I have just read the second part of Mr. Chido Onumah’s piece on ‘The Opposition and 2015’. There, the writer struggled to justify his first article where he claimed that “If free and fair elections were held today (even though PDP would never permit free and fair elections) chances are that President Jonathan will emerge victorious”. I have also followed the reactions including another piece from one Mr. Godwin Onyeacholem, ostensibly to strengthen Chido's. I want to say that these are interesting times in Nigeria but we have passed through this way before and so this is not a road less traveled.
I have just read the second part of Mr. Chido Onumah’s piece on ‘The Opposition and 2015’. There, the writer struggled to justify his first article where he claimed that “If free and fair elections were held today (even though PDP would never permit free and fair elections) chances are that President Jonathan will emerge victorious”. I have also followed the reactions including another piece from one Mr. Godwin Onyeacholem, ostensibly to strengthen Chido's. I want to say that these are interesting times in Nigeria but we have passed through this way before and so this is not a road less traveled.
I am a living witness of how Nduka Obiagbena’s THISDAY Newspaper helped in rigging 2003 and 2007 presidential elections through fake opinion polls and such other favourable feautures that helped soften the ground for the electoral heist the PDP continues to inflict on the polity. I know that in the someday, somebody who knew how it happened in THISDAY will open up. Today Chido Onumah has started a similar project of rigging Jonathan back to power via such flimsy and laughable excuse as the that opposition not being ready to wrestle power from PDP. I dare ask my brother that in view of the monumental work and sacrifices the opposition has put to work as a united from in the ensuing election, what again does he expect the opposition to do to meet his unexpressed standard of chasing out a party with a notorious history of woeful performance?
Chido talked about 2011 elections and how President Jonathan won the South West and how history is likely to repeat itself in 2015. For the avoidance of doubt those who voted Jonathan in the South West told us how Jonathan moved from nowhere to become Deputy Governor, from Deputy Governor to Governor, from Governor to Vice President and from Vice President to become President and concluded that the man has some divine luck going with him. They told us that they want to tap Jonathan’s divine luck. That is how we got to where we are today. Now where is the luck after four years? Where is the divine luck in Nigeria? Can we see it? Can we feel it? Where has this luck led Nigeria to? In 2015 I am sure ethnic and religious sentiments will be played out to discredit General Buhari (rtd) if we choose him as our candidate to make way for Jonathan because the issue of luck will not matter again. But I will not fail to educate Chido that Jonathan won 2011, not through the votes he got from the South West but from the fictitious millions that were written for him in the South South and South Eastern states. These were the huge tranche of figures that swayed the votes for him and the opposition knows this fact en route 2015.
There is no doubt that Chido fell into the elaborate power-retention scheme of the PDP and other parties in power. They have their boxers who engage in not finding satisfaction with whatever those who oppose do to challenge their hold but continue to throw unending challenges on them as a demobilization scheme. In the APC case, the PDP and its hidden persuaders once told us that the opposition will never unite to fight their stranglehold on power. When they saw that the opposition was determined to prove them wrong, they threw all manners of spanners on their way and so far the opposition has succeeded in outliving these challenges, to the chagrin of the PDP and their hidden and open supporters. From trying to stop them, several top leaders of the PDP have come out openly to express the fear that the APC will pose a serious challenge to their hold on power. But Chido rather feels that he has to pose impossible tasks on the opposition so as to make it seem impossible to defeat the PDP in 2015.
It seems to me that Nigeria is in dire need of honest intellectuals that will reshape the way we think and the way we act. The late Chief MKO Abiola said politics of the stomach has ruined Nigeria. And unless the real intellectuals stand up, dishonest men and women will continue to shape the tide of public opinion in Nigeria. I wrote my refutation to Chido’s because I believed he was ruled by the common interest and should know more than what he put up in his initial article. But his reply rather confirmed my fear that quite indeed, Chido knew what he was doing but I doubt if his opinion was altruistic, as it pretended to be.
From what Chido presented in his two articles, I am being led to believe that Chido Onumah who wrote a book on how to reclaim Nigeria does not believe in the book he wrote. I guess that any effort to reclaim Nigeria would be stymied by Chido who will certainly lay unattainable standards for the reclaimants, as he is laying for the opposition in Nigeria today. My argument is that Chido should have taken a stand that we must rid this country of PDP and Jonathan and consequently put his feet, hand, head, heart, eyes into the project. In this game, it is either you lose or you gain. A real man takes a stand when the need is greatest. I wonder then how he feels Nigeria would be reclaimed if he believes that with its woeful outing in power for fourteen years, with a party that is torn to the seams by crisis and the pursuit of self interest, PDP is still invincible.
The clowns in Nigeria’s political landscape have been saying that opposition in Nigeria can never come together to work as a team. Now that we are genuinely working ourselves to bones to come together what do we get in return? What are we seeing? I invite Chido Onumah to recall what the progenitors of this merger have gone through in the hands of PDP and its agents. I repeat that Chido Onumah tried to make his first and second article look like he is trying to put the opposition on its toes but deep inside his heart is an intention to rig President Jonathan back to power. I stand to be proved wrong and a million articles in favour of Mr. Chido Onumah can never move me. The opposition has surpassed the expectations and doomsday prophecy of the PDP and its agents and now, it is about ‘not being ready for power’. What a country?
In both his works, it was obvious that Chido took Nigerians for simpletons and fools who cannot discern or fathom what they want from government. If he ever did, he wouldn’t have insulted Nigerians with that hyperbole that if free and fair elections are held in a country that has suffered the worst form of mis-governance in fourteen, the same party that inflicted this horrendous torture will return to power. Chido never told us what he feels the PDP and Jonathan have done to retain the fidelity of Nigerians come rain come sun. He never enumerated the high achievements this party and president have achieved to make Nigerians to merit such flattering support he is projecting. He merely wanted to soften the ground for PDP’s well known electoral robbery through doing what they boast they know how to do best. But then, Chido saw this huge potential for a party that had 23 governors at the inception of this administration is now struggling to retain the loyalty of only 14 of them. He feels no one can defeat such party, what a intellectual hatchet!
My brother and friend Mr. Chido says he will want us to have a debate about 50 potential presidential candidates in our party. Apart from General Buhari any of these great minds in APC below can rule this country better than President Goodluck Jonathan. They are: Nuhu Ribadu, Nasir El’ Rufai, Pat Utomi, Gov Babatunde Fashola, Gov Oshiomhole, Gov Rochas Okorocha, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Audu Ogbeh, Gov Fayemi, Senator Chris Ngige, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, Alhaji Shekarau, to mention a few. If the job prescription is to warm the seat and sleep walk through Nigeria’s many numerous problems, as Chido’s Jonathan is doing, I want to tell Chido that tens of millions of Nigerians can do it.
My take in all this is that time has come for Nigerians to tell us where they are in the struggle for the soul of Nigeria in times of trouble. You do not have to sit in the sidelines, you just have to take a stand – either on the side of change or for the maintenance of status quo. The choice is ours.
For me, I want PDP out of our lives. I want President Jonathan out. I have seen what BAT and BRF did in Lagos for 14 years. I have seen what other good governors did including some PDP Governors. A friend told me that if a team goes to World Cup tournament unprepared the best they can get is to get knocked out in the first match and the team goes home. If you elect a weak president in Nigeria 150 million Nigerians will suffer for four years and if he gets eight years, we all will suffer for eight years.
Joe Igbokwe
Lagos
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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