Ekwueme : The Abdication Of Nigeria’s Democrats

As if to underscore the nondescript manner Alex Ekwueme has sought to project himself politically since his days as vice-president under the doomed and profligate Shagari administration, a recent caption in a Lagos daily announced that this elder statesman of Nigeria’s prebendal politics is not a happy soul today. “PDP has been hijacked by undemocratic forces”, was the tepid quote by the newspaper. So, what is new about that, one may ask. It is curious that Ekwueme had to be subjected to the electoral brigandage called the PDP nomination convention by pro-Baba elements in January 2003 before he could summon the guts to publicly denounce a grim situation that has pre-occupied Nigerians for the greater part of the current Obasanjo tyranny.

In an address reportedly sent to a local chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ekwueme is said to lament that the PDP of which he is a founding member has been hijacked “both at the national, state even at the level of my local government by undemocratic forces”. Without being presumptuous, it is fair to say that most adult Nigerians pretty well know the “undemocratic forces” the former vice-president is referring to. This leaves us with the critical question as to what key so-called pro-democracy figures like Ekwueme are doing about this realisation. At the time the Anambra politician decided to share his dim view of the PDP with members of the Abakaliki NBA, he was conceivably more chagrined by the fact that his home state had by all intents and purposes been transformed into a violent and lawless fiefdom by those Achebe had earlier referred to as “renegades”. Should politicians worth their mettle – it goes without saying that Ekwueme is considered by many as a credible political force with some measure of following - and the national pro-human rights/pro-democracy elite in general, and especially those laying claim to higher standards of public morality content themselves with the occasional admonitions against a wayward regime? Shouldn’t a denunciation of what the PDP has become under Obasanjo involve the type of soul-searching that will inevitably lead to the emergence of a truly democratic culture whereby parties are not reduced to acting as crude vehicles for the dispensation of state largesse to cronies and other predatory influences?

It is depressingly clear that the type of approach adopted so far by Ekwueme and much of the political class in dealing with dictators and leadership matters per se will not lead to any substantial change in the condition of the average Nigerian. “I felt that the PDP was no longer the same party whose formation I pioneered in 1998. To that extent, I had not since then been as involved in public affairs as I was wont to be”! This is how the former vice-president explains his circumstances in the light of the political swindle perpetrated against him by Obasanjo and his men at the 2003 Abuja convention. Ekwueme probably believes that what is tantamount to an abdication by a supposed democrat will be judged less harshly by Nigerians looking up to credible voices to rise and offer leadership to the harried masses who must sooner or later confront the source of their collective deprivations. Nigerian pols are a strange lot. Those amongst them who lose out in ‘selections’ soon rally to the winning camp. Individuals in opposing party formations have often felt the urge to cross over to the party in power at either the state or federal level. In that type of environment, Ekwueme may have imagined that his posture of brooding aloofness is a much more principled stance. Yet, his position has highlighted a fundamental problem plaguing Nigerian democracy, namely, the apparent lack of sustained commitment or willingness on the part of the local politician to devote himself to the cause of democratic struggle and service. Quite often, our pols have betrayed a certain tentativeness regarding their avowed concern for the people. Their half-hearted pledges of support for the aspirations of the Nigerian people soon become entangled in an insurmountable web of compromise, inaction, treachery or even deceit.

Anambra state cannot be burning and all Ekwueme seems to be doing is tell us how he has elected to stay on the sidelines. Like Ekwueme, Anyaoku is another key Anambra figure who seems to have opted for a life on the sidelines of Nigeria’s maddening politics. Anyaoku almost went beyond the call of duty to challenge Abacha when the late tyrant wanted to dangerously toy with our collective destiny as a people. He should similarly show little tolerance of the current dictator in Abuja. By forcefully condemning the excesses of the Obasanjo regime, Anyaoku will be sending a strong message that he was not merely acting as a puppet at the hands of some powerful foreign forces when as Commonwealth Secretary General he led the campaign against Abacha and his self-succession gimmicks.

The Ekwueme and Anyaoku examples point to an inescapable lesson, namely, that supposedly credible voices of democracy cannot retreat into a life of silence or, worse, connivance with saboteurs of our collective national heritage and expect that a catalogue of atrocities like the type visited so far on Nigerians by Obasanjo and his friends will not happen. It is hardly surprising today that even as Ekwueme is busy intimating Nigerians as to his decision to be a hibernating or part-time politician, a despicable character called Anenih – the chairman of the PDP’s so-called Board of Trustees - is once more telling them that the governance of their country may once again be imposed through questionable or undemocratic means. Crucially, Ekwueme’s home state of Anambra has virtually been taken over by a confederacy of PDP thugs and “419ers”, hooligans called political god-fathers, common criminals, mercenaries, anarchists as well as psychopathic cultists. Apparently aided and abetted by federal security forces and the presidency, a faction of these forces of evil is scheming to take control of the critical dimension of grassroots administration in Anambra.

There are both short and long-term implications here for Anambra state and the rest of Nigeria. Significantly therefore, it would be wrong to view what is happening in Ngige’s troubled state as a strictly PDP affair. Any blight on fellow Nigerians irrespective of where the occurrence is located must be seen as a national matter. This means that any viable solution should necessarily avoid the kind of myopic sectarianism one hears about in certain quarters. Section or tribe-based clusters of resistance to what is a national tragedy is not what Nigerians expect. One of the reasons why tyrannical and undemocratic regimes have survived for so long in Nigeria has to do with the fact that successive dictators have effectively dealt with ghettos of opposition and resistance which have tended to espouse primal and parochial allegiances. In order to break the hegemonism of the undemocratic order in place in our country , we must individually and collectively strive to rid ourselves of the type of modes of behaviour one finds in our society nowadays that are indicative of a regimented mindset.

It is probably trite to say that any hope of progress for the people will have to begin with a conscious effort by Nigerians to reclaim their society. At the level of political partisanship, key figures of national parties should arduously work to salvage those institutions from the jaws of the rapacious breed like the type currently holding sway within the PDP. The aim should be the establishment of people-based political movements imbued with a coherent ideology and a programme of action geared toward positively impacting the life of the average Nigerian. Ahead of 2007 therefore, there should be a concerted effort to put Obasanjo, his marauding thugs and agents on a leash. There should be no room for the type of inaction Ekwueme has all but admitted he is guilty of in the face of a precarious national situation. Any attempt to tinker with party regulations or national laws in order to give undue advantage to Obasanjo’s allies in the run up to 2007 cannot be seen as an acceptable proposition. Importantly also, opposition parties should be reinvigorated and repositioned to provide credible alternatives to the PDP.

One cannot over-emphasize the significance of civil society groups in helping lay the foundation for a stable and genuinely democratic polity. The national media, for instance, does have a critical role to play in the development of a culture of tolerance and plural democracy in Nigeria. It is sad that one’s daily contact with the Nigerian media today tends to leave one with the nagging impression that a substantial segment of it is working, perhaps unconsciously, on the dangerous assumption that governance at the centre cannot be envisaged outside the sinister confines of the behemoth ironically named the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Of course, the situation is not helped by the antics of carpetbaggers and turncoats of various hues who even as they continue to denounce the reckless impunity of members of the Obasanjo-controlled outfit, are increasingly being attracted to it precisely because of the unwholesome trappings it offers those associated with its crooked ways. Well, Nigerians will have to decide as a matter of urgency whether or not they truly want the establishment of viable democracy in their society. If the sickening hero’s welcome some so-called human rights groups have accorded the inept and morally-challenged Plateau state governor is anything to go by, one will no doubt be right in saying that as a nation, we have a long way to go in the pursuit of a saner and more transparent polity. Surely, a situation whereby much of the pro-democracy advocacy has either been silenced or reduced to haggling over fuel prices does not augur well for the sustenance of the fight against corrupt and irresponsible political leadership.

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Aonduna Tondu

New York

Email: tondua@yahoo.com.