#MY POST OF THE WEEK Change is not an event; it’s a process. What you see from this Buhari certificates episode is indeed, as you stated, change taking place for the better in our democratic process. But I am a little more cautious, because we have to manage expectations. For instance, it is that lack of caution or indeed, a lack of perspective that’s made the APC change mantra such a deafening cacophony that promises the elephant and delivers a piddling mouse, even before February 14. I mean, why would a party with change as its battle cry go resuscitate a glorified illiterate from the ancient regime as its symbol of that change? No, I’m not even talking Buhari’s age, but his record and worldview! Why would a party bleating change think the change they need is not in policies, but in the candidate’s wardrobe? Now, it’s reached the surreal level of APC activists simply saying they want change for the sake of it, not for whatever the change can offer. Well, there is good and bad change and good change is responsible and sustainable. People may not fully understand it yet, but the change Dr Goodluck Jonathan has brought to Nigerian politics is mainly in temperament. He has resisted the need to use the big stick, even when it is in his personal interest to do so. He has accepted the opposition casting him as clueless and without any serious achievements, even as he quietly changes the political topography and culture. They’ve shouted wolf over the election, accusing him of having rigging intentions, even as he continues to allow INEC to be strengthened institutionally to the extent that the ruling party losing elections is the norm as the judiciary became less burdened by electoral disputations. He quietly began the internal revolution within the PDP to take power from the predatory members of the industrial-military complex, leading to a lot of hoopla, but he was not ruffled. People left in droves to join the APC, but he never panicked. Today, even as the APC rabble shouts change, the Nigerian people know that those calling for change within the APC as its very leading lights are part of the architecture of the Nigerian problem. They are no less corrupt and no less inept than those they rail against. What Jonathan has done is to establish the condition for the growth of a viable opposition in order to strengthen our democracy and give Nigerians real alternatives. This is clearly something an Obasanjo or a Yar’Adua would never allow. But Jonathan knows it is imperative for national growth. Yet, that’s all he can do. He cannot people the opposition with the right characters. They also have to fall or stand on their records, antecedents and processes. Nigerians know that despite its pretensions to practicing internal party democracy, especially with the exaggerated showcase that was their presidential primaries, the APC is a Tinubu-Buhari racketeering enterprise and nothing more. People like Rotimi Amaechi and Bukola Saraki are just over- ambitious little potentates who think they are bigger than they really are and whose whole politics is based on vengeance against certain PDP elements. People like Atiku, Okorocha and Kwankwaso are just fishing. The election would come, Tinubu would make his deals and Buhari will retire to Kaduna where he would continue to shout about being rigged out until the end of his days. This time, if he attempts to incite a section of Nigeria against the others, he would fail. Buhari and his ilk cannot stop the forces of change already at play. What they are presenting as prospects of change is a return to the pre-1999 days of a Nigeria under majoritarian oligarchy. On February 14, Nigerians would ensure that does not happen.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 21:56:40 +0000
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