In it, the Governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi was quoted as saying at the Walk Rally of APC in Abuja recently that the party would form a parallel government should the outcome of the 2015 presidential election not favour it. Amaechi went as far as saying that his party would spearhead civil disobedience in the country if they lose the election.
The piece also alluded to such volatile statements made by other leading members of the APC, including its national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun who postulated that: “If we do not see any discernible change of attitude on the part of the government, then we will move to the next stage on the list of actions that our party intends to take to stop the rot being perpetuated by the PDP-led Federal Government.” General Muhammadu Buhari, Amaechi’s preferred candidate for the 2015 presidential election for his party, was also reported to have said in 2012 that 2015 would be bloody.
Given these unsavory comments by so-called ‘democrats’ and ‘progressives’, it has indeed become too evident that the greatest obstacle to Nigeria’s political advancement which has culminated in its socio-economic underdevelopment, is the absence of sportsmanship on the part of our politicians to accept defeat at the polls. It is this same dilemma that brought about the fall of the First Republic, the abrupt end of the Second Republic and the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by the late Chief M. K. O. Abiola.
It will be recalled that in a statement dated July 20, 2014 and released the following day, entitled: “Pull Back Nigeria From The Brink”, Buhari said that Nigeria was headed for anarchy as the consequence of the impeachment threat to the then governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako. It was the lead story of one of the national dailies. The action of the estranged Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal who invaded the Lower Chamber of the National Assembly with members sympathetic to him is another clear evidence of the plan of the leading opposition political party to possibly unleash mayhem on the country.
In fact, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, another chieftain of the APC has never hidden his preference for violence as against a decent and civilized political culture. He was recently summoned by the Directorate of State Security over his comment on the possibility of violence engulfing Nigeria if the 2015 election did not favour his party and that such violence would be necessary if it would be the only way to ensure the removal of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan from office.
What this portends is that the leading opposition party in the country is not even preparing for the elections but is busy arming its supporters to unleash violence in the country in 2015. It is probable that this menace has assumed a conceptual historical trend in the country. The 1964 Western regional election crisis that culminated in the 1966 military coup was the handiwork of opposition politicians who had always demonstrated a high degree of intolerance and the lack of sportsmanship to accept defeat at the polls.
The coupists were later to confess that they were induced by aggrieved politicians to take over power from their colleagues. In the political upheaval that buried the First Republic, the Northern traditionalists lost power to modernist members of the dominant class- administrators, military officers, members of the learned professions and businessmen- in their part of the country. This was what enhanced the cohesion of the dominant class in Nigeria as a whole. Ever since, dominant class interest has remained the name of the game. Even in the Second Republic, the National Party of Nigeria, the main political vehicle of the conservative class was by far more practicable and viable than the conservative party of the First Republic. It was also by far the most broadly based of the five major parties of the Second Republic.
The avowedly socialistic Unity Party of Nigeria and the more avowedly Marxian socialist People’s Redemption Party were exceptionally well run parties as were the Nigerian Peoples Party and its twin, the Great Nigerian Peoples Party. But in spite of their individual progressive bent and populist swagger, none of these parties threatened to unleash violence on the nation because it failed to control the central government. Of course, it was glaring that our politicians are bad losers who would not entertain any restraint in calling for the removal of a democratically elected government if electoral fortunes fail to favour them.
But where has that taken the country to? The Second Republic opposition politicians bribed the military to overthrow the Shehu Shagari government in December 1983. Did the military spare the states controlled by the opposition parties? Were the opposition governors not rewarded with various prison terms as well as their colleagues in the ruling party by the Buhari/Idiagbon military junta? Some of them died shortly after they were released from prison. Even when the opposition politicians of the Babangida still-born transition instigated the military to annul the June 12, 1993 election won by the Social Democratic Party, were they not forced into self-exile by the Abacha junta that succeeded the Babangida administration?
If the military had allowed the Shagari government to wobble and fumble until they were able to hone their politics to a considerable art, Nigeria would have been in the league of the world’s medium powers and industrialized nations like the United Arab Republic, Malaysia or India.
The political crisis in India, for instance, which resulted to the assassination of her Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Ghandi and the eventual assassination of her son and successor, Rajiv Ghandi, by a separatist wing of the party did not spur the Indian military high command to come to the centre stage of that nation’s politics until the politicians were able to sort out themselves. Today, India exports over half a million scientists annually to the Silicon Valley of the United States who manufacture made-in-US goods.
This is the result of political stability in a developing country. India gained political independence from Britain in 1947. But that country could achieve so much in the past 67 years because, unlike Pakistan,its closest neighbours, Indian military allowed politicians to make their mistakes until they consolidated the democratic advancement of their country.
So, those politicians who are desperate to capture power for the sake of it; who are sponsoring insurgency against their country in order to make the polity ungovernable for President Jonathan, must be stopped before it is too late. Some of them are even busy holding nocturnal meetings trying to incite a section of the military to take over the government. Some have vowed to go into exile in 2015 rather than stay in Nigeria to see Jonathan continue as President of Nigeria.
Nigerians are watching them and are ready to organise their popular base to prevent the resurrection of unaccountable power. The tragedy of military rule in Nigeria is that it was exercised by third-rate soldiers without honour, integrity or courage. To prompt them to come back to the political leadership stage in whatever guise as Buhari wants to do is to plunge this democracy into a more centralised, imperial presidency, fashioned from the worst aspects of a military hierarchical structure that would descend into barbarism. These disgruntled elements who have nothing but hate and the politics of vendetta to offer Nigerians must be checked.
Mr Dan Amor, a journalist and public affairs analyst, wrote from Abuja.