By Ebun Olu-Adegboruwa
In Ekiti State, the APC has deployed the EFCC to start a running court battle, with a sitting governor, in a PDP controlled state, whilst it has failed to even look into the allegation that the immediate past governor of the same state, donated a whooping N1.5B of state funds into the Buhari campaign
Nigeria, July 8, 2016 – Recent events in Nigeria have all shown a clandestine plan by the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, to force Nigeria into a one party state. All over the land, the party is scheming to take over power in all states controlled by other political parties.
Nationally, the APC has deployed a lopsided anti-corruption war against major opposition figures, to hang a tag of corruption on them and thus technically disqualify them from contesting elections in 2019. Any notable politician in the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP, that has any political ambition, is either presently facing corruption trial in court or in the media, or is under one form of investigation or the other. The whole idea is to clear the coast for all potential contestants of the ruling APC, to contest all coming elections unopposed.
Yes, the crusade against corruption is worthy and welcome, but it loses its power when it is steeped in vengeance and in corrupt motives.
In Rivers State, the EFCC is being instigated to disrupt the peace of the PDP controlled state, under the guise of investigating financial crimes, when the same EFCC has refused bluntly, to look into allegations of financial improprieties raised against the former governor of the same state, Mr Chibuike Amaechi, simply because he is now a chieftain of the ruling APC.
In Ekiti State, the APC has deployed the EFCC to start a running court battle, with a sitting governor, in a PDP controlled state, whilst it has failed to even look into the allegation that the immediate past governor of the same state, donated a whooping N1.5B of state funds into the Buhari campaign. In the case of Fayose, no single petitioner has been identified.
In Abia State, the APC is currently masquerading through Mr Emmanuel Ogah, to take over power, through the back door, from a duly elected governor Okezie Ikpeazu, and has in that wise, plunged Abia State into monumental crisis.
The APC is equally bankrolling Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, as a fifth columnist, to destabilize the opposition PDP, solely for the purpose of weakening the PDP in the coming governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States. The strategy is to use Sheriff to field weak and unpopular candidates, purportedly on behalf of the PDP, in order to create a situation of no contest, with the APC candidates, for these elections.
Effectively now, the PDP is being traumatized and polarized, by the APC, through certain elements sympathetic to the Presidency, as a means of crippling the only viable opposition against the ruling party.
APC won the 2015 general election, albeit through what has now turned out to be cheap blackmail and empty propaganda, than it commenced playing the same egregious trump card, that was deployed against it as an opposition party. And it is our duty now, as Nigerians, to resist and challenge the APC, in the same manner that we did to the PDP
In the period leading to the 2015 elections, about four political political parties, the CPC, ANPP, ACN and a faction of APGA, merged into what is today known as the APC. The ruling PDP then, made all efforts to cripple the budding APC then, including the registration of surrogate parties with similar acronyms with that of the APC. However, Nigerians united behind the APC to resist the dirty schemes of the PDP then, and fought along with the APC, to get the party registered and to be allowed to partake in the elections. But no sooner had the APC won the 2015 general election, albeit through what has now turned out to be cheap blackmail and empty propaganda, than it commenced playing the same egregious trump card, that was deployed against it as an opposition party. And it is our duty now, as Nigerians, to resist and challenge the APC, in the same manner that we did to the PDP.
Nigeria is better off as a plural society, where ideas, thoughts and opinions, should be allowed to cross fertilize, between all contending parties. So we cannot afford a one party state, where all men sleep in the same direction, where all are led blindly like sheep without a shepherd, as if we are back in the dark ages. The danger in this is the looming dictatorship, where only the party in power, is right, all the time.
The anti-people policies being implemented in Nigeria by the APC, such as fuel price increase in the midst of fuel scarcity, electricity tariff increase in the midst of national darkness, lack of foreign exchange, mass unemployment, galloping inflation, etc, all of which have now thrown the Nigerian economy into avoidable recession, are all indications of the looming danger ahead of us all.
Unless the APC has some magic with which it hopes to win future elections, the hand writing on the wall presently is to the effect that it will take full blown tyranny and jack boot leadership, for an unpopular government with equally unpopular policies, with all its manifest internal crises and contradictions, to win any election, fair and square. This is the reason why most elections have recently all become inconclusive, because of clandestine efforts made to influence the votes in favour of the APC.
And this is why it has now become a priority for the APC to attempt to silence the main opposition party, to muzzle all voices of dissent, including all non political activists, in order to hold on to power, by all means and at all costs.
Nigerians voted the APC because we wanted a real change from the status quo. And so we will resist, by all means and at all costs, any attempt by the APC, to replicate the faded politics gagging the opposition, with which the PDP was renown and for which it was booted out of power.
Unless the APC has some magic with which it hopes to win future elections, the hand writing on the wall presently is to the effect that it will take full blown tyranny and jack boot leadership, for an unpopular government with equally unpopular policies, with all its manifest internal crises and contradictions, to win any election, fair and square
It will thus be good, at this earliest opportunity, for the APC to allow the opposition PDP be, for the APC to focus on the serious business of governance, by resolving its own internal contradictions, that have not allowed any meaningful progress in governance, rather than seeking to impose a one party state on our nation, which was not the legacy it inherited from its discredited predecessors.
I therefore call on all well meaning Nigerians and indeed all our foreign partners, to appeal to the ruling APC to allow the opposition parties to flourish, the same way that the APC was allowed to prosper as an opposition party, under the PDP.
Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa is the only surviving apolitical human rights lawyer in Nigeria
