APC Strains at bitter pills of extreme opposition

By SUNDAY ODIBASHI

The irony of democracy has continued to unveil one of its filthy trends in leadership. Studies tend to reveal that opposition politics in democratic governance is seemingly synonymous with unrestrained license for extremist political communication.  This seeming hypothesis gained propound currency in 2011 when the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) became the leading opposition political party in the country, contesting the power equation of the mainstream body politic with the dominant Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the National Assembly.

It is observable that opposition extremism, since then, became writ large to the point of overt directive from opposition party leaders to their members in the National Assembly to lock down the Federal Government under certain conditions.

The seeming extremist opposition culture was taken to a higher pedestal after the metamorphosis of allied opposition political parties into the All Progressives Congress (APC) to wrest power from the PDP.  The antagonism of the party in government was without restraints in highly uncoordinated norms of inter-parties relations; use of vulgar languages or desecration of the Presidency and other authorities of the Nigerian State knew no bound.

Several citizens were astonished at the rate which former President Goodluck Jonathan was not only ridiculed but had his personality smeared by the opposition. The opposition coming from the communication net of the APC was without refinement or decorum to the extent of threatening or subverting state/citizens relations under the PDP Government.

The victory of the APC in the March 28, 2015 Presidential Election marked a new dawn where power changed hands; the opposition APC became the party in government and the dominant PDP turned the opposition.

Stakeholders in the Nigerian project had anticipated a sort of relief from desperate antagonistic opposition politics when PDP leaders said the party will not insult President Muhammadu Buhari like the APC did.  The overarching expectation was a reasonable refinement in the “Grammar of Politics” and precision in caustic criticism of public policies in the new model of government/opposition relations.

Paradoxically, the PDP appears to be guarded of the track of cordial opposition by perceived political incidence relating to the rule of law and democratic freedoms. The opposition political party which had supported virtually all policy intentions of the President, particularly, the fight against corruption, suddenly altered its compass of navigating democratic opposition after the Presidential media chat, a fortnight ago, hitting hard at the President. That has drawn new battle line between the PDP and the APC.

Perhaps, the extrapolation of President Buhari’s seeming contradictory responses to the fight against corruption or issues relating to the prosecution of retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki, National Security Adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, besides Nmandi Kanu’s escapade on the Biafra agitation, in relation to the role of the judiciary or executive interference, in the administration of justice and sustenance of the rule of law, may have provoked the PDP into uncomplimentary branding of President Buhari as a tyrant. The party also rose in stout defence of Dasuki with attempts to identify suspected “demons of corruption” in the APC.  Again, the missing link of decorum in political communication between the party in power and the opposition political party continues to deepen.

Apparently, John Odigie-Oyegun, National Chairman of APC, at the weekend, decried that the PDP does not have respect for the President and the members of his cabinet. He had contended that even though there is no true democracy without opposition, being in the opposition party does not give PDP the right to insult the President.

“The APC is worried by PDP’s inciting statements. Respect for the office of the president or heads of government in any clime is not a matter of choice but a civic obligation sanctioned by laws. Being an opposition party or critic is no license to issue abusive, intemperate and slanderous statements on government officials; most especially, the president of the country,” Oyegun had declared. He noted: “The PDP has proven that it is not a party to be trusted or taken seriously. Only recently, the PDP said in a December 24, 2015 statement: ‘we urge that Nigerians should not recourse to hauling insults on the President’.”

Meanwhile, it was at the height of similar political trade mark from the APC that Alhaji Adamu Mua’zu, former PDP National Chairman, had to appeal to members of the National Peace Committee on Election who included retired General Abdulsalami Abubakar, former Head of State; retired Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, former Chief of General Staff; Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese; to tell the leadership of the APC to stop insulting President Goodluck Jonathan.

At the PDP National Secretariat, Abuja, in the build up to the March 28 and April 11 elections, Mua’zu told the Committee members who visited the PDP in the company of Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Chairman of Dangote Group, that rather than insult and attempt to ridicule President Jonathan, the APC should tell Nigerians what they would do better with their candidate. He had acknowledged that, though, it was not the policy of the PDP to disparage any authority, but some younger members of the party had no choice than to react in commensurate manner to attacks from the opposition as they were pushed to the wall.

“Mr. Chairman, I want to assure you that the Peoples Democratic Party will be running a very fair campaign led by me. If you watch my utterances, personally, you will find that there is nothing I do than to be a good salesman of what I should be, for my party and for my President. I have enough to say about my President… I have very little to say about the opposition. Unfortunately, when the opposition goes haywire, some of our small boys in our own party also shout back. And that is why you have some of the unfortunate things,” Mua’zu had declared.

Invariably, the culture of political brinkmanship has remained cyclical; the APC is only receiving its own part of the trade mark now that the party is in power.

However, rather than Oyegun shouting to the sky, APC leaders should advise Buhari to quicken the appointment of advisers where the Special Adviser on Inter-Party Affairs would be expected to create a framework of inter-party relations to widen the frontier of interactions among the political parties.  Opposition extremism is a political anti-thesis to nation building. More so, it scuttles the aggregation and articulation of national interest