A year ago I would gave placed my bet on ACN to be the principal in a coalition that would rule Nigeria come May 29th 2011. I would have lost everything. Thank God. In April 2011 after a string of victories in the elections in the SW, I would have placed another bet on ACN as the main opposition in Nigeria given the number of states and seats it won. Again I would have lost my bet. Why do I have such a misplaced faith on ACN and why does it keep disappointing me?
A year ago I would gave placed my bet on ACN to be the principal in a coalition that would rule Nigeria come May 29th 2011. I would have lost everything. Thank God. In April 2011 after a string of victories in the elections in the SW, I would have placed another bet on ACN as the main opposition in Nigeria given the number of states and seats it won. Again I would have lost my bet. Why do I have such a misplaced faith on ACN and why does it keep disappointing me?
I can answer why I had such a faith but ACN would have to answer why it is such a disappointment.
My faith was anchored in the belief that ACN had the progressive ideas that I cherished; and that it would be different from PDP. Honestly I was one of those who believed and had written that what was wrong with Nigeria was PDP and that if we got rid of PDP everything would be OK. I also believed that ACN was the resurrected Action Group that has learned from AG’s prior mistakes, but has retained the superior organization that distinguished AG.
But alas I must admit that I lacked vision; that I failed to see that ACN was just AG of early 1950’s not the AG of 1958 and afterwards. I have learned the leaders of ACN are more like the old leaders of AG; the Omo Oduduwa years; that the AG mistakes were not learned at all and that it did not have a vision of Nigeria as a viable nation; that if this were pre independence days that there is no Mr. Enahoro to raise the motion for Nigerian Independence.
Sad, sad indeed.
To illustrate consider the party’s leadership structure. Everybody is a South Westerner. And when it tried to make amends for this failure by choosing Mr. Ribadu as the party’s presidential flag bearer, it made Ribadu look like just a slave. He had no say so on anything of importance. They could not even help him the SW in the presidential election even though ACN carried, by overwhelming margins, SW in NASS, Senate and governorship elections.
The Hausa man was a token.
To illustrate further it picked up candidates that lacked integrity to represent it in states outside SW. Mr. Ngige is a man who was convicted in an open court of stealing elections and stealing millions of Anambra naira as an illicit governor and who in a different clime would be sitting in a jail. He should not be welcome in any decent society, but ACN nominated him. We will not know if he again stole this election until his case is decided by the tribunal. But the fact that he was admitted into ACN illustrates the fact that decency is not a basis for association in ACN.
I have forgiven and forgotten all these; for the simple reason that the election has come and gone.
Has ACN in this post election period been doing the opposition job of proposing alternatives to PDP’s agenda? The answer is a resounding NO. Not a word has been heard from ACN. Where is ACN for ghosh’s sake? Is it alive or dead? Does it have any ideas; if it is alive? Where is the opposition? People in this forum know that Mr. Buhari is still around. But is Ribadu alive? What would he have done differently if he had been elected president? I do not subscribe to some of Mr. Buhari’s ideas but I do know what these are.
And Tinubu? The last I heard of him is that he wants to be the Asuwaji. Please does he think of Nigeria at all? Where does he want Nigeria to go or is it OK if it goes to hell? Does ACN have any alternative ideas to PDP’s? If so do they think that the best time to bring it up is 2015? Would it not be too late then?
I have answered my side of the question: why I am disappointed with ACN. Could somebody who has the inside stuff, please tell us why ACN is behaving this badly. Does it think that the battle of 2015 has not begun? Is there anybody out there to remind this fading party that 2015 is the end date but not the beginning?
Is anybody listening? Is anybody home?
Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba
Boston, Massachusetts
July 9, 2011
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