If anyone had any doubts about the true nature of the opposition in the country, it was erased by comments of the All Progressives Congress (APC); and one of its leading lights, former Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nasir el Rufai, who clearly disclosed to Nigerians, the APC’s Plan B, should the party lose out in next year’s election.
The Plan B is not any different from the same employed by the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), which flag bearer, General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB), was roundly trounced in the last presidential elections. The fate of southern Nigerians and northerners of Christian extraction left a bitter and nauseating pill in the mouth of many.
It was particularly pathetic when National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members, who helped the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), were slaughtered as the protective organ, the federal government, watched helplessly. There were talks of reprisals from government agencies, but they were never confirmed.
That unfortunate violence against Nigerians in the North, in no small measure, drowned the ambitions of other aspirants of the CPC. It became obvious that the CPC was merely a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to achieve the ambitions of a crying, but obviously vengeful general. Many are now suspecting that the SPV has been collapsed into the APC.
With the Plan B now known to government more than 365 days before the elections, this statement from a political terrorist of the extremist stock now made public, the government ought to know that a counter-offensive plan has to be initiated to run, at least 60 days before and after the elections.
el Rufai said : “The next election is likely to be violent and many people are likely going to die (in the process). And the only alternative left to get power is to take it by force; this is the reality on ground.
“Clearly, we have seen a few by-elections in Delta and in Anambra… The level of preparedness of the electoral body was awful; bribery and the use of police and military was (sic) rampant. That was even just a by-election in one or two states; so by the time we have a general election all over the country, it is going to overstretch the capacity of the electoral commission and the security agencies.
“I have no confidence in the level of preparedness of the INEC; security agencies and others to conduct elections based on the experience of the other elections they have conducted so far, but they have the time to clear their act. It’s left to them.”
He said further: “The ruling party is unwilling to hand over power even where it is clearly unpopular. This is what caused problems in the 2011 elections that we had post-elections violence. I see the same thing happening in 2015 unless elections are free and fair, unless INEC cleans up its act and organises free and fair elections, there will be violence.
“If people lose confidence in them, there will be violence; there will be riots and other related issues. But this can be prevented if those who are tasked with the job of security and impartial umpires discharge their responsibilities. However, based on what I see on ground, I don’t see that happening but we all pray that before then they will get it right.”
If the former minister’s comments were irresponsibly couched in intellectual suppositions, the communiqué of the APC the next day was a manifestation of what in American parlance would dub the party as a “clear and present danger” to the established Nigerian interest.
What was inexplicable in the set up was the caliber of men who sat through the APC Interim National Executive Committee’s 8th regular meeting, and allowed such a communiqué to hit the public domain. For the records, those who attended included Buhari, Bola Tinubu, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, the Governors of Rivers, Lagos, Edo, Nasarawa, Kwara, Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Sokoto, Ekiti, Ogun, and the Deputy Governors of Oyo, Imo, Kano and Zamfara; Chief Bisi Akande, the Interim National Executive Committee of the APC; and the leadership of the APC in the two chambers of the National Assembly.
While commending what it disputably described as the “courage, maturity and political sagacity of Governor Rotimi Amaechi” following what the party said, almost tongue in cheek, was the “serial, unprovoked and unwarranted assaults on him, his constitutional rights and those of the Government and People of Rivers State,” APC told Nigerians that “the conduct of Governor Amaechi (represented the) Party’s maturity and compliance with the rule of law in response to escalating impunity. The APC is very proud of him.” If Amaechi is the face of APC, just like his “brother” el Rufai, then the country is in soup if heaven does not intervene in the Nigerian project at 100 years of existence.
If the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not a so-good party with “bastard” children, like the two above adopted by an irresponsible parent like APC, may be this writer should join the 100 days prayer and fasting embarked upon by Pastor E. A. Adeboye’s Redeemed Church for Nigeria.
APC said further in its communiqué: “Any cursory observer of events in Rivers State since February, 2013 will be left in no doubt as to the culture of lawlessness and impunity being promoted and supported by the Presidency, and executed by the State Commissioner of Police Joseph Mbu, who has become the de facto military Governor of Rivers State and sole administrator of the PDP in the State.
“A few instances of the brazen lawlessness and violations of the Constitution will suffice here – the forceful dispersal of 13,201 newly recruited teachers in the Port Harcourt Stadium using tear gas; blockading the entrance to the Government House in Port Harcourt and forcing the State Governor to use another entrance; preventing an aircraft chartered by the State Governor from taking off, alleging that the Governor was trying to smuggle out a legislator wanted by the Police, no apology was offered to the Governor, the disruption of a peaceful rally during which Senator Magnus Abe was shot with intent to kill; the several disruptions of Save Rivers Group rallies, and the unlawful detention of anybody perceived to be a sympathizer of Governor Rotimi Amaechi, while allowing pro-Jonathan and Anti-Amaechi groups to organize rallies unmolested.”
A rally by the same Amaechi last Saturday, two days later, put an embarrassing lie to Lai Mohammed’s communiqué. But the most unbelievable parts of the communiqué were its last two paragraphs which showed the attendees as a crop of power mongers who should never be described in any part of the earth as statesmen.
They read: “The National Executive Committee of the APC has now resolved that if this acts of impunity and lawlessness continue unabated and the Police persists in being as an enforcement arm of the PDP to the detriment of our members, it will have no alternative than to ask our teeming members all over the country and especially in Rivers State to take whatever steps that are necessary to protect their lives and property.
“Following on the forgoing and in view of the joint resolutions of the National Assembly on Rivers State, and other constitutional breaches by the Presidency, the APC hereby directs its members in the National Assembly to block all legislative proposals including the 2014 Budget and confirmation of all nominees to military and civilian positions to public office until the rule of law and constitutionalism is restored in Rivers State in particular and Nigeria in general.”
A barrage of criticisms has left the APC gasping for political breath, even as top guns in the party wear “bone face” and seek to justify the crassest of irresponsible behavior that shows that the ideals of democracy, which some of its members lay claim to, is nothing but the political brigandage that the PDP was known for, but which, with the emergence of APC, it has shed to win votes in 2015.
Why would some elders in their right senses ask the National Assembly not to consider matters related to the budget and confirmation of service chiefs? Are these men elders or wolves in sheep’s clothing? Was there not one person in that meeting to tell them that trying the American card on the budget would not work in Nigeria, since our lives are still tied around government expenditure? What is wrong with politicians these days? As someone asked recently, have our politicians gone mad, again?
No wonder the APC chieftains in Borno are pointing fingers of guilt at themselves over the bombings in the state. It is now clear that those who seek to govern us are nothing more than political terrorists, if terrorism by dictionary definition is the systematic use of violence (terror or fear) as a means of coercion for political purposes.
West-Greene wrote in from Port-Harcourt, Rivers State and can be reached via Tamunowg@yahoo.com
