APC: going, going .....(soon) GONE!

Posted by John Okiyi Kalu | 8 years ago | 3,017 times



Congratulations to former Senate President David Mark (PDP) and the two PDP winners of senatorial elections rerun in Kogi.

 

A friend asked me yesterday why I believed PDP will win Benue and Kogi re-run polls and I told him the simple truth I know: APC is geared more towards opposition and use of propaganda and rigging to win elections. As opposition party they can use the media to shout and scream while going behind to plot horrific rigging.

 

I firmly believe APC rigged all the elections they won previously using strong media and propaganda cover. As opposition party that was easy but as ruling party it is tougher for some reasons I wish not to delve into now. Suffice it to state that short of writing results, which they attempted at Southern Ijaw, there is no other winning game for APC in Nigeria. They will pick up a few minor seats but nothing major again. Unless PDP fail to contest the position properly.

 

 Edo is going PDP soon.

 

Nigerians are genuinely angry and disappointed with "change" as sold by APC. As at today there is no single person who voted for or supported APC that is not privately or publicly regretting. Many are out rightly angry but will not say so to avoid being taunted by PDP supporters. My APC supporting friends are hurting and many have voiced out to me privately while maintaining the facade of "loyal party man".

 

In a recent article titled "end the blame game" published by Thisday Newspaper, one of the noisiest pre-election APC/Buhari supporter, Dele Momodu, penned the following lines:

 

"Buhari government is already getting paranoid and almost as neurotic as the Jonathan regime. Their reaction to every criticism suggests an unnecessary agitation. They are blaming real and imaginary enemies for the gale of attacks on the economic policies of the current government. I find this very reprehensible."

"If truth must be told, our economic team is floundering at the moment. They appear rudderless and totally confused. Did they expect anyone to praise them when the Naira is spinning and nose-diving at a dizzying pace like a rollercoaster gone berserk?

"Nigerians sent President Goodluck Jonathan packing because they believed he was incompetent and the APC and its candidate (Buhari) assured they had the solutions to the problems and the magic wand to the economic and spiritual hopelessness of the time. No one should blame them if they are grumbling that this was not the change they voted for.”

-Dele Momodu of APC/ovation magazine

 

It appears to me that the greatest disaster APC and our President has inflicted on us as a people is to institute a government by excuse and propaganda. It is a well known fact that only average people and below give excuses while the above average march on and achieve greatness from seeming challenges.

 

How do we explain to our 1984 government in 2016 that great leaders meet challenges and overcome them without excuses? Who will convince them that we are in the knowledge age where only the best excel against competing global challengers? We never elected Mr President to come and drink kunu and eat tuwo shinkafa while superintending the sharing of overflowing national wealth that is inexhaustible. There were challenges to be met.

 

Even the offered excuses from the APC led government are demoralizing and demotivating. Telling us that oil price has fallen and you met empty treasury will not fly in the face of facts and Nigeria's recent history. It is only a foolish Nigerian (and they were many that supported APC) that will not remember that when PDP took over in 1999 oil price was $16.27 whereas Buhari took over in 2015 with oil around $40 per barrel. Even IBB and Shagari worked with oil mostly below $15/barrel and delivered projects Nigerians can still see.

 

Shagari did not whine endlessly about alleged missing $2.8b oil money and falling oil prices. Yar Adua experienced massive oil price drop in 2008 when prices dropped from $145/barrel in July to $28/barrel in December 2008 and yet we didn't read excuses. He stabilized Nigeria and grew our economy.

 

It is noteworthy that PDP inherited foreign reserve of $3.7b from the military in 1999 and handed over $29b as foreign reserve to APC led by former military man, Buhari.

 

In 1999 when PDP took over with oil price at $16.27 per barrel there were allegations of widespread looting of our treasury by the retreating military regime led by General Abdussalam Abubakar. Yet Obasanjo and PDP did not hire a battery of propagandists led by a professional Liar whose father named appropriately to warn the world about his son.

 

PDP and Obasanjo moved on with a good team and made Nigeria attractive enough for General Buhari to start running for President, apparently without a clear cut idea on what to do when if/when he acquires the power.

 

13 years after his initial attempt, our President and his party are giving life to the Biblical story in Mathew 25:24-29. Like the Lord in that story told the man given one talent but decided to hide it while complaining and giving excuses, Nigerians will soon tell APC: "you wicked and lazy servant (APC)............you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers , and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore take the talent (power) and give it to him who has ten talents (PDP).

 

As at today, if you conduct free and fair elections anywhere within literate Nigeria, APC will lose handsomely. In just 9 months the "emptiness" of the party and its leaders have been exposed. Amaechi is now commissioning Jonathan trains that Nigerians believed him and APC when they said those trains never existed. Finance minister is adding 6 and 16 to get 24 at a meeting meant to clear the biggest budget mess in Africa's history. The ethnic bias of Minister Fashola has now been fully exposed to literate Nigerians through his budget presentation that shared projects between his south west and his boss' north west, to the shame of Igbo born change chanters.

 

Frankly, no literate Nigerian will enter a polling unit today and not think twice before thumb-printing APC. We all go to the same market and if things are tough for me they must be tougher for APC supporters. I never expected anything because I knew the game that was playing out in 2015 whereas some of my gullible social media friends believed that $1 will become N1 from May 29th and unemployed people will receive N5k monthly (some of them must have planned how to use their N5k to buy data bundles to use in executing online scams that will give them quick status CHANGE). Uwa ntoor.

 

In fairness to President Buhari he is the second reason APC is losing rerun polls. He has refused to endorse wholesale rigging of elections by the Tinibu tendency in his party. Attempts by APC to write results and use security agents to torpedo free and fair elections did not receive presidential support in Southern Ijaw and Benue. Even when the Tinubu rigging machine was already positioned to do maximum damage. The Preaident's "I don't care" attitude extended to his refusal to lean on Supreme Court judges to pervert Justice, to the chagrin of his ministers and party leaders. Like I have always maintained, I did not see presidential dirty fingers in any of the election tribunals or appeal cases. The misruling from Appeal Courts were principally engineered by same tendency in APC that Nigerians know very well and were warned about. Not Buhari tendency.

 

If we further improve our electoral system and close all loopholes that allow rigging, PDP will rebound in 2019 and reclaim the presidency. The contraption called APC has fully delivered on the objective of returning power to the north and all the PDP need to defeat them is to float a north west candidate from within their governors ranks and pair him up with a popular South East Governor as Deputy. That ticket will naturally beat Buhari-Osibanjo or El Rufai-Tinubu/Fashola ticket in 2019.

 

If there is one legacy President Buhari should leave, it is introduction of electronic voting in Nigeria. We can do it if we want to. Combined with biometric card identification, the President can beat his chest and say "I came, I saw and I improved democracy in Nigeria".

 

That legacy will also help bury the artificial contraption called APC and allow real political parties emerge with ready programs and personnel to govern from day one. No normal political party take 6 months to name ministers who in turn will produce and steal a messy budget they cannot defend.

 

Until then, PDP should regroup quickly and unite around their new chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff.

 

 If anyone believe that Modu Sheriff is a Boko Haram member or sponsor the person should simply arrest and try him. I know for a fact that same man was defended by APC members when he was one of them as their founding father. My only worry is that PDP should have looked for a Chairman from the South West since they will likely pick Presidential candidate and deputy from the north and east respectively.

 

A strong Chairman from the west will help them decimate the Tinubu hold in the south west and open APC up for early disintegration. But then those who went to the North East probably know what I don't know. May be they are playing games of use a thief to catch a thief or there is a constitutional requirement to zone the chairmanship to the north east.

 

I am not Nostradamus, but I can easily predict that by 2017 there will likely be a new political party made up of key APC and PDP members as a result of the coming upheaval in APC. When you read about that party just know that APC is finally "gone".

 


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