Amosun, Okorocha, Yari And Others As APC Fall Guys

Amosun, Okorocha, Yari And Others As APC Fall Guys

There is no gainsaying the fact that governors Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun),
Rochas Okorocha (Imo) and Abdul Aziz Yari (Zamfara) and some others like
them have a special or, in fact, filial relationship with President
Muhammadu Buhari, who is also the totem or symbolic aggregation of the
values of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Apart from the fact that these governors themselves symbolically
represent a fair spread of the geo-social and political tendencies of
the country, they owe their present offices to the magnetic pull of the
APC presidential candidate in 2015.

Virtually every contestant
under the flag of the APC was seen in the mould of Buhari or as a
veritable tool for the achievement of the party’s promised magic, even
as Buhari was its alter ego or ultimate personification.

Going by what befell the three governors as a fall-out of the outcome
of the fractious or mis-managed primaries in their states and also by
their frenzied reaction thereto, it will appear that they have
mis-perceived or taken for granted Buhari’s position as the party’s
paterfamilias who could resolve all household imbroglio with avuncular
dis-interestedness and finality.

Like children who look up to their parent for a redress of a
situation in which their mate had given them a drubbing or to avenge for
them a previous wrong-doing, these governors were a sorry sight to
behold.

Even as they turned the Aso Rock villa into a theatre of sorts, the
issues for which they were drawing the President’s attention became
befuddled by pathos each day and anti-climaxed with bathos each time a
press briefing or interview is called.

An emerging national tradition of alternating governments, evolving
policies, pragmatic choices and unspoken conventions is being sorely
threatened by the fractious struggle for political party tickets.

The result has been to polarise opinion and to render impossible any consistent growth in national consciousness.

The prescriptions for national spirit and democracy are incompatible
with the do-or-die approach of politicians to their party primaries or
nominations.

The purpose of politics in a free society is to focus public
attention on possible alternative courses of action in a given
situation.

It is therefore positively commendable for parties to reflect in
differing degrees the general outlook of particular social groupings.

As a matter of practical politics and less of ritual veneration,
party men should grow and espouse beneficial ideologies and stick less
to the fortunes or supposed virtues of a strong man or patron saint.

A party ought to be ruled by its members and have a real independence
from its subscribers. It is not proper for the party to be controlled
and financed by the same set of people.

In our contemporary experience, governors and chairmen of local
governments finance and control their parties. This, in my view, is not
compatible with good democratic practice.

Buhari’s government assumed power from a previous administration which had lost popularity.

The APC government came into office shackled by attitudes it acquired
in opposition, by the terms of its starry-eyed election manifesto and
by the many “stories-by-moonlight” pledges it made to the people.

Thereafter, followed a period of honeymoon in which the people waited
in baited breath for the performance of the publicised programmes.

In the interim, the price level and the stability of the naira became
threatened and resort was therefore had to borrowing at home and abroad
and to higher taxes.

In so far as the borrowing is from abroad, there is a progressive loss of independence to foreign creditors.

The resulting economic crises begin to become obvious, the social and
economic programmes are frozen or put in the cooler and divisions begin
to appear within the party. The popularity of the party falls into
decline.

A general election is impending and the party drives itself
inexorably into a frenzy whereby those who call the shots in form of
governors and other financiers refuse to take the back seat regarding
the decision as to who will succeed them or of other matters. They are
prepared to do battle with perceived enemies or with the opponents of
their quests.

This writer is convinced that what Amosun and co are brandishing is
not purity of morals or dis-interestedness or they will fall by the very
weapons in their arsenal.

They are clearly pursuing personal egotistic drivels in a situation
whereby the anchor-man in form of their party chairman is on a
dare-devil or the heavens may fall masochistic streak.

Oshiomhole earlier dazzling cosmos may be deemed by Amosun and his blazing cosmogony.

Buhari, being so vulnerable now to purely political decisions is
unlikely to be persuaded by arguments in favour of economic efficiency
or of the luxury of the permutation in support of a minority headship of
government in a strategic state, or even of the justice of popular
rotation or of an unwritten policy of continuity as a litmus test of the
acceptance or approval of a previous administration’s programmes,
policies and thrust.

For Buhari and in a season like this, any argument in the tone and
verbiage of the Amosun advocacy is sure to fall on deaf ears not minding
its centrality or appositeness at some saner time or even ultimately.
This is a case of a good argument canvassed in an inclement season or
weather.

In seasons like this, it is normal for stories regarding the triumphs
or failures of persons in political contests to take the centre stage
and becloud the real issues at play or even divert attention away from
the purposes of our avowed social contract.

Each time we permit ourselves a self-indulgent understanding of the
practice of the time-honoured rules of democracy, we pay a resultant
heavy price in governance desultoriness, in the emergence of a wayward
leadership and in various mental or psychological affliction
manifestations.

There is a requirement to reverse our sorry plight through a cerebral
application of correct options in a basket of seemingly similar
choices.

Source:- Guardianng