By Godwin Etakibuebu
At the last count, Eight States of the Federation have drawn up parallel Executives to counter what some people called “authentic Executives” of the ruling All Progressive Congress [APC] during the recently concluded Congresses. One of the most unbelievable States where this happened is Lagos. That some people, albeit members of the APC in Lagos State could challenge the supremacy of the de-facto “Jagaban” of the South-West politics would remain one of the wonders of modern Nigeria.
The emergence of the parallel Executives in the Eight States was with re-introduction of politics of blood-spinning into the Nigerian polity and this is the most unfortunate dimension of the APC debacle. These Eight States of Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Zamfara, Enugu, Ebonyi, Kwara and Delta, where parallel Executives emerged on Saturday May 12, 2018, saw a little of blood-spilling. A few people died in some of these States while in others, it was a day of blood-bath; like the case in Ondo State where notable citizens were grossly humiliated as most of them were stripped naked. This is without mentioning Imo State where Rochas Okorocha; the APC governor, was completely demystified and dethroned by machinery of APC itself.
The irony of this sordid raw show of power is the fact that the perpetrators; both victims and victors, are all members of the All Progressive Congress. They are all members of the same APC family, speaking the same language, eating from the same table, wearing the same “Aso Ebi” with the same political blood-genotype running through their vein and indeed the children of the same wicked mother; a mother like Jezebel. This is where it takes a more deadly and dreadful manifestation for the larger society.
If in the process of a “family” congresses like the one under discuss, lives could easily be terminated without qualms, what happens when this deadly “family” of APC shall meet with other personae dramatis of other political parties in an outdoor show of general elections, like the one we are awaiting in 2019?
This is not saying that APC is the only political party in Nigeria with monopoly of violence. It would be absurd to say so because as a political technocrat, l have observed over the years that the People Democratic Party [PDP] was a showroom of violence under President Olusegun Obasanjo. Through his two-times tenure of eight years, mostly the last four years, violent death was a free gift for members of the Nigerian Political Ruling Class except that it was more generously distributed amongst the PDP members. We shall talk more on this as well in this discuss.
Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change [a political party the former Military Head of State formed in April 2009] was another political party that introduced violence, albeit deadly one for that matter, into the Nigerian polity, only at post-election level. The Party which participated in the 2011 General Election but could not deliver its presidential candidate to the Villa in Abuja for reason of abysmal performance, succeeded in delivering souls of many Nigerians, mostly those youths that went on service for their fatherland, to the great-beyond.
Of course, the First and Second Republics had its own version of violence displayed, more in the brutality of the First Republic than the Second Republic. It was a free for all show of madness in the First Republic while there was a moderation of violent outburst; properly moderated by the person of Shehu Shagari with his compatriots, during the Second Republic.
The years between the First and the Second Republics were the years the Military Boys, with their styles of “decorated violence”, made incursion into the Nigerian political scene and took away entirely, serenity in addition to respects for lives and properties. They came to loot, they came to destroy and the came to kill. They, all of them, achieved hundred percent maximal performances on this record.
Must we really accommodate discussion of that era in this exercise? Suffice to say that theirs was an orgy era in the annals of Nigerian history that we begged never to come back to again except to add, revealingly anyway, that most of them who unleashed terrorism on us while they wore the military uniform then are still with us today as political personae dramatis in civilian mufti [Babaringa or Agbada]. May God change their hearts from that of . . . to that of human being so that we can know peace and tranquility in our land for ever.
What did the events of the APC nation-wide congresses, recently concluded, with its frightful results portray for Nigeria’s emerging polity, particularly in 2019 general elections? If the truth must be told, there is likely going to be manifestation of danger ahead for the Nigerian political horizon if APC leads our country into a general election, come 2019. Let us evaluate some facts of this matter.
It is a fact of life that one can only give what he/she has. What you don’t have you cannot give. Unfortunately the All Progressive Congress have not demonstrated enough capacity of peace creation or bringing about an atmosphere that creates and enforces maintenance of peace since its inception. Since it takes over governance, brutal killings have taken a frightening crescendo all over Nigeria, it is so overwhelming that nearly every ethnic nationalities is falling back to the state of nature for survival. The danger of falling into the state of nature is obvious because that is the place where there is “no brother in jungle”. Thomas Hobbes [1588-1679] described it as a place “where life is brutal, short and uncertain”.
It is what APC has that it took into and manifested in its recently concluded congresses and what it took there was not peace. It is introduction of politics of violence which is actually very sad. But then, it shouldn’t have been our business except and until we look at the implication of the action as it might affect the national psyche of what may be facing us in 2019. This is where it gives us deep concern.
It had been said earlier in this work that our dearly cherished former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure turned political killing to an art. At a time during his tenure, the President became the Spokesman for the Nigeria Police Force whenever there was political killing. He would be the first to tell the whole world that “it was a case of robbery”. In others he would visit and promised heaven and earth without actually doing anything. He promised hope when his own Chief Law officer, the Attorney General and Minister for Justice; Bola Ige, was politically killed but delivered nothing.
He {Obasanjo] visited the mother of Funso Williams who was politically murdered in his residence on Dolphin Estate in Ikoyi, Lagos, and promised “everything to bring the perpetrators to book”. At the end of the day, Obasanjo did nothing, as usual. Time will fail me should l go on mentioning Harry Marshal, Aminoasari Dikibo and hundreds of others that fell during Obasanjo’s tenure. Suffice to say that the government which Obasanjo handed over to his successor was a “killing organism”.
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua [Obasanjo successor] did not continue along that line. And of course, he did not live long enough to be read like a book along this line. His successor, Goodluck Jonathan publicly declared to the whole world that “my ambition is not worth any Nigerians’ blood”. He walked and lived the talk. He removed Nigerian from the map of “politics of kill and go”. He removed the two big “B” – blood and bullet – from the battle ground of electioneering in Nigeria’s body politics. We owe this man; Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the duty of eulogizing him about this.
The game looks like changing again since the All Progressive Congress took over reign of government in Nigeria, as illegal detentions of citizens, police brutality which include escalation of extra-judicial killing are returning back to the public domain.
It is for this reason that we must be concerned and worry about congresses that are now unveiling bullets and blood again. In Lagos for instance, someone was reported shot dead somewhere at Agege during the Congress while blood flowed very freely in some other local governments, Amuwo Odofin inclusive. In Ondo, we had earlier spoken about what happened there – gory of bloodshed. In Port Harcourt, Rivers State, there was enough shooting to close down the judiciary. It was the same story in Ekiti, in Ibadan and many other places in the country.
If this type of violence is what APC shall be introducing to the general election of 2019, then we have much to fear for democracy and Nigeria. God forbids it, may it never happen.
Godwin Etakibuebu; a veteran Journalist, wrote from Lagos.
godwin@thenewsguru.ng.
