How PDP Can Win In 2019
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I am on record for saying the All Progressives Congress is a shoo-in
for a second term in office come the 2019 election. This is far from
being a rash assertion; it is based on a careful study of party politics
in this country since 1999, and projections from current permutations
and power calculus.
Despite the dust up from Osun governorship poll over the weekend, I
still stand by that prognosis (albeit) with a caveat. That is, all
things must remain equal. That said, it is a foolish man who thinks all
things will remain equal in politics even for one week. Hoping (or
indeed praying) for all things to remain equal in politics is an
electoral strategy only in the adolescent playing field. Complacency, as
I have stated here before, is the APC’s most potent in-house enemy
(See; “APC’s in-house enemy”, The PUNCH, August 28, 2018).
On the other hand, for the Peoples Democratic Party, defeatism is the
bogeyman they should fear the most. After all, predictions by pundits,
experts and observers, no matter how well-founded, are mere predictions.
Gravity is there to be defied, records are there to be broken, odds are
there to be beaten, and votes are there to be garnered. Nothing is won
or lost in an election until the last ballot has been counted. So, I
say c’mon, the PDP, “yes you can”. Here is how.
First, I say the obvious, get your house in order. Narrow down your
presidential torchbearer to a shortlist of two quickly. Whoever becomes
the top man should nominate a female running mate from any part of the
country. That would be historical; it would cut deep into a major block
vote, and signals that the party is indeed the true “progressive” in the
country. Second, steer clear of policy debate in the campaign. You were
in power for over 16 years, without really having anything to show for
it. The APC has also been in power for one term without anything
concrete to show for it either. Concentrate, instead, on wresting power
from the APC in the same way as they did to you in 2015. Look at the
APC’s greatest Achilles heel; willingness to maintain the power
configuration in this country, coupled with its unwillingness to change
the status quo. At the moment, the South-West remains the main catalyst
for President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election in 2019.
The region is not a monolithic bloc vote for any single candidate or
personality, but it is a monolithic voice for one thing: devolution of
powers. If there is any sin the Buhari administration has committed to
the chagrin of everyone in the southern part of the country in the
course of his first term in office, it is the overrepresentation of his
northern brethren in key strategic positions of government
administration in the country. Of itself, that is not sufficient to
sustain the charge of “northern domination” unless the government
personnel are, in fact, pursuing a policy of ethnic domination which is
not the case. President Buhari is worthy of praise for not allowing
perception and professional opinion moulders to determine the building
blocks of his administration. That takes real courage – at a cost.
Not being swayed by perception and transient popularity is one thing,
being accused of not giving a damn about the feelings of all ethnic
nationalities that constitute Nigeria is quite another. The latter has
become accentuated towards the end of the first term of this
administration. It has underlined the need for “restructuring” even more
vociferously. So, given the god-like image of President Buhari and the
cult-like figure he has become to many in the North, it has become
imperative that the presidential standard bearer for the PDP in 2019
ought to be not only from the North, but be a flamboyant,
larger-than-life type of character, who can capture at least one-third
of the electorate in that region. Having done that, the PDP then need
only campaign with one agenda in their manifesto: Sovereign National
Conference.
Even Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has poo-pooed the idea of
“restructuring”. Once in power, the APC has found it expedient to
jettison the idea of devolution of powers for which many of their
followers and supporters fought and suffered humiliation and harassment
for many years. The APC hierarchy now see themselves as men of power who
do not look far ahead anymore. The only interest they harbour now
appears to be the retention of power at the next election and the one
after that. The vision of a new Nigeria many of them used to harbour,
and which, in fact, drove them into exile for a long period of time is
now a distant memory.
There is a vacuum of ideas in the coming electoral contest between
the parties. The PDP has a unique opportunity to steal the APC’s thunder
and run with it. They can go to the electorate with a singular promise
of convening a Sovereign National Conference as the first order of
business upon victory at the polls. Should they be bold enough to adopt
this as their battle plan, the electorate in the South, more
importantly, South-West, would abandon the APC in leaps and bounds. The
APC would be as good as dead in the region.
In the final analysis, politics is about managing and leveraging
interests; the ultimate objective being the attainment or retention of
power. The political space in Nigeria is becoming sterile with an
increasingly despondent electorate. National offices are full of
professional politicians, who are so vacuous they are unable to
disengage from the captivating corridors of power. Many of them became
journeymen councillors and local assemblymen, then, morphed into
senators, then, became governors, served the maximum two terms
permissible, then, put themselves forward for a return to the Senate
again. They cannot imagine life outside party politics, they have
rendered participatory democracy predatory and parasitic at its core.
Activating a Sovereign National Conference changes all that at once.
It will set about the arduous task of redesigning, renewing and
recreating this entity called Nigeria in a way that is equitable and
fair to all. The APC momentarily toyed with this noble cause and quickly
abandoned it.
The PDP has a chance, a rare chance, to grab the bull by the horns.
What an irony it would be for a party set up in large part to protect,
conserve and preserve the interest of the establishment to be the one
that creates the opportunity for progressive ideas to flourish through
the SNC. It would be the ultimate irony to see a pig flying, I know, but
nothing is so sacrosanct in politics anymore these days. 2019 may yet
prove to be an interesting tale of the unexpected.
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