The resurrection of PDP  

A lapsed Christian friend of mine remarked on Tuesday, June 9, as we watched Senator Bukola Saraki emerge the Senate President: “I think the story of Jesus Christ’s resurrection might be true after all, for this is PDP’s resurrection.”

While Christians should pardon the gentleman for his apostasy, he was spot on in his conclusion. Ladies and gentlemen, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is back and kicking. A truly amoebic structure, it comes presently in many forms like new PDP, old PDP, and at a level a disaffected All Progressives Congress (APC).

It should be worrisome to those who truly expect change in the way things are done in our country, especially governance, that our problems are deep-rooted than mere political party affiliation. Maybe those who said Nigeria’s problem is a class war were right, after all. We are seeing how politicians are fickle-minded and the length they can go in pursuit of power. We are just weeks into the current governance cycle, and there are already talks of 2019, what kind of species of politicians inhabit our nation?

However, the full ramifications of what happened last Tuesday at the National Assembly will be seen only as days go by, but we need to understand some immediate implications. First, it went beyond former governor Bola Tinubu been cut to size as many have been saying. I don’t worship at Tinubu’s altar but he is not the major loser of the game by the shenanigans at the National Assembly. The major loser is APC, and by implication, Nigeria. Yes, our country lost, as nothing is more dangerous than an adversarial legislator. Just ask former President Obasanjo.

If I were among APC strategists, it’s high time a fence-mending process commenced, as it is clear the party does not control the two chambers. Admit this and move ahead as there are many battles ahead; you don’t tackle this by threatening those who defeated you in a game of power. They won and so are in ascendancy. There is the ministerial list to be considered and approved soonest. Start rebuilding your breached walls, as one of the shocking things is the election of the new deputy speaker. No one is more loyal to his party than the Osun State governor but for an Osun Rep to have crossed over to the other side shows that all is not well at home. APC wasted precious time in ‘accepting’ the election of Saraki and Yakubu Dogara, they had no choice, and that’s bad politicking.

The confusing messages from the ever-voluble Layi Mohammed, the APC spokesperson, and Garba Shehu for the president should be a source of concern for the party as well. How could you fix a meeting for the morning of inauguration? The argument that PDP did it too while it was the majority party in the National Assembly does not hold water. If my memory serves me right, the two chambers would be properly adjourned before the party would go into its parliamentary caucus. This is also one of the effects of an amalgamation of political parties united only in an objective: driving an incumbent out of office without a corresponding plan on what to do when that objective is achieved. Scholars have written much about the effect of weak political parties on governance and this area deserves more attention by citizens, as politicians seem happy with the situation.

Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal​ should be a strategist for APC now on how he maintained the coalition that enabled him stay in office from June 2011 till 2015 despite the fact that PDP had access to state resources and security apparatus. This scenario will not be repeated, as President Muhammadu Buhari does not look like someone who will deploy government money to have his way in the National Assembly. The president also must not forget that a political party was his vehicle to power and so he must learn to be a better politician. This column warned some weeks ago that his lack of interest on the election of new leaders for National Assembly might not be a good one. We can see what such a stand can cause for a party in power. But all is not lost; APC should put its house in order and move ahead.

Still on Osun State

I never imagined that my piece last week, Osun is in a mess, will generate such reactions. From the ridiculous to the absurd and the profound, they came in torrents. None was more depressing than Adekunle Owolabi’s There is no mess in Osun, only challenges, which degenerated into name-calling. For a supposed journalist and law student, if the name actually is not a pseudonym, it was an exercise in flawed logic. One would have thought that a state government that spent the better part of last week through various means responding to the issue would have been bold enough to use a name of one of its officials or a bevy of consultants working for it in a rejoinder.

I’ve been, however, particularly gratified that a large section of the media hitherto silent on the issue is now awake and the seven months salary arrears is on the front burner. Similarly encouraging is the reaction of Osun State citizens in the diaspora who are bearing the brunt of the mess. Hopefully, the governor who said in November 2011 that he did not need federal government allocation to pay salaries will fulfill his promise of paying the arrears before this month ends as his spokesperson said in a release on Sunday, June 14.