The merit of the PDP apology

Vincent Ogbulafor, a former chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), once boasted that the party would remain in power for 60 years. That’s six decades, for a man and a party Chairman who arrogated to himself the power to tell the future, something even the gods, for those schooled in classical mythology, are wary to do.

Not only did Chief Ogbulafor assume the power to tell the future, but to also claim his party’s place in it.

Now, there is an infraction involved in Chief Ogbulafor’s vaunt, called hubris, for which the gods have frowned at several heroes in classical mythology, and are inclined to take serious offence against mortals, humiliating them to boot, and punishing them fatally sometimes. It is defined by Wikipedia as “overconfident pride combined with arrogance.”

Even Michael Jackson, whose unmatched music and stage artistry I love beyond description, and whose death in 2009 I grieve till today, might have committed the sin of hubris when, having tagged his ill-fated last show “This is It”, reportedly declared, “This is my last show!”

Then the gods might have responded, “Oh, you think you gave yourself that great talent? That power to hold the entire world spellbound with your dance and music? You think you’re the one to decide which is your last show? Now, “This is it! Your last show! Go have it!” And he did!

So, hubris, and its harmful consequences for those who commit it, is not restricted to myth but can manifest in real life, even modern life.

And having probably waited for him to recant, might the gods have punished Chief Ogbulafor and the PDP with a humiliating fall in the 2015 presidential elections.

Then, Chief Ogbulafor’s boast was very injurious to Nigerian politics and its growth because it was a heavy assault on what the party also called “our nascent democracy”, essentially a democracy in the cradle. Because it showed total disregard for the electorate, with the implication that the party would retain power for sixty years regardless of how they voted, and had devised a rigging or winning formula to ensure that.

And didn’t what transpired in the 2007 “do or die” election organized by former President Olusegun Obasanjo as a PDP president, which brought late President Musa Yar’Adua to power, settle the matter as to whether it was a rigging or winning formula?

After the boast, the party introduced “democracy dividends,” a term reputedly coined by Professor Jerry Gana, to the country’s urban dictionary. It was an amorphous expression which it did not seem interested to define. But it seems to have a “practical definition” by such things as commissioning of bridges, roads, power installations, medical facilities, etc.

To appreciate the term better, we may need to compare it to the coinage “better life for rural women,” replacing “rural women” with “all Nigerians,” by the late “First Lady,” Mrs. Myriam Babangida, the wife of the former self-acclaimed “Military President,” General Ibrahim Babangida.

Like the PDP’s “democracy dividends,” Mrs. Babangida’s “better life for rural women,” both indistinct bywords that probably suggested “development,” had seized the country’s imagination and glimmered like stars from its urban dictionary.

Now, since the idea of overdevelopment is inconceivable, it cannot be said that the PDP overdelivered “democracy dividends.” And the jury is still out as to whether it met or fell below expectations in its delivery, considering the humongous resources it had at its disposal compared to the current All Progressives Congress (APC) government, which has pulled the country out of recession with much less resources.

Interestingly, after it lost power in 2015, the PDP, through its current Chairman, Mr. Uche Secondus, offered an apology to Nigerians published in Vanguard of March 27, 2018, which can be summed up in the following words: “I am the very first to admit that our party the People’s Democratic Party of Nigeria made many mistakes. Consequently, we were roundly sanctioned by Nigerians occasioning our loss at the polls in 2015. Let me seize this opportunity to apologize to Nigerians unequivocally for the several shortcomings of our party in the near and far past. It was all part of an evolution process without which there can be no maturity.” (My italics)

Now, I believe the merit of this PDP apology can be determined by asking questions such as:

(1) If a party that boasted that it would remain in power for 60 years would admit that it had not matured by its sixteenth year of holding it, that’s 26.6 per cent or above one-quarter of the projected period, when could it have matured?

And this is not a party of juveniles or inconsequential people, but one that boasts the membership of so many professors, some Ivy League graduates.

The last president it produced for the country has a Doctorate degree. The first had ruled the country as military Head of State; and having later run the affairs of the country for eight years as a civilian President, was appointed a special envoyb of the United Nations.

Nor did it lack many of the so-called “seasoned politicians,” some veterans from the Second Republic (the 1979-1983 epoch). So, if the party couldn’t mature in 16 out of the 60 years it boasted that it would remain in power, when could it have matured?

Now, imagine a country like Nigeria being run for 16 years by the government of a party that has admitted to its own immaturity. Isn’t there a connection between immaturity and a sense of responsibility?

Perhaps this explains why, despite the huge resources that flowed into the country’s coffers during the last PDP government, the country was in recession when it lost election in 2015. Doesn’t it all boil down to a government produced by a self-confessed immature party running the country?

(2) Considering how the party has devolved since it lost power in 2015, with many crises leading up to its controversial 2018 General Convention, can it be said to have matured? In fact, is it realistic to expect a party that couldn’t mature throughout its 16 years in power can do so barely three years out of it, and so expects to be returned to power by the electorate even without showing any sign of having attained maturity?

Since my response to the questions in the above paragraph is “NO,” I conclude that the apology by the PDP lacks merit.