Time to call in the mortician
By
The time’s come: there’s a terrific cloud advancing upon us, a mighty storm is coming
— Anton Chekhov 1860 - 1904.
IF you can keep your head while others around you are losing theirs, you must be either a wizard or a fool. This column could easily have been titled I fear for my country or the gathering storm; but none of these two titles, in my view, carries the punch desired given the enormity of the problems that confront us. Last week, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) whose requiem I wrote almost two years ago and the Afenifere whose leaders have held the party in a hammerlock suddenly could no longer pretend that all is well. The departures of Chief Olu Falae and Professor Bolaji Akinyemi to two different new political associations and the open endorsement of President Olusegun Obasanjo by some AD Governors is the surest sign to date that the leaders of Afenifere who hitherto had been regarded as the "authentic" leaders of the Yorubas are now clinging to power on borrowed time. Now, more than at any time since 1987 when Chief Obafemi Awolowo died, Yorubas have become almost leaderless. "The ever-whirling wheel of change; the which all mortal things doth sway" (Edmund Spenser 1552 - 1599) has presented the leaders of the Awoist group with their greatest challenge ever. It is doubtful if they will ever again be able to regain the clout they once had. Pa Adesanya and others know they can no longer delay difficult reforms with regard to their practice of politics, but like most principled old men they might be finding change difficult to embrace. Yet one thing is certain about the wheel of change" , people either adapt taking advantage of it or they are in front of it getting trampled. The aged Awoists are right in front of the nation"s wind of political change and unless they step nimbly, they will get crushed. The AD, at any rate, is as dead as the dinosaur. The Yoruba race is now adrift at least in the short term.
The death of the AD portends danger not only for the leaders of Afenifere, it is symptomatic of the rot in all the political parties including those newly formed and a signal that dangers lie ahead for this nation. Some of the AD Governors who in an open and shameless demonstration of cheap political opportunism have decided to support Obasanjo if the PDP will agree not to field candidates against them are like so many drowning men grabbing at straws. As it is, none of the AD Governors might have a political party called AD on whose platform he can seek re-election in 2003; they will either collectively or individually join new political organisations and begin again the process of seeking the party"s mandate which might not be automatic or face rejection at the polls.
Some of them are doomed to one term irrespective of which party they eventually join. Obasanjo at any rate cannot and should not guarantee AD Governors unopposed candidacy; if not for anything else but for the fact that it is a rape of democracy for such a deal to be foisted on the people of the South-West. In fact, that "deal" should be regarded as the practical joke of the year; disrobed men wanting to exchange dresses have nothing with which to bargain.
With AD Governors out in the wilderness so early in the day and the Yorubas drifting gradually into leaderlessness, the possibilities are ripe for another round of Wild Wild West. So as the AD goes into the graveyard of political parties, it might carry with it several lives in the South-West between now and 2003. Sadly, the South-West is not the only potential danger point; the South-East is also set for the bloodiest battles the area has over experienced since the Civil War.
From Anambra to Imo, battle lines have been drawn usually with home-based players led by the State Governors on one side and politicians at the Federal level usually led by Ministers or Senators on the other side; the latter might as well be called foreign-based players. Every part of the South-East now feels the tension of this confrontation two years to the gubernatorial and federal elections and one year to Local Government elections.
Like the South-West, the South-East is now poised for the Wild-Wild East. Anambra represents the most volatile but that"s only because of recent occurence involving one billionaire whose wealth is of unknown origin. Still it will be a mistake of monumental proportions to assume any state is safe. Those directly involved in the struggle nationwide know better than that.
How about the South-South? With the possible exception of Delta, Akwa Ibom and perhaps Bayelsa, the situation there is only a shade better than the South-West and South-East. Lucky Igbiniedon has squared off with Admiral Aikhomu (rtd) but not really tired. Thugs have already been introduced into the fray. With rough tackles introduced before the game has reached half-time only God knows what will follow. Cross Rivers is like Lagos State, the Governor and his Deputy are at loggerheads waiting for 2003 to actually allow hostilities to break out, perhaps. Even a dunce knows that Peter Odili of Rivers has a stiff fight on his hands from at least two fronts - the Deputy Speaker of the Federal House and Chief Harry.
Only a clairvoyant can predict the outcome but it will not be settled without somebody getting hurt. Up North, from Kwara and Benue at the gateways to the farthest north, there are political rumblings. Even Adamawa State, home of the Vice President which should be happy with its exalted status is experiencing disquiet. There’s an unending war going on in Kwara and one has erupted in Jigawa between the Governor and his former Deputy who resigned recently.
More worrisome than the intra-state conflicts, however, is the disintegration of political parties. APP’s National Executive met in Birnin Kebbi recently and the meeting was marred by violence. Nothing of substance was achieved. The party has ceased to exist for all practical purposes in those states not governed by it and even in APP controlled states intra-party strife is the rule not the exception. The people who went to attack Chief Lanre Rasak, Deputy National Chairman of APP at Birnin Kebbi went from his own Lagos State including his home town Epe. PDP’s National Executive Committee, especially its Chairman and National Secretary are caught in an ethical and political enigma difficult to address. They could obey the court order to reinstate the expelled members of their party and invite more internal discord or they could ignore the courts and become lawless leaders of the largest political party in a new democracy. Either way, they are damned; whatever they do. More to the point, the PDP as a political party is an amalgamation of PDP from all States of the Federation. Yet from Lagos to Zamfara the worst form of antagonism is between PDP members in every state. There’s hardly any state that can be described as peaceful. With party participation crumbling everywhere, just a little bit over two years after return to civil rule, fear is a legitimate response to our impending political crisis.
But while APP and PDP still have some life in them, although both in different stages of lifelessness, it is AD, the predominantly Yoruba party, which urgently requires the mortician. This party is dead and only a decent burial can avert a situation where we have a stinking corpse on our hands bringing with it the possibility of contagion to other parts of the country.
In mourning the passing away of the AD, I would like to remind our elder statesmen/politicians nationwide of that immortal statement by Lord Alfred Norh Whitehead (1861 - 1947): "The rate of change in our time is so swift that an individual of ordinary length of life will be called on to face novel situations which have no parallel in the past".
The fixed person for the fixed duties who in the old society was a Godsent will in the future be a public danger". More than ever, the old guard needs to give way. As AD goes to the graveyard, the most urgent questions are: will the Fourth Republic follow it? Are we doomed to a continuous vicious cycle of civilian-military-civilian-military ad infinitum? Damn it, I really fear for my country. What will ruin us, said the Gita (4 A.D Indian philosopher) is "Politics without principles". What has happened to principles in this country for God’s sake?