By
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
Recently,
the Chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Mr. John Oyegun, was quoted
as saying that he was “sad” that his party could not produce a lawmaker from
the South East to be elected as senate president or speaker of the House of
Representatives when the new national assembly would be inaugurated in June.
This was because during the last elections, the APC performed so poorly in the
South East that it was unable to win a single seat in the two houses of the
national assembly in the region.
*Bola Tinubu, Muhammadu Buhari and John
Oyegun
Ordinarily, this should have been an exclusive problem of the APC,
but given the way Mr. Oyegun spoke, someone might be deluded into thinking that
some really monumental tragedy had hit the South East – for which the people of
the area should be in deep mourning by now.
Since the presidential election which the Chairman of the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, told us
was won by the APC’s General Muhammadu Buhari, one has lost count of articles ecstatically
celebrating how the “wrong voting” of majority of South Easterners has now put
the zone to a “great disadvantage.”
Some solutions have also been “kindly” proffered by quite a number
of people to “help” the South East out of its predicament, like the very absurd
suggestion that a senator-elect from Enugu State should decamp to the APC so he
could become the senate president; or even the much more off-putting call on a
female Senator-elect from Anambra State to step down for the APC candidate she
defeated, since the man is a “very good material” for the senate presidency. One
could go on and on, but what is of concern here is that Mr. Oyegun’s assertion would
seem to have somewhat elevated these clearly pedestrian views and clothed them
with the false robe of serious discourse.
*Tom Ikimi unveiling the APC
Now, apart from providing another juicy job for another member of
the largely parasitic and incompetent political class, what exactly will the
South East gain if somebody from the zone becomes the senate president? Or, put
another way, the zone has produced senate presidents before now, and apart from
the delusive emotional satiation some fellows from their villages might have
felt when they heard that their “brother” had “crossed over” to join other fat
cats as a distinguished member of Nigeria’s Eating Class,
what exactly (in practical terms) did their communities or even states gain
from their occupation of that position? I sincerely wish to know how a
South Easterner becoming the senate president would affect the price of fish
at Afor Umuaka or Eke-Ututu market, even in
this era of “change.”
Okay, after the 2011 elections, the position of the speaker of the
House of Representatives was zoned by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
to the South West. But the lawmakers from the defunct Action Congress of
Nigeria (ACN) – the dominant party in the same South West at that time, led by
Bola Tinubu, reportedly, conspired with some PDP “rebels” in the House and some
power-must-remain-with-us elements from the North to ensure that Aminu Tambuwal
from Sokoto State
The attempt to always profile South Easterners and brand any
action undertaken by them is increasingly lacking in imagination, but the real
tragedy is that those who have made it a cherished occupation are yet to
realize it. Our “experts” found it very easy, even natural, to agree with
indecent haste that the South East was driven by nationalistic fervor to vote
massively for the PDP from 1999 to 2011 because such a position gratified their
narrow, self-serving calculations at that period. But in 2015, the decision of
many South Easterners to vote for the same PDP has suddenly become
“tribalistic” (because of who stood to lose or benefit from it this time) and
everyone that can string a few sentences together is out there at every village
square spewing all sorts of babble on the matter!
*President Jonathan
But the South West and the North (including the toddlers whose
pictures went viral) that voted en mass for the APC and even
the Northern PDP governors who sank their
political ships by their clannish, double-faced politics were all driven by
“nationalistic” spirit. For instance, the defunct “NewPDP” owes its emergence
to Babangida Aliyu, the PDP Governor of
Niger State, whose bitter agitation for a PDP presidential candidate of
Northern extraction for the 2015 elections moved his colleagues from the North
(and one governor from the South South who must have been promised that he
would benefit from the “nationalistic” mutiny) to file behind him. Soon we
began to hear about the G-7 governors who later named themselves the “NewPDP”
whose sole agenda was to produce, not a more efficient president, but just a
president from the North. Their eventual merger with other like-minds gave
birth to what became the APC.
Although Governors Aliyu, Sule Lamido and some others chose to
stay back in the PDP, it is obvious that they never purged themselves of their
original agitation and agenda. They probably chose to operate from within. That
is why despite their enormous incumbency powers and influence, Governors Aliyu
and Isa Yuguda of Bauchi lost their senatorial bids to lesser-known candidates
and even the “very popular” Gov Sule Lamido could not get his anointed PDP
governorship candidate elected in Jigawa State because, even very close to the
elections, he was reportedly still reluctant to campaign for the presidential
candidate of his own party even as he could be heard occasionally speaking
glowingly about the APC presidential candidate – his brother. Of course, these
untidy political activities by these PDP stalwarts may have succeeded in
confusing the electorate which went on to vote for “change” in all the elections
(which to many of them, might to just mean, voting for “our own person” not
matter his vision and competence).
Of course, our brilliant analysts would not dare to describe these
people as “tribalistic.” As if “nationalism” is one long, winding road which if
you continue to follow tenaciously will lead you to Daura while “tribalism” is
a wide expressway that speedily takes one to Onitsha Bridge
Well, although, Buhari has suddenly realized (after reeling out
tantalizing promises during the campaigns) that he is not “magician” or
“miracle worker” and is now asking us to tone down our expectations, the APC
should not lose sight of the high hopes it unduly (some would say,
recklessly) raised among Nigerians just
to grab their votes. As the report of
Buhari’s appeal for patience from Nigerians (since he now believes that the
promised “change” may not come as quickly as he made Nigerians believe it would)
appeared in the Vanguard of Wednesday, May 6, 2015, the questions on the lips
of several Nigerians are: did he not do his research very well, and counted the
cost, before he began to reel off those clearly unrealistic promises to
Nigerians during the campaigns? And how does his coming out to sing a different
tune after he has won the elections make him to look before Nigeria
That is why I think that instead of going about looking for some clearly
inconsequential matters to feel “sad” about, the APC leaders should hasten to
rouse themselves to the yawning reality that the campaigns are over and all
eyes are now on them to demonstrate that they are capable of providing the quality
leadership they so loudly promised Nigerians.
What exactly does their promised “change” mean in practical terms?
How soon will the naira acquire the same value as the US dollar? When are we
expecting to witness uninterrupted electricity supply, the one free meal a day for
school pupils or the payment of allowances to discharged but unemployed NYSC
members? The list is endless.
The APC must hasten to realize that very soon, they would no
longer have a President Jonathan to blame for everything that goes wrong in
Nigeria or their inability to deliver on the grand promises they rolled out
during the campaigns. They would be the ones on the hot seat receiving all the
flaks, and not even a friendly, collaborative media can deflect the impatience
of a disappointed populace. They had better face the real issues staring
them in the face instead of chasing butterflies.
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*Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is a columnist with Daily Independent newspaper. His column appears every Tuesday on the back page. scruples2@hotmail.com
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