AS OPPOSITION PARTIES GATHER MOMENTUM

AS OPPOSITION PARTIES GATHER MOMENTUM Rivals of the ruling party need to step up their efforts to surmount the daunting hurdles, writes MONDAY PHILIPS EKPE In two and half months from now, Nigeria’s 2027 general elections will produce our next set of political leaders, hopefully. At the moment, we’re saddled with various shades of anticipation, manifestations of the politic, and signs of strengths and missteps. Politicians, like a bridegroom eager to impress his bride, are pushing hard to secure the attention of the electorates with the hope of snatching victories. Many of them have been around long enough to weather the storms that often define the country’s electioneering processes. A great majority have crossed party lines and contributed to the blurring of the ideologies that have strengthened democracy elsewhere. Also, the two major opposition parties, African Democratic Congress (ADC) and Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), have announced their own presidential campaign councils. It’s probably too late in the day to thoroughly discuss the distinguishing doctrines and manifestoes that qualify or disqualify the office seekers who solicit the electorates’ endorsements and votes. The frenzy is already underway. Public discourse is saturated with noise. Where decent communication of ideas and credible promises is required, ad hominem – personal attack – has, instead, since taken over and further undermined the capacity of the citizens to understand the pertinent issues and participate responsively and responsibly. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the parties hoping to wrest power from it are united in midwifing and parading the lean intellectual outputs of this period. But while APC appears to sit pretty, its opponents cannot afford any complacency. So far, most of the messages that have emanated from the opposition parties revolve around the inadequacies of President Bola Tinubu and his administration. Not unexpectedly, though. The president holds the proverbial yam and knife in many spheres of our national life. Federal institutions too are attempting to interpret and execute his dreams and visions of Nigeria. Pointing out his shortcomings to a beleaguered populace, therefore, is both expected and germane. It’s quite in order for every election time to produce that sort of spotlighting. What the contestants against Tinubu and his team shouldn’t do, however, is hope that taunting their targets is all there is to making the electorates accept and vote them in. One critical reason for this is the sad reality that our politicians are hardly distinctive. Members of the political class are generally viewed as lacking the desire to pursue the common good. Surely, Tinubu-bashing as a prime tool for winning the hearts of the people won’t get the job done. One unfortunate truth is that suffering has remained one of the progressive elements of the current democratic dispensation. With each successive administration comes disturbing degrees of deprivation which in turn engender a lowering of people’s expectations. Even if Nigerians feel any need to change their leaders in order to usher in fresh hopes for transformation, the options before them – particularly the presidential frontrunners – may not be too appealing as they form part of the same past that many people would rather want discarded. While it would be unfair to lump all public office holders together as inept, self-seeking and predatory, those who really stand out must be too few to truly register their presence. And those who make any difference are like the proverbial one-eyed man in the country of the blind. This situation elicits awkward attitudes from the generality of Nigerians, including indifference and outright resignation. It’s in this murky atmosphere that next year’s general elections keep crawling closer. The APC is clearly ahead of its competitors in terms of visibility and display of organisational capabilities. Some persons attribute these to inherent institutional superiority; others point to the pluses as clear signals of the electoral fortunes that await it in a matter of weeks. Without doubt, the party in power has performed some ‘wonders’ that can’t be waived aside. It initially didn’t start the present term with the much-needed majority in the National Assembly. Then, opposition parties had 182 members, ahead of its own 175. But the tide began to turn quickly. From one off-cycle poll to another, APC started clinching more legislative positions. Last year, it accounted for two-thirds of the seats in the federal legislature. Before then, beginning from Delta State, some state governors primarily from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), jumped the ship that gave them political life in the first place to the one they figured would secure their future. At present, only Oyo, Bauchi, Osun, Abia and Anambra out of the country’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are not officially run by APC governments. The last three states whose governors belong to other parties now work openly to actualise Tinubu’s second term. On the surface, these massive, earth-shaking absorptions are proofs of a true giant on its way to inevitable landslide triumphs. But crediting whatever gains APC has garnered since Tinubu assumed office purely to his government’s accomplishments would be insincere or naïve. No realistic Nigerian would trivialise the hugely unfair edge that comes with incumbency. All the agencies responsible for conducting and protecting elections are directly or remotely tied to the government. That’s because the framers of the constitution failed to imagine the possibility of having devious persons and manipulators call the shots. They obviously assumed that the arms of government would be controlled by men and women devoted to the cardinal duty of safeguarding the citizens’ welfare and security. Equally and closely concerning is the perceived unfettered access of those in authority to commonly-owned wealth. Can the bursting war-chests being flaunted by APC functionaries pass any test of probity? I can swear that the hyper-expensive SUVs reportedly given to the party’s youth leaders by the First Lady the other day won’t be replicated by ADC, NDC and their fellow antagonists. Can they even try? But they can, at least for posterity’s sake, forget the errors they have committed of their own. They refused to team up to challenge Tinubu frontally, for instance. Whether that was to satisfy ego or getting a go at gambling or for any other rationale, we’ll soon know. They shouldn’t continue to stay in the shadow of APC armed with excuses and blame games. Let them step up forcefully and use whatever media of communication they can lay their hands on to sell themselves. They should plan well within the resources they can still muster to bear their responsibilities during and after the polls. Life happens, after all. Success does not always go the way of the fattest. Dr Ekpe is a member of THISDAY Editorial Board X: @monday_ekpe2