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PDP Should Protest More on the Streets and Write Fewer Press Releases

PDP possibly forgot the excellent admonition of Robert Greene who insists that when you meet a swordsman, draw your sword cautioning us not recite poetry to one who is not a poet. PDP’s fatal error was reciting poetry to a man who does not understand the beauty of words and letters.

On Monday, leaders of the People Democratic Party (PDP) took to the streets  of Abuja to protest what many believed to a bizarre, strange and factually ridiculous ruling from Tanko Mohammed’s Supreme Court of Nigeria wherein Hope Uzodinma of the APC was awarded the Imo governorship seat and Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP thrown away from an office he had occupied since May 29, 2019. It was refreshing seeing leading PDP figures like Uche Secondus, Peter Obi, Obinna Chidoka, Dino Melaye and several others making their disagreement with the judgment that would confound legal scholars and luminaries for centuries public. Perhaps the leading opposition party has come to realise that it can no longer sit back and watch social media influencers perform its duties.

PDP’s new approach is quite commendable and must be sustained if Nigeria’s democracy is to survive the surge of tyranny threatening to upend the country’s wobbling civil rule. It is obvious that the previous pattern of writing press statements, sending out tweets, granting press interviews and writing opinion pieces and articles in the papers have all failed if they were initiated to influence government’s decisions. Truth is that the APC government in Abuja is anti-intellectual and makes no pretence of its aversion for constructive engagements in the enunciation and design of public policies. It is doubtful if Buhari or any of his key men ever reads the papers or pays attention to whatever the PDP and their sympathisers say or write in the dailies.

PDP should do more to protest against the activities of Boko Haram terrorists

If press statements and angry interviews on TV were important influences when considering policy options by the present rulers, President Buhari would have sat up when Nigerians took to the press to advise against the delay in the appointment of ministers in his first term. If press comments mattered in Buhari’s world, the cries that attended his ethnically skewed appointments which favour only members of his Fulani ethnic origin and those who profess the Islamic faith would have been jettisoned long ago. If social media condemnations meant anything to those occupying the most important political posts, something would have been done to rein in on the terrorist groups (Boko Haram and members of the Fulani militia- aka herdsmen) killing thousands of Nigerians for fun every quarter. If newspaper editorials and op eds were of any value to the Buhari regime, the military chiefs would have been changed long ago and more competent hands hired.

The biggest failure of the PDP as an opposition party is the reluctance to appreciate that they in not in opposition to a government led by some Harvard, MIT-educated bright minds. Yes, PDP’s apparatchiks’ lateness in realising that they are opposing a provincial government operating with a leadership template drawn from eons ago has been their biggest undoing  in the last four years.  If PDP had shaken off its post-2015-election trauma and confronted this government using a multiplicity of approaches including street protests, strikes, boycotts and collaboration with other interest groups, a lot would have been different in the polity today.

Robert Greene warned against singing poetry to a sword man

PDP’s weakness as a major opposition cost it the 2019 presidential seat. PDP’s failure to rise to the challenge of vibrant opposition is the reason Hope Uzodinma and not Emeka Ihedioha is governor in Imo today. If PDP had been a vibrant opposition party, Ademola Adeleka and not Adegboyega Oyetola would have been the governor of Osun State. If PDP had been more vigilant as an opposition should, Osagie Ize-Iyamu and not Godwin Obaseki would have been governor in Edo. How about other states that would have been under the reign of the former ruling party if only they had committed themselves to resisting tyranny, fighting against constitutional abuses and insisting that elections must be done in accordance with the laws of the land? Kano, Plateau and even Ondo come readily to mind.  These three states could easily have been won by the PDP but the party deluded itself into thinking that those they were dealing with spend their waking hours reading press releases or gauging how the party would react when it unleashes one act of impunity or the other.

If PDP had sufficiently mobilised Nigerians and campaigned on the strength of the failure of the Buhari government to make good even 10% of its campaign promises since 2015, the ruling party and its president would have since returned to his native Daura- thinking over his battered reputation. PDP failed to harp on the escalating poverty in the country (more than a hundred million Nigerians live in extreme poverty), it would have gotten the attention of millions of unemployed people. They failed to mobilised Nigerians against the rising cost of living, they failed to hit the streets when Buhari arbitrarily raised the price of fuel in 2016 by almost 70%, they failed to hinge their opposition on the failure of the ruling government to protect the lives of Nigerians and fish out the murderers who make a sport of killing defenceless citizens in the sleep in the north central region. How about the mind-boggling corruption that has become the hallmark of the administration? Think about the corruption in the MDAs, the incessant allegations of corruption swirling around the president’s key men, the nepotism, the secret employment into lucrative offices, the killing of Nigerians in largely Christian communities across the north, the destruction of farm lands on the supposed imprimatur of the president and several other acts of incompetence, insincerity and neglect that a serious opposition could have latched on to return to power.

Atiku Abubakar could have won the 2019 election if only the PDP played effective opposition

Fact is that PDP failed and its failure has come at a very heavy cost on the nation. No democracy thrives without a vibrant opposition or an opposition that is more of a paper tiger.  PDP possibly forgot the excellent admonition of Robert Greene who insists that when you meet a swordsman, draw your sword cautioning us not recite poetry to one who is not a poet. PDP’s fatal error was reciting poetry to a man who does not understand the beauty of words and letters. Even more tragic in all of these was the party’s failure to realise that it had become the voice of the oppressed. By refusing to align with the victims of injustice across the land, PDP made itself aloof and unworthy of the genuine support of the Nigerian people.

To be clear, the PDP was not an angelic party during the 16 years it ruled Nigeria. In fact I wished at a time that the party be removed so they learn how not to toy with the mandate of the people. However when the alternative was Muhammadu Buhari who presented nothing but anachronistic ideas anchored on delusion and not back by any real work, I convinced myself that Nigeria would be best served by the continuation of the PDP government.

In losing the election however, the PDP got a chance at restitution.  A chance to purge itself of hubris and appreciate in the solitude of defeat, the value of the people’s trust.  Rather than take advantage of the lessons offered by defeat, the Peoples Democratic Party allowed itself to be blackmailed by an APC government that was neck-deep in impunity, filled with individuals standing trial for multiple allegations of corruption and most pathetically- led by a man who set the country back when he took out democratically elected leaders in 1983 and proclaimed himself “head of state.” PDP had all it required to fight with but tragically failed to rally Nigerians behind it.

Dino Melaye was part of the Monday protests

It is troubling to realise that PDP leaders only took to the streets after another state was taken from the it in a zone that does not want anything to do with the APC. What if it had protested when Adeleke was robbed of his mandate at the Supreme Court earlier in 2019?  Now to be clear, I do not believe that judicial pronouncement should be subject to political scrutiny and evaluations but when it is speculated that someone sits in Aso Rock and takes dictation which is read at the Supreme Court on the morning a major judgement is being expected, the PDP has a duty to also counter such abuse of judicial powers by mobilising Nigerians against officials who carry out such reckless sabotage of the electoral and judicial process.

Muhammadu Buhari and Tanko Mohammaed would have been more careful if PDP had sufficiently mobilised against the illegal and criminal removal of Walter Onnighen as the chief justice of Nigeria. If PDP had protested INEC’s shoddy elections in Ekiti, Ondo and Edo between 2016 and 2018, things could have been different. If the PDP had shown solidarity with the Kaduna people, those in Benue, those in several other communities in northern Nigerian who were becoming daily victims of the menace of Fulani herdsmen, a whole lot would have been different.

Sadly, the party blew it all away. How would crying over spilt milk help an adult?

Whatever happens, it has now been proven that writing press releases is not the only duty of an opposition leader. The PDP must be offering superior alternative policy choices, challenging the ill-conceived ideas and programmes of the Buhari administration and mobilising Nigerians to the streets when the occasion do demands.

Enough of singing poetry to a fellow who only understands the language of the jungle.

 

 

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect ROOT TV's editorial stance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Okafor Chiedozie
Okafor Chiedozie is an economist, political writer and amateur Igbo historian. He pursues these and other interests out of Abuja.
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