Say what you’ll, Nigeria is in a category of its personal. This geo-political house is infamous for perennial anomie, the place Internally Displaced Politicians sit astride make-believe political divides and actually stroll from one celebration to the opposite, carrying their internally displaced followers in tow.
Alpha Get together at the moment, Omega Get together tomorrow. No want for explanations. Erstwhile demons populating the opposite celebration all of a sudden develop into saints. The brand new entrant who had been described as a vagabond in years passed by is now rechristened ‘stunning bride’. You stress your self in the event you specific shock. “What’s your drawback?” they might ask; “You need to take Panadol for one more man’s headache?”
I want the difficulty was as simply dismissible as that, however we’re speaking concerning the soul of our nation which is being performed like ping-pong by a brood of soulless carpetbaggers whose declare to working the store is that they confirmed up when the army was retreating whereas the remainder of us performed wait-and-see.
The least one would have anticipated after the musical chairs of the army was a democratic dispensation that may, in each goal evaluation, be morally superior to what obtained within the first and second republics. Within the First Republic, the Northern Folks’s Congress (NPC) was a conservative regional celebration; the unique Nationwide Council of Nigeria and the Cameroon (NCNC) appeared centrist whereas each the Motion Group (AG) and the Northern Components Progressive Union (NEPU) have been social welfarist/leftist.
Through the Second Republic, the NPN was unabashedly conservative/capitalist (and lots of capitalists with out capital did make hay earlier than the picnic got here to grief). The UPN and PRP have been, respectively, offshoots of AG and NEPU of the First Republic. NPP tried to recreate the magic of NCNC, sitting someplace in the course of the ideological divide.
At the moment, all of the events — with the attainable exception of PRP — seem like the identical. The one ideology that catches their fancy is the ideology of the abdomen. This breed of nomadic politicians evokes army imagery, like troopers in warfare crawling on their bellies from trench to trench. And people wanting wistfully again on the pre-Buhari days show amnesia. If the PDP authorities had lived as much as expectation, would Buhari have emerged?
Lecturers have been learning why human beings behave the way in which they do within the political house. Shola Omotola of FUOYE writes:
“Regardless of all pretences on the contrary by their manifestoes, as a lot because the superficial classifications because the “left” and “proper”, “progressive” and “conservative”, Nigerian events appear to be bereft of clear ideological commitments.
“This conclusion relies upon the relegation of politics of points to the background throughout the assorted republics, and as a replacement the ascendancy of id and cash politics. Different elements embody the rising magnitude of political vagrancy on the idea of egocentric and parochial pursuits, the excessive stage of celebration indiscipline, absence/weak spot of celebration cohesion and inner democracy, and the excessive mortality and turnover of celebration management.”
Nigeria’s ruling celebration, the APC, not too long ago handled the nation to its personal drama scripted on the inconceivable mantra decreed by Lucifer himself: “A home divided in opposition to itself shall stand”. How that performs out within the coming weeks and months is what the nation is ready with bated breath to see.
Those that fail to interpret the signal of the occasions assume that each darkish cloud is an indication of rain. No! There are occasions when the clouds are virtually hugging treetops, but behind them lurks the blazing solar. And there are occasions when rains fall on a cloudless day.
If you happen to perceive my Swahili then, you’ll know that the problems we’re speaking about are bigger than Oshiomole or Tinubu or President Buhari. The jostling for 2023 could have had a hand within the contrived dysfunction of APC’s Nationwide Woking Committee, however the actual situation is that the events are usually not ideologically distinguishable the way in which you differentiate between Labour and the Conservatives within the UK, or Republicans and Democrats within the US.
So, individuals search energy for the sake of energy. Some are promoting political spare components, others are mere political almajiris and a number of other others nonetheless are beating borrowed Gangan drums. Do not be fooled by their sloganeering or ‘populist’ manifestoes. All they’re promoting are pretty used concepts grafted from the identical supply and penned at occasions by the identical individuals.
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The phrase on the streets is that some components within the celebration don’t desire the presidency to shift to the south in 2023 as dictated by the unwritten code of Flip-by-Flip-Nigeria-Restricted. I’m informed that the plan is to instigate an implosion in APC after which encourage the northern candidate to be fielded by the PDP.
In impact, so the argument goes, the sell-by date of the alliance that birthed APC has expired. The following chapter is the show of unbelievable treachery and tunnel reasoning. Let the heavens fall if they have to, however the presidency should not rotate to the south.
As all these permutations have been being analysed on social media, the thought that saved working by my thoughts, surprisingly, was the truth that no prophet foresaw the current world lockdown, speak much less of the machinations of Nigerian politicians. No Tarot foresaw what occurred in Bayelsa and Imo. No Internally Displaced Politician remembers that at the moment is the unsavoury tomorrow he spitefully underplayed yesterday.
Keep in mind how some politicians stupidly unfold the pretend information of Zik’s demise within the Second Republic. Did we study something? The person you pronounce useless could but attend your individual funeral.
Supply: allafrica.com
