PDP IMPASSE: THE POLITICS OF CONDITIONS FOR RECONCILIATION AND THE GOD FACTOR On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. mounted the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to deliver a speech entitled “Normalcy, Never Again.” That day, however, Martin Luther King, Jr. deviated from the “Normalcy” text to improvise what is now known as the “I Have A Dream” speech. On January 20, 2009, the day after Luther King’s birthday, and once having being sworn in as the forty-fourth President of the United States, Barack Obama, deeply conscious of King’s legacy and his dream on the Washington Mall, defined contemporary American history in terms of crisis: “We are in the midst of crisis.” Like King’s “normalcy,” Obama’s crisis is used to characterize a moment in history so as to mark off a new age, or a “journey.” This journey, defined by Obama in terms of “struggle” and “sacrifice,” is historical insofar as it pertains to an economic and political conjuncture. And yet, after giving an inventory of the historical facts of crisis — homes lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered — Obama added a qualifier: “These are the indicators of crisis,” he said, “subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land – a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.” He then concluded: “This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that God calls upon us to shape an uncertain destiny.” Such knowledge in the face of uncertainty implies that the historical crisis entails, or perhaps constitutes, a trans-historical journey, being, as he insisted in his closing words, a matter of hope, promise, and grace: “With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end that we did not turn our back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.” Crisis is an historical event as much as it is an enduring condition of life and even the grounds for a transcendent human condition. Humanity and the world over are in crises from the beginning of biblical fall of mankind in Adam and Eve (Gen. 3). God’s solution to the impasse between Him and mankind was Jesus Christ’s atoning death and resurrection that by this redemptive act mankind was reconciled back to God without precondition except that to activate this redemptive act one must put his/her faith in the finished of Christ on the cross by repenting, i.e. turning from rebelling against God’s rule/leadership and accepting God’s forgiveness and to now work by the new rule of life through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is therefore out of place to give condition of what ever in seeking genuine reconciliation in any crises. Failure to recognize that all authorities are instituted by God and to submit to such authority is reason for all kind of crises in the polity. Any act of rebellion is an act against God who put the authority in place (See Rom. 13:1-5, Heb. 13:17). Understanding God’s reconciliation requires understanding God’s view of sin, sorrow, contrition, confession, repentance, justice and restoration. Adam’s sin made all sinners. Christ emphasized that even the thought of sin qualifies as sin, as well as sinning by deed or lack of action. To bear another’s burdens and seek God’s reconciliation, one must include the spiritual condition of the heart as evidenced by outward acts and words. Reconciliation is a biblical concept that addresses fallen man being restored to God, through Christ… “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, {even} the law of commandments {contained} in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, {so} making peace; [Ephesians 2:15] Reconciliation, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8th edition) is defined as “as end to a disagreement and the start of a good relationship again”. It is also define as “the process of making it possible for two different ideas, facts, etc to exist together without being opposed to each other.” If the Dictionary definitions of the all important word reconciliation are anything to go by, then, it presupposes that, there was a disagreement between two or more persons in a given context. It is evident that certain or two ideologies were never agreeing prior to the quest for a truce. It is also understandable that there were oppositions to each other’s views perhaps on ways of life, governance, approaches to issues and thoughts. The civil war in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is likely to escalate, with aggrieved governors giving four conditions for peace. They tabled the conditions at a meeting on Sunday night with President Goodluck Jonathan, 16 governors, and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of a faction of the party, Chief Tony Anenih. The conditions are that: •factional National Chairman Bamanga Tukur should be sacked; •President Jonathan should do one term only and forget re-election in 2015; •the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) and Rivers State crises should be resolved; and •”harassment” of governors by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) should be stopped. Does any of these conditions has anything to do with the welfare of Nigerians and the Nigeria state? The affront, last week, on President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, was, perhaps, the most tendentious action ever driven by any group of individuals within the party that is giving it sleepless nights. Like an earthquake, the launching of the revolt and the unveiling of the forces behind the mutiny shook the party to its foundation. With their heads lifted above the mainstream party, those holding forte at the original PDP began to shriek over what to do in order to contain the uprising. AT the national level, the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] is trying to put its house in order. The will of God to all will be done. Those giving the President conditions for reconciliation with threat to decamp from PDP should retrace their steps and be reconciled or what happen to traitors/betrayals in Bible history will become their portion. Jide Ajani apt observation needs reproduction here. “All said, those who appear to be bullying Jonathan today should learn from the errors of those who made Obasanjo condescend before he could get his second term of office. The viciousness with which Obasanjo took them on remains unrivaled. Yet, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria remains very clear that the only basis upon which any individual can be disqualified from seeking election as President and Commander-in-Chief is only if such an individual had sought the office twice before – Jonathan has sought the office only once before. No matter. Democracy is not an issue of what you like or what catches your fancy. It is about choices as stipulated by law. Whatever arrangement or agreement that a Jonathan may have allegedly entered into with whoever cannot stand before the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended. Still, it should be pointed out that it is bad manners to walk out on a President. But it should also be acknowledged that the walkout, which was meant to project before the whole world that the PDP had become factionalized, is going to form the pole on which would be hoisted the decampment of legislators who would want to dump the PDP for other political parties. Bad manners or not, this is political strategy per pragmatism and not demagogy”. In all civilized democracies, you don’t deprive an incumbent president from contesting second term nor subject him to intimidation with conditions to be fulfilled before you support or be reconciled to the party. I agree with Tony Amadi, “My personal anger at all this overheating of the political environment is that hapless Nigerian voters who put these politicians in power are being made to suffer as governance have literally gone on recess two years before the political campaigns are even due to start. All these because politicians are more concerned about their future relevance in the political leadership of the country than the provision of political dividends for the people that put them in office in the first place. If the whole objective is to ensure that President Jonathan does not contest the next general election, must Nigerians be made to suffer because someone else wants to rule the country instead? I agree that the North rightly deserve another shot at the leadership of Nigeria having been left on the fringes for too long, but no one knows the plan of Almighty God whose responsibility it is to anoint leaders. No one is even talking about power shifting to the South-east which was the pivotal third leg of the tripod that held Nigeria together in the first republic. The day Nigerian leaders allow the will of God to manifest in the leadership of the country will be the day that better things will begin to happen for the country. Now, we are facing all sorts of difficulties in the country. Our oil reserves are depleting at a fast rate and so is the market for oil and instead of the leaders brainstorming on alternative ways of improving the political economy of the nation; they are wasting time looking for how to grab power for themselves and their cronies, not for the improvement of the lives of the citizens. Coming to the future of the PDP, it will be a shame that the present Kunfu-fighting going on in the party is allowed to dominate the politics of Nigeria by people who were nowhere in politics when the founding fathers set the party up. Some of the party leaders are taking advantage of President Jonathan’s relative inexperience in hardcore political scheming at a time his government is making considerable improvement in the nation’s political and economic transformation. Nigerian people will not be fooled by all these noises echoing in the political atmosphere. We are on the verge of resolving the most crucial problem facing the nation’s economic progress in the form of power generation and distribution and on the question of infrastructure, huge progress has been made; trains are running up and down the country and the airways are witnessing rapid transformation and if Jonathan remained focused and not rattled by the issues of mainstream and new PDP politics, Nigerians will forget the so-called lethargy that sometimes cloud his political perception” No President needs to be subjected to the walkout that was choreographed by five state governors and their delegates as was the case penultimate Saturday. But it is simply straightforward: The scattered clouds of presidential ambition are creating serious turbulence in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The hoopla about internal democracy, threats of suspension and suspension of leaders of the party, the audacious walkout at the special convention, the panic mode that was engaged thereafter, and the surfeit of fence-mending meetings are all denominated by the contestation and contest for the presidential seat. I wish that everyone in the ruling party should retrace their steps and allow the PDP to remain the cohesive force it was, deliver the dividends they promised the people in 2011 or they will pay a big price for disappointing the people of Nigeria come 2015 whether they go by the tag of old or new PDP. But however, let me congratulate the aggrieved Governors to have been bold to state their grievances and conditions whatsoever for a peace talk, to place polity on pace of harmony. If reconciliation is now necessary as perceived and seen in many quarters, I feel it is not only a welcome development, the needful and applauded but should be done in more conducive and welcome atmosphere to illustrate its essence. The atmosphere of calling or seeking for reconciliation and on the other hand name calling, worthless activities and disrespect to constituted authorities which takes over the scene is most worrisome and should be discarded to embrace peace. I am of the notion that, if indeed the ruling party is genuinely seeking for reconciliation, then it is incumbent of those concerned to first discountenance of words against each other groups and seek to making reconciliation a necessity in the interest of Nigerians and the party in particular. I am strongly in support of the reconciliation if we must set aside all our grievances with the intention of coming together as one indivisible family. It must be true reconciliation from the heart of peace and not to ambush anyone. If we mean reconciliation, then we must also avoid group interest and pursue collective interest as factors responsible for peace and never selfish conditions and projections that may rather land the party in jeopardy. God in the Bible provide us the example and precedent in reconciliation. Any reconciliation without being parties/persons being truly reconciled to the God of the Bible is attempt in futility. Government and political parties will continue in crises until God is accorded His true place in the scheme of things. For it God that instituted Government and governance. Politics is just a process in coming into governance not an end. Any institution and persons who set God aside and behave as if God does not exit is headed for destruction. However, l prophesy that this current crisis will turn for the betterment of Nigerians and Nigeria. God is in control in Nigeria and with Nigerians. Only recalcitrant betrayals and self-centered traitors will fail.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 12:13:52 +0000
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