PDP'S ROLE AFTER MAY 29

President Goodluck Jonathan may have been a good loser but his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is definitely not. Ever since the PDP lost the presidential election to the All Progressives Party (APC), there hasn’t been anything but finger pointing and infighting among the party’s leadership. I appreciate the shock, such was the arrogance of the ruling party but they must stop, take a deep breath and learn something from what has happened. The president’s silence also speaks volumes. This poor behavior is what cost them the elections in the first place.

Let me take you back to the PDP convention where critical decisions were to be made to safeguard the future of the party and lead them to victory in the elections. I make bold to say that if at that time, they had done the right thing and looked critically at what was wrong in the party, they would still be the ruling party today. This was the parties chance to democratically agree on the way forward. The convention, much like the just concluded botched NLC convention was marred with rigging and the abuse of state power. Stalwarts of the party such as Atiku Abubakar, Rotimi Amaechi, and Rabiu Kwankwaso amongst others pulled out of convention and organized a parallel one. This was the beginning of the end for the PDP. Jonathan was preselected and the rest is history.     

As the opposition, the PDP has no time. They need to lick their wounds and take on the new responsibility of being our look out. To assist us in ensuring that the governing APC does not enjoy the kind of arbitrary abuse of power which they practiced for 16 years. Instead of pointing fingers, they should solidify our democracy by looking inwards at all the excesses that were occasioned by poor drafting of our constitution. That sacred document that is supposed to act as a guide book for us to keep on track in our dealings with each other. They need to very quickly organise themselves, so as to stop the country from going from a nascent democracy to an autocracy, a dictatorship of only one party, who can do as they please. We have been there before. This time we need balance if our democracy is to have even a little chance of success. They must participate in ensuring that politics is not bigger than the law and that the supremacy of the law is displayed in all sectors of our national life.

There is pressing work to do. Grey areas in the criminal code, which are exploited to allow for impunity. Cross carpeting and abuse of the laws of the national assembly and the decrepit delivery of justice as well as the complete lack of independence of this arm of our government. What we seek from the PDP is for its members to come together on the basis of ideology and and prevent both themselves and the APC from exploiting the same impunity we have just rejected.

We should remember when talks were in progress to form the APC. Many PDP members laughed it off, saying, like previous attempts, the coalition couldn’t survive. It was an amalgamation of too many parties with diverse interests and egos. However, it was a marriage, albeit a difficult one, with everything stacked against it but they all had one goal, so sacrifices were made to hold the fabric of the union together. Uneasy bedfellows spent the night together and still do. If ever there was an example of what unity can do, then this is it.

Where is Doyin Okupe? He promised to go on self-imposed exile should the opposition win the election.

Members of the party should look back at all their collective mistakes rather than tear their party apart and pretend to have genuine reasons to cross carpet to the APC. They should learn from the just-concluded UK elections, where three party leaders resigned within an hour following disappointing outings at the polls. The Immediate-past Labour leader, Ed Miliband, led his party to its worst outing since 1987. He simply took responsibility and bowed out. Already, the party has commenced necessary reforms that will reposition it for the next election. The dissection has commenced, the lesson learnt. This is what the PDP should aspire to achieve.

PDP, please send the right message to APC that either they work for the welfare of we the masses. Give us as a minimum, security and power, so we can industrialize, or the PDP will do on a second run, what it failed woefully to achieve on its first outing. If the APC-led government does not channel its energy into becoming the super efficient machine for making our lives better, a strong PDP could then offer us a choice in 2019; as the right to choose is the main ingredient in a democracy. 

THE DEEP STRUCTURE OF XENOPHOBIA

Before I begin with the main theme of this article, I’d like to comment briefly on a related subject. In the wake of the execution of 8 drug traffickers in Indonesia, a friend sought my take on how the Australian and Brazilian governments tried to appeal to the Indonesian government to temper justice with mercy while their Nigerian counterpart was silent for too long. Out of the 8 convicts, two were Australians, one Brazilian and an Indonesian. The remaining four were Nigerians! In Indonesian law, drug trafficking is punishable by death; so if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Our government should understand however that they must be there for us. That is my response.

It is also very inaccurate to conclude that the majority of Nigerians doing business in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia are drug traffickers. Our sheer population makes us visible in whatever we do – good or bad. And, that is why there is this myth around the success rate of Nigerians in Diaspora that makes them easy targets for racists and nativists. The situation in South Africa is just one of many.

Despite the atrocities that some in Kwazulu Natal have committed against their fellow Africans, any socio-psychologist who knows his/her onions would have some feeling of sympathy towards black South Africans. All they have ever known is exploitation – political, historical, economic, psychological and cultural exploitation. First they were victims of a land grab. Then they were made to till their previously owned farmlands for the benefit of others, with little access to education. This was necessary for the settlers to create a working class. The blacks were not allowed to compete with them. They were put in mines and made to work for just enough to keep themselves alive. The men were separated from their wives and families and plied with alcohol. They were also segregated and abused by the White supremacists who came to settle on their land. This is the recent history of the South African black man.

After the end of Apartheid, there have been attempts at socio-political reconciliation and integration. But the government and people of South Africa have not paid enough attention to the fact that social and political reconciliation and integration are nothing without psychological and economic emancipation.  South Africans have had Black presidents for over two decades now, yet they continue to be haunted by the fear of domination because they mostly lack the self confidence, knowhow and economic empowerment to compete. They are a scarred and angry.

It is for these reasons that there are so many opportunities in South Africa for immigrants in general. It is Africa’s most sophisticated economy, so immigration is expected, especially from fellow Africans who compete for many of the opportunities in the predominantly black areas. The black South African is again bottom of the food pile in his own land because Africans from other parts of the continent, better suited and more motivated, easily “steal” their opportunities. A people who haven’t recovered from Apartheid suddenly find themselves “serving” yet another set of masters, shows that they still haven’t been properly integrated in the post-apartheid South Africa. It is the same with African Americans in the United States where, despite the recent spate of killings by white policemen, he kills his fellow blacks daily instead of wanting to see his fellow blacks do well. Other blacks kill 93% of blacks killed in America.                      

                    

Hardworking migrants living in parts of South Africa do not deserve the kind of ill treatment their hosts have subjected them to, especially after all the assistance governments of these countries gave to the apartheid struggle, especially Nigeria. This is why the ANC-led government must be indicted. Have their history books been adjusted to reflect the roles that various parties have played in their recent history? How much resource have they put towards the de-radicalisation and education of their masses? The unascertained rationale for the quick glide from love and respect to aching hatred should not be underestimated.

Furthermore, the response of Jacob Zuma to utterances from the Zulu King and his son go a long way in highlighting how important it is to have the right leadership guiding a land to security, prosperity and harmony.  The “Apartheid disease” has eaten deep into the soul of even some of its victims. They should be quickly fished out and made an example of. As Robespierre once said, there should be “no freedom for enemies of freedom”.

South Africans should direct their anger to the government and not against their African brothers and sisters who are only foreigners because of borders drawn by imperialists. Our government’s response here is weak as expected. Meanwhile, Madiba turns in his grave.