December 6, 2020 

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It appears Ogun State is gradually tilting to a one-party state, considering the deafening silence from the ‘supposed’ opposition parties since the current administration came on board.

 

The Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, also attested to this in January at the Ake Palace ground of the Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, in Abeokuta, when political bigwigs from other parties defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC). Abiodun, in his speech at the event, stated that with the defection, “the state had become a one party state.”

Aside those who wittingly ceded their votes to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) during the 2019 general elections, at least, 17 other parties, approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), contested against APC, including the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) that gave the ruling party a run for their money.

 

They include the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), African Democratic Congress (ADC), Action Democratic Party (ADP), Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Social Democratic Party (SDP), Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) and Yes Electorates Solidarity, among others.

 

Based on past precedents, this will be the first time in the last few years in the Gateway State, that a sitting government will directly or indirectly silence opposition parties.

For instance, between May 29, 2003 and 2011, a period of eight years that former governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel (OGD) reigned in the state, the defunct Action Congress (AC), which later metamorphosed to Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) on several occasions held the administration by the jugular.

The governorship hopeful of the ACN then, late Dipo Dina constantly put the OGD’s administration on its toe. The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) was also constantly pulling the trigger to awaken the PDP government.

When former governor Ibikunle Amosun administration came on board in 2011, the Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN), which was still leaking the wound of its defeat in the hands of ACN were at the forefront of the onslaught against the administration.

Recall that the PPN broke-away from the PDP in the build up to the 2011 general election, when the incumbent, OGD planned to foist his candidate on the party. But the resoluteness of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s faction, which forced the OGD-led faction out of PDP, led to the formation of the party, which flew Gboyega Nasir Isiaka (GNI) as the flag bearer.

Meanwhile, during Amosun’s second term in office, when the PPN seemed to have faded away, the LP took over as the main opposition party in the state, forcing the governor and his administration to focus more on masses friendly policies.

Currently, to political analysts and the electorate within and outside the state, the APM was considered as the formidable opposition that could have given the APC a run for their money, considering the manner with which they broke-away from APC, but the sudden collapse of the party’s political structure back to the ruling party, put an end to that.

Recall that the APM and its governorship candidate in the state, Adekunle Akinlade, who was Amosun’s anointed candidate, lost APC governorship ticket to the incumbent, Abiodun, through what many called ‘superior power-play.’

 

What actually dashed the hope of the Amosun’s faction was the suspension of State APC Executives led by Derin Adebiyi, the former governor’s loyal party man and replaced with the three-man Caretaker Committee, chaired by Yemi Sanusi; Ayo Olubori as Secretary and Tunde Oladunjoye as Publicity Secretary.

 

The political scenario prompted, Akinlade, his followers, as well as all the then APC faithful loyal to Amosun to dump APC and formed APM, to slug it out with APC in the governorship election, which they lost with a slim margin.

The return of the Amosun’s caucus last December did not only put an end to people’s expectation, it also put the responsibility on the PDP, ADC and ADP that were more popular parties in the election.

For the PDP, the party appears to have lost its ground and living on past glory in the state. No thanks to the challenges that have plagued the party before the 2019 general elections. Though several reconciliation moves have been done to unite the rank and file of the party, but currently two different factions are laying claim to the party in the state

 

Political analysts claim that a party like PDP, trying to hold its own in the face of internal wrangling threatening its existence, is not organised in any way to act as watchdog to any administration.

The ADC, where GNI pitched his tent in the last election, is also literarily dead since the candidate defected to the APC with thousands of his supporters across the 20 Local Councils last January.

It’s the same scenario for the ADP, the party where the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole contested. Based on feelers from political analysts, the party is near comatose, as it cannot hold its own due to financial crisis after the general elections in 2019.

The State Chairman of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Comrade Ogini Olaposi Sunday, who told The Guardian that his party has not been silenced, said NNPP has been criticising nearly all the aspects of the administration objectively

He said: “Other opposition parties might have gone silent but not NNPP. As far as we are concerned as a party, Prince Dapo Abiodun has nothing to offer people of this state with nearly two years in office. He has tried to silence the opposition parties by telling them he will operate an all-inclusive government, but at the end of the day, it was an all inclusive-nonsense.

“He has been making appointment where there are no offices, where there are no structures, he is also fond of forming committees, wasting taxpayers’ money without result. So, as a matter of fact, our position is resolute that this is not what Ogun people are asking for and we know that by 2023 Ogun State people will change this government.”

Ogini said NNPP would continue to strife to liberate the people of the state. “We’ll continue to tell them that this is not the best they are asking for. And we know that this is one of the clueless government we have ever had in the history of Ogun State. There is nothing this government can show us in terms of education, infrastructure and other aspects. What we are witnessing is a kind of marginalisation that we have never seen in the history of the state. Go to Ogun West and see what is happening there-decadence, the roads are bad, he is just governor by accident and I am very sure that come 2023, these anomalies will stop.”

Publicity Secretary of the PDP in the state, Sunkanmi Oyejide, said the PDP is not silent, as it has been taking on government where necessary. “Where there is nothing to talk about, we don’t talk. We have exposed them where necessary like the Ayetoro road, the contractors are no longer there, likewise other areas, we have been calling them to perform their electoral duties.

“We are consulting with some of our leaders who led the parties in the past. We are just waiting for the state government to announce the process of the councils election, when there is no election, you can’t really ascertain the level of an opposition. As it is, you’ll agree with me that this government has failed the people. During the electioneering, they promised good roads, quality health delivery, infrastructure and others, but till now, no improvement in all the three sectors.

“The people of the state are now calling on the PDP and we are ready. Though the death of Senator Buruji Kashamu caused us a lot, but we have new leaders that will lead the new PDP. During the reign of OGD as governor under the PDP, people see improvement in almost all the sectors and we are set to repeat that.”

The Chairman of the National Resistance Movement (NRM), Adeshina Abraham, who accepted that the opposition parties have not done enough, said his party has woken from its slumber and ready to compel the administration to impact positively on the electorate.

“We have tried our possible best; unfortunately I cannot actually say why the administration has not been able to up its game. We are very ready to act as an opposition party. We as a party did not collect any money from the state government, so nobody can silence us.”

Political parties as modernisisng agencies are expected to perform miracles by turning dreams to realities. The miracles of Japan’s industrial power, China’s poverty to prosperity and USA’s landing of man on the moon started with big dreams. Here at home, the Northern People’s Congress, later Nigerian People’s Congress (NPC) was responsible for the biggest business conglomerate in Africa between 1957 and 1962 while in the Western Region, the Action Group (AG) successfully implemented the most ambitious free education programme in Africa and went on to build and commission in three months, the first television station in Africa ahead of some European nations.

PDP, a party described by John Campbell, former US envoy as ‘a political party that came together … as essentially a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils’, did not pretend in 2013 that it had any dream beyond uninterrupted ruling for 60 years. Audu Ogbeh, one-time PDP chairman was to later validate Campbell’s thesis by submitting: “When I was chairman of PDP, my son never got involved in oil but two PDP national chairmen after me, their sons pocketed over N400 billion without supplying a tea cup of oil”. There was also a suppressed Heineken Lokpobiri Senate Transport Committee probe report which alleged that from 1999 to 2009, government was surcharged to the tune of N49m on each kilometre of some 4,752 kilometres of road purportedly constructed. Ahmadu Alli as chairman of PDP as well as that of Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, according to a House probe, presided over the theft of about N2 trillion by some of the over 140 independent oil marketers they appointed. We can add the allegation by former World Bank vice president for Africa, Oby Ezekwesili, who was education minister in the Obasanjo administration, that the PDP administration of Jonathan squandered $67billion reserves left by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

 

For many miracle-seeking Nigerians therefore, the inauguration of APC on February 6, 2013 was something of a relief. Its eight-point cardinal programme covered electricity generation, war against corruption, food security, integrated transport network; free education; devolution of power, accelerated economic growth and affordable health care. Although, the eight-point programme were routine responsibilities of government that did not require the intervention of angels or men with special talents, PDP’s baleful legacy forced Nigerian miracle-seekers to see APC and Buhari as the messiahs Nigerian were waiting for. And they went on to invest heavily on APC by giving it a clear mandate with a popular vote of 15.4m to the ruling party’s 12.8million, a clear majority of 65 to 43 in the senate, 190 to 151 in the Lower house and 21 of the 36 state governors.

Six years down the line, betrayed Nigerians seem to have come to the sad conclusion that the difference between PDP and APC, neither of which has any philosophical foundation nor ideological orientation, is that of six and half and a dozen. Indeed Nuhu Ribadu, former EFCC boss, and a politician who at different times sojourned in both parries was to tell Nigerians he brutal truth about the futility of trying to look for saints among current Nigerian politicians.

Six years of APC government of change, very little has changed. Our lawmakers remain the highest paid lawmakers in the world. Just as it was during PDP years of the locust, ministers, heads of parastatals including Customs, Immigration, Army, Police, EFCC, vice chancellors of universities cruise around in in imported bullet-proof land cruisers at taxpayers’ expense. Six years into APC administration, none of our four refineries is working as we, without shame, continue to import fuel for domestic consumption.

Most part of the nation is still in darkness. PDP after 14 years in government generated 3324 MW by 2015. APC’s minister of science and technology, Ogbonaya Onu’s said APC generated additional 1,950 MW in six years. Add that to the 3,324 MW PDP generated in 14 years, what we get is 5,274MW out of which only 3400 MW can be distributed. Like Obasanjo and Jonathan did before him, Buhari’s APC has just signed an agreement with Siemens to implement the Nigerian Electricity Roadmap.

On road construction, APC’s Raji Fashola, the very resourceful Lagos State governor who once asked PDP to identify 100 kilometres of road it completed in 10 years has been demystified. Six years of APC government, Apapa Tin can Island Port road, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway like many other federal roads across the country, remain motorists’ and commuters’ nightmare.

APC promised to tackle insecurity. Six years after, APC government seems to have no answer to rising insecurity across the country. Just in November alone, at least 216 Nigerians were killed and 144 others kidnapped according to data gathered by the Civic Media Lab. APC has no answer to periodic mindless killings of subsistence farmers in their farms in the last six years. Now helpless Nigerians are said to be killed daily in Borno, Katsina, Zamfara, Adamawa, Niger, Benue, Jigawa, Kaduna, Taraba and other areas in the north. Last week, Professor Usman Yusuf in a widely circulated letter titled ‘Silence in the face of evil, is its self-evil” noted the APC federal government has let Nigerians down by allowing “bandits to unleash terror on the people, operates their own government by imposing heavy taxes on the people”, adding “there is no law enforcement agencies to protect the people, while the police often showed up after the carnage have been done”. Katsina is said to have now become a mega IDC camp to refugees displaced from nine local governments of the state.

Death of a Nigerian doesn’t seem to have meanings to APC and its government. In other societies, the 43 rice farmers cruelly hacked to death by Boko Haram in their farms last week would have led to a declaration of a week of national mourning. Instead of threatening the president who has arrogantly ignored suggestion by Nigerian stakeholders including representatives of our ethnic nationalities, the Sultan of Sokoto who was reported to have lamented the mindless killing of 80 people in his domain, the northern elders forum that has asked the president to resign and the legislature that has passed different resolutions advising the president to sack the tired service chefs, the APC controlled legislature was inviting President Buhari for a talk.

 

APC with restructuring in its manifesto forgot what restructuring or power devolution meant and had to set up the El-Rufai committee on restructuring. Governor Fayemi, now says it will be unfair of Nigerians to blame All Progressives Congress (APC) or Presidency for not implementing restructuring agenda as promised in its manifesto. He wants Nigerians to direct their anger at the National Assembly controlled by his party for not implementing the El Rufai report.

APC remains not just the scourge of the nation but a threat to democracy because of its criminal conspiracy of silence in the face of incompetence of the executive. With PDP, there might have been no honour among thieves but their vicious struggle over sharing of our national patrimony pitched Obasanjo against his PDP thieving sons and Saraki the ‘whistleblower’, against in his colleagues involved in the theft of N1.7trillion in the fuel subsidy scam. And when his PDP family members made PDP too hot for him, he teamed up with APC to defeat his estranged party.

As it has turned out, PDP’s family war over sharing of our commonwealth is healthier for democracy than APC’s criminal conspiracy of silence over absence of governance and creeping dictatorship