Date Published: 08/07/09
Let us brace up for eight years of Yar’Adua
By Idang Alibi
As things stand in our dear country Nigeria today, we are going to have President Umar Musa Yar’Adua as president for eight solid years, unless what lawyers call an Act of Fate happens. Why do I say so? As any honest-hearted person who knows Nigerian politics well and can read the situation on ground now can confess, there is no political movement or party that can stop the PDP and Yar’Adua from coasting to victory come 2011, unless as I have said, an act of Fate happens to thwart it.
As some insightful commentators have pointed out in recent times, we do not today have any opposition party or an amalgam of them in the name of a mega-party that can succeed in stopping the behemoth or moving train called the PDP. Whether jointly or severally, as lawyers will put it, there is no force in Nigeria as at now or in the next two years that can halt the PDP.
The PDP has in its fold some of the best election riggers, political strategists, manipulators and schemers who know a thing or two about how to ‘win’ election in Nigeria. The other riggers who are not in the PDP umbrella are too few, even if combined in one mega fold when compared to their counterparts in the PDP, to pose any serious or meaningful challenge to the PDP. Apart from this, the others can not have the financial and other means to match the PDP in any department of electoral contest or more appropriately, election thievery in Nigeria.
Atiku Abubakar, that shrewd political calculator and strategist minted from the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua School of Political Strategy, knows too well that in the absence of a genuine electoral reform that can empower the people to decide who they really want, no Jupiter on earth can stop the PDP. That is why the man decided to make that move to go back to PDP in order to realize his age-old ambition to lead Nigeria. It is those who are less calculative who reined abuses on him when he made the move but he knew what he was seeking to do. Atiku knows that given the nature of Nigeria politics, disaffected politicians who do not like PDP’s total dominance of the political space can not come together to form a mega party as is being canvassed. And even if formed, such an outfit cannot successfully wrestle power from the PDP. He also knows that if he wants to oil the machinery of the Action Congress to challenge the PDP, he is not going to succeed. My prediction is that unless Atiku succeeds in going back to the PDP, he will rather not run for the presidency because he knows that he is guaranteed to lose.
I think it is important that we realize this fact that Yar’adua and the PDP have come to stay and absorb it into our spirit. The benefit of doing so are two-fold: one, those who care deeply about Nigeria should then begin to see how best they can assist the president to succeed rather than spending valuable time in endless criticism of his style of leadership. The other side of the coin is that those who think that the man is not just suitable for that position should begin to device strategies of ensuring that he is not elected for a second term in 2011. And for those who think like that, they must begin to think about how they can possibly redouble their efforts or else it would be fruitless. The PDP is too formidable to be ousted by any wishful thinkers.
I regard as wishful thinkers those who prophesy that PDP will implode against itself and disaffected persons will then come and join forces with existing opposition parties in order to forge a formidable enough front to wrestle power from the PDP. Those who think like this are daydreaming because the PDP is a booty-sharing machine and Yar’adua and other elders of the party know this only too well. They will therefore be wise enough to do everything to ensure that there is minimum disagreement in the sharing of political positions and other largesse in 2011. The strategy will be automatic ticket or something near that for every one elected, appointed or selected on its platform. Aspiring contenders for positions in 2011 who are already waiting in the wings will of course lose out and will be very bitter about this but PDP knows that those who are not now holding positions do not have sufficient muscle to do any much harm against the rock-like stability of the party.
I may be wrong here and in my analysis. But the reality we have on our hands is that many of the people we have on the political scene today are the same set of faces we are likely to be seeing in 2011 and beyond.
This is the cold reality. Those who do not like to see this happen had better wake up now or brace up to live with this eventuality.
For some of us we have leant to live with the inevitable we have no cause to worry. Our prayers to nullify such an occurrence without the necessary compliment of effective political works will leave us bitterer than if we had simply resigned ourselves to fate.
Idang Alibi is a member of the Editorial Board of the Abuja-based Daily Trust newspaper and can be reached on idangalibi@yahoo.com
