The long political journey that started in 2011 between ACN and CPC which was aborted then but has recently been reconceived has given birth to a new party; The All Progressive Congress with APC as its acronym.
The acronym, APC reminded me of a pain killer in the 1970’s that my father used to administer me, my siblings or any member of the family anytime we complained of headache. It used to cure headache in a matter of minutes in those days. APC was a mixture of aspirin, phenacetin and caffeine used to cure symptoms of colds and headache but it is no longer in use due to Phenacetin’s potential for kidney damage and its carcinogenic properties. It was a big tablet (twice as big as this present paracetamol) difficult to swallow and bitter if it touched your tongue, so whenever it touched our tongue, we were tempted to vomit it but a beating from mama would help ram it down our throat, however, if successfully swallowed, you would be rewarded with a sweet, a piece of fish or goody-goody to remove the bitterness. APC is also an acronym for Armoured Personal Carrier- a bullet proof machine used by the Police to subdue criminals.
Some people are already kicking against the merger; obviously questioning the relevance of the party when we already have some registered parties.
Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but for me; I am an unrepentant advocate of two party system for Nigeria. Until all the parties are reduced to just two, it is only then, can we say truly we have started our journey to democracy tailored to suit Nigeria socio-political reality.
That aside, the thrust of the Party merger is to join forces to wrest power from the ruling Party and to deliver Nigerians from PDP’s 14 years of misrule, mismanagement and misappropriation of resources Nigerians are not oblivious of the plaguing issues and challenges that have held Nigeria spell bound in its developmental efforts since independence. However, what Nigerians cannot clearly situate is the catholicon for this misfortune because firstly, it is not that Nigeria is impoverished in the true sense of it, or that Nigeria is less endowed with human and material resources. On the contrary, if development is measured by the quantum of resources (human and material), Nigeria will be among the first worlds, but why are we crawling instead of flying? Why are we beggars instead of lenders in the midst of these resources? This is where the real issue is- translating these quatum of resources to achieving high development in all its ramifications. I don’t intend to belabour myself listing the areas where we have failed woefully. Nigerian woes have become boring to listeners or readers. The decay is here with us, we breathe, smell, hear and live it Many analysts have made references to different predisposing factors from governance, to the governed, from political class to the masses and to our educational system. And for lack of words we summarize it thus that Nigeria’s woes are hydra headed.
If we must be honest to ourselves, as I always task people to first tell themselves the bitter but the home truth. For us to claim ignorance of the root cause of our problems is to play the ostrich. For we know them because “our sins are ever before us”. However, what we lack is the courage to tackle the root cause head- long. If we ask ourselves; why are our roads bad? Why is the educational system at its lowest ebb, why are our hospitals not functioning? Why are we not making progress as other nations (Malaysia, Korea) that started the race with us? Somebody would cleverly answer, bad governance or bad leadership which manifests in poor planning, poor policy programmes implementation, poor utilization of resources.
If we ask further why should we not plan properly, why would we not implement the programmes effectively and why would we not utilize our resources in a cost effective manner. Your answer would be as good as mine- CORRUPTION EXTRAVAGANZA. If somebody dares to ask; why can’t we deal a deadly blow to corruption so that Nigeria can move forward? The answer would be, it is impossible! and why is it not possible? Because all have sinned, we have found ourselves in a difficult situation; ‘Be the first to cast the stone if you have not’. At the end of the day, nobody amongst the political class would be left standing to clear the Augean table.
Just recently, Dr. Obby Ezekwesili drew the ire of Jonathan’s aides when she raised the issue of 67 Billion USD, 45 Billion USD from Federal Reserves and 22 Billion USD from Excess Crude Account that depleted during the time of Late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Jonathan. From the time she gave the convocation lecture at UNN till date, there has been a barrage of accusations and counter-accusations.
Precisely, The Nation Newspaper of Feb 4, 2013 reported that the Information Minister, Mr Maku asked Mrs Ezekwesili to account for the over N40 Billion voted for education between 2006 and 2007 when she was the minister. Abati, in defence of his master wrote in an article entitled “Hypocrisy of Yesterday’s Men†attacked Ezekwesili, other ministers and Obasanjo for their failure in the major sectors of the country especially in the power sector. El-Rufai replied Jonathan’s men in a tweet The fools of today†don’t recall that social media and broadband became prevalent after 2007 due to effort of men of yesterday.
That is Nigeria for you.
So, before Nigeria is administered with this APC, the doctors, nurses and pharmacists concocting the drug should make sure that; firstly, they are not part of Nigeria’s headache or if they have been, they should first take the APC. Secondly, the drug must, without any side-effect, cure Nigeria’s many headaches which have their root in, and are symptoms of, corruption.
Dr(Mrs) Grace Igbokwe
Lagos