in their history. They did it in 2007 when they nominated a conservative northerner, Atiku Abubakar who soon abandoned the AC because he had no abiding faith in the ballot box. He Atiku would have been the obvious choice for the ACN in this election circle had he remained in the AC. Even though he bankrolled the AC with a fraction of his stolen loot, he could not remain in the opposition like Awolowo did for years because Atiku was not an Awolowo and he did not share any of Awo's visions and convictions talk less of his courage and political tenacity.

He ran back to his vomit in the PDP only to be humiliated yesterday in a landslide victory by a man who used to be one of his cheerleaders before he fell out of favor asVice President under Olusegun Obasanjo. Jonathan has not only demystified the northerners' strangle hold on power in Nigeria, he has cut off the Gorgon's head, so to speak, by putting the Maradona by far the most dangerous of the northern politicians into his place. By beating Ciroma, IBB, Atiku, Gusau and all of the "Alelluya" boys and "parapoism"in the North to borrow a jargon from Patrick Obahiagbon of Edo, Jonathan has shown Nigerians what the power of incumbency can do in Nigeria. If you take away the power of incumbency from Jonathan, however, what is left is good luck which should not be the only yardstick by which great leaders are judged around the world because managing people is a different ball game from playing lotto.. Obama did not have the power of incumbency, but that deficit did not stop him from beating George Bush Jnr. arms down in 2008. Nigeria is not going to make any headway until we are able to do de-emphasize the nasty influence of incumbency which is given by "we the people" to begin with..

The world has turned one full circle. The conservatives in the PDP are today tasting their own poison they have always used to humiliate Awolowo and the opposition in Nigerian politics for years. They are now effectively using the same power of incumbency to intimidate, humiliate, and oppress one or many of their own. Because they have crippled the opposition in Nigeria, they are now fighting among themselves and that ought to be a reason good enough for Nigerians to vote them out next April. What goes around comes around. Adamu Ciroma and Atiku and their cohorts in the PDP can now see the full ramifications of what Awolowo and his loyal followers and comrades in the opposition have had to endure for 50 years and counting. The status quo in Nigeria is never going to change until the PDP is completely swept out of power, and the opposition given a chance to taste power like is done in most civilized countries.

Nigeria should shed no tears for Atiku or Ciroma or gloat at the prospect of President Jonathan holding power for another 4 or 8 years while breaking for once the jinx of conservative domination of Nigeria, and doing so with many of the so-called power brokers in the North scrambling to identify with the man with the key to the Nigerian treasury, the oil blocks and the political spoils of Nigeria while shouting "Ranka Dede" as they fall over one another to get noticed. What a country!

I rest my case

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