By Mideno Bayagbon
(mideno@thenewsguru.ng)
NIgeria has been one hectic hell hole to live in in the last three weeks. If it is not the impunity of unpunished adulterated fuel and its contrived scarcity, it is the corrupt national grid collapsing, for the one millionth time. Marry that to the uncouth drama happening in the two main buccaneering parties: the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. And for good measure, mix these with the issue of climate change which some people still see as oyibo people talk. The dramatic hotness in the weather in Abuja and across the country, especially in the northern part in the last two months, should make them have a rethink. With no fuel, no light, no food, the heat has made night rest for most people an aggravated nightmare.
From his London luxury pad, the President sent us a make una no vex press release! Finally, for a moment, but temporarily so, joy and hope swelled in the hearts of Nigerians. Some even started a premature jubilation that perhaps the London doctors have succeeded in fixing the painful ears of the President which have prevented him from hearing the loud wailings of Nigerians over the devastating impact of the abysmally managed economy. For a delusional moment I joined in hoping that perhaps things are about to turn the corner, for better. For a fleeting second, I thought the President was about taking the bull of leadership by the horns. That he was about to stem this tide on the road to Golgotha. But it was an unreasonable hope.
The President returns. He gets drowned in the contrived crises of his party which he helped foment before jetting off to yet another medical tourism in the United Kingdom. Recall that he had hurried back from Kenya three weeks ago to militarily dismiss the Yobe state Governor, Mai Buni, from the interim headship of the All Progressives Congress. He forgot he was now a civilian not a military dictator. He didn’t know that was power the law does not allow him. He imposed a new head, from whose feet the carpet was easily pulled off, before resuming his medical trip to the United Kingdom.
Since his return, he has put the euphoria of make una no vex into the dustbin. He is his usual self: ensconced in Aso Rock but yet to remember that he is President over Africa’s largest country. None of the myriad of problems which are the daily lived reality of Nigerians is seemingly of any concern to him. He is consistent in this, however.
Consistent too have been the Governors of both parties. Whether in APC or PDP, the Governors are breaking heads, crushing every opposing bone to their demand to have the final say in their parties. They are unabashedly, pompously usurping the leadership powers of their parties and want to be the final voice and authority in taking critical decisions. In this, there are no APC or PDP. They are behaving exactly alike. They are the engine rooms of funds for their parties and want to dictate the tune all their members, including President Buhari must dance to.
It did not start today. As we say in Waffi: it has taeyed! Remember how powerful PDP Governors were and how their say so must be obeyed? Remember the Ibori’s, the Sarakis, the Tinubus, and the Amaechi’s? Their overlordship was the beginning of wisdom for their party. Even with a strong man President, Olusegun Obasanjo, they forced the PDP to present mostly themselves as the Presidential aspirants and eventually candidate of their parties. Or be the ones to decide who the candidates should be.
That accounts for all the brickbats, the name callings, the fighting and the commotion in the two front-line parties. That, for example, explains the indecorous tongue lashing the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike gave first the deputy Governor of Edo state, Phillip Shuaibu and his principal: Godwin Obaseki. As everyone knows, Wike says he has carried the party on his head, funding it and leading it for the past seven years. He expects to be the final authority, on every issue in the party. This is more so now that he is beginning to think that he too can be President.
Even Obaseki, a new comer in Edo PDP, is lording it over all. All the prominent chieftains have been running from pillar to post, trying to hide their heads from Obaseki’s slammer.
Almost all the umbrella party Governors are underground soliciting support to emerge their party’s candidate.
Even an Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state, unbelievably is wasting state resources on this gambit. So are Aminu Tambuwal, Udom Emmanuel and others. Patent failures at the state level want to bring their monumental incompetences to the federal level. They have their state resources to plunder for their vaunting ambitions. Unfortunately, their ambitions are dead on arrival.
In the APC, it even got to a ridiculous extent that one of the Governors, who says he has 18 others on his side, called four others Yahoo Yahoo Governors for siding with the trouble Governor Mai Buni. Again, like in the PDP, each of the Governors either want to be his party’s candidate for the Presidential election next year or have a huge voice in choosing who should be.
The questions to ask is simple: why are Governors so powerful in the two parties? Why do they always want to cast the deciding votes in each of the parties? The answer is simple. At the centre of the fight over who should control the parties, is to ask a follow up question: who has been funding the parties, and where will the parties get the monies they are going to use to fund the 2023 elections? The answer again is simple: the Governors. They are the ones funding the parties. They are the ones who are going to fund the elections next year.
Let’s amend that. The APC is in power and Buhari, despite his pious mouthing of anti-corruption, is a willing collaborator in the slush funds that were used to fund his re-election in 2019. Does anyone remember how EFCC and other agencies were used to harangue Atiku and the source of his funds? Was that ever replicated for the Buhari re-election campaign team? That will be the day when the President will come out, Koran in hand, and swear, that it was not corrupt or money from the CBN, MDAs, parastatals and so on that were used to fund his re-election.
The APC already has its “funding formula” and Governors are not going to be major players in it. That’s what makes President Buhari the sole proprietor of the APC currently. His handlers will handle the funding. He will decide and undecide. He will choose and pick. He will in real terms decide who will fly the APC flag next year. That is why the 19 Governors suddenly found that their victory in instigating the throwing out of Mai Buni turned pyrrhic.
Nevertheless, ask yourself, when Governors say they are the funders of their parties, is it their personal monies they use or state resources? Where for example, with all his loud mouth and posturing, did Wike get the monies he has been using to fund the PDP in the last how many years? Which job or major business has he done, all his life, which gave him the humongous monies he has spent on the PDP? Replicate this for all the Governors and you will find that most have been career politicians without any major pedigree in business or economy. Most are politics and office billionaires: appropriating their state resources for their personal and political party usage.
In all of this, it is clear that Governors are the major enablers of corruption in Nigeria. In APC, there is the added fact that Aso Rock handlers are the chiefest enablers of corruption in the land today. That accounts for who they are backing to replace President Buhari. They want the sweet lollipop of free federal monies to continue beyond the Buhari Presidency. They will try to ram through their desire but the APC with its three contending blocs will implode.
That is a major reason why it makes more sense today to go back to the Parliamentary system. It will kill these centres of corruption and the nation and people will be the better for it.
