Under normal circumstances, with less than two weeks to go until polling, the heaviest criticism of the outgoing administration should come from opposition parties. Ironically this time around, those most vocal in criticizing government are members of the ruling party and their presidential candidate! None of the three leading candidates representing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Congress (APC) and Labour Party (LP) can be certain of victory, but if the APC candidate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) does win, it will not be because of his party but in spite of them.
The outgoing APC administration has brought the nation to its knees, and the party’s internal contradictions are now causing implosion and public ridicule. From the onset, the APC was not conceptualised as a political party based upon overriding ideology, it was formed solely as a vehicle for sidelined politicians to grab power. From inception the party was plagued with internal squabbles, which after winning the election rendered it clueless as to how to govern or what to do with the power at their disposal.
President Buhari may have meant well, but regrettably his legacy is an economy reeling from eight years of mismanagement, and an abundance of evidence indicating failure in governance. This leaves the APC candidate BAT in a conundrum. He cannot be seen to support the hardships being visited upon Nigerians and is therefore constrained to criticise the Buhari administration which he helped to install. He distanced himself from APC’s poor record by stating publicly that they failed in all parameters of governance and he would do things differently.
Normally political parties which have performed as abysmally as the APC, should have no expectation of winning general elections. The party came into power with more goodwill than any previous government, yet ended up squandering it, creating chaos everywhere and rendering life unbearable for most citizens. Almost everything went wrong under their watch and the nation became noticeably more divided along both ethnic and religious lines. There is little doubt that they did not provide the kind of leadership the nation needs, but in Nigeria the candidate is of far more significance than the party.
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President Buhari didn’t initially show open support for APC or BAT. Back then Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed argued that it is in the president’s interest not to support the presidential candidate of the APC! He asked pointedly what President Buhari would benefit from supporting BAT? What will the party (APC) benefit? And what would he personally benefit? The minister was of the opinion that when the president addresses the nation, he has no choice but to tell them to vote for the candidate of their choice, because he is not president of only APC. That was back then, right now Buhari has volte-faced and is now recommending BAT to Nigerians as a person who will continue his programmes. The paradox is that he fails to explain why people who have suffered immeasurably under the APC should support the party for the next four or eight years?
Disappointingly none of the leading political parties have shown they fully comprehend that the nation’s youths are fed up with political lies, uncompassionate disposition of leaders, and administrative incompetence. Their anger over imposed poverty, disgraceful environment, lack of job opportunities, and dilapidated infrastructure is quite understandable, especially considering that the current crop of “old breed” political leaders, firmly grounded in the last millennium, have failed to solve even the most basic of the nation’s problems.
With elections only days away, there is a massive revolt against President Buhari in the APC. Surprisingly it isn’t coming from their youth wing, but from “party elders”. BAT himself been particularly disrespectful towards Buhari, even to the extent of claiming that the scarcity of both new naira and fuel were deliberately contrived to hamper his prospects of electoral victory. The scorn, contempt and disdain evident in statements by Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State is unrelentingly arrogant. Refusing to moderate his utterances he says President Buhari is either unaware that his aides are sabotaging APC, or simply doesn’t care!
At the end of the day if BAT wins it will not be because the APC is in power, but because he fought his battles by himself, put the party to shame and bulldozed his way through. Adams Oshiomhole a former APC national chairman has joined the criticism of Buhari by saying the president was “misled” and the new naira policy should be reversed in order to end all the unnecessary suffering.
The increasing numbers of APC governors aligning with those who took the federal government to court indicates an unprecedented open confrontation against the party. The new naira policy is aggravating the situation. As Usman Dan Fodio said, the death of a thousand good men is not as tragic as having an unfit man in a position of leadership. President Buhari should have done better to ensure that his party would queue behind their standard bearer then he would not have had a mutiny on his hands. Buhari’s first stint as military head of state ended in mutiny and history may be repeating itself.
The APC chairman and 10 APC governors are rebelling and his second stint as a democratically elected president is heading along the same lines with his political party now opposing itself!
