Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, Sunday, lashed out angrily at the patron-shopping strategy of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, suggesting that the strategy lacked moral focus, and had the feel of political prostitution.
In a short email message, the professor of literature said he was triggered by media reports indicating that an “APC-led group …has been paying courtesy visits to former Heads of States,” prompting him to ask if the party had thought it through what disaster this would mean for the nation.
Mr. Soyinka said the media report that stirred him to respond to the APC had these words: “Tinubu added that the APC had resolved to rescue Nigeria, appealing to Obasanjo to lead the mission. We’re resolved and determined to rescue Nigeria. We want you as navigator”.
He then asked if the APC was truly comfortable that this represented its core principles.
“Would it be correct to state that their purpose is captured in the following Mission Statement?” he queried, suggesting that an impending political disaster loomed before the nation, with grave humanitarian consequence.
“If this attribution is correct, may I urge you, as an urgent public service, to advise families to begin the stockpiling of life-belts for the guaranteed crash.
“Don’t forget to alert the coastguards – Ecowas, AU, UNO etc etc – to be on the alert for possible salvage operations.”
Mr. Soyinka then hinted at the moral opportunism of the patron-shopping strategy by asking: “By the way, If General Sani Abacha were alive today, would he also have been on the ship’s complement? As Captain perhaps?”
Some Nigeria’s pro-democracy activists had also in separate interviews with PREMIUM TIMES Saturday expressed outrage at the invitation handed the likes of former Presidents Ibrahim Babangida and Olusegun Obasanjo and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to join the APC, saying the party’s progressive posturing might after all be a fluke.
The activists argued that by desperately going in search of these Nigerians believed to have contributed to bringing the nation to its knees, the opposition party has shown that it is not different from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in ideology and that it is only interested in grabbing power.
The APC leaders have embarked on an elaborate membership recruitment with visits to some of the country’s past leaders, including former military president, Ibrahim Babangida; former head of state, Abdulsalami Abubakar; former vice president, Atiku Abubakar.
All, except Mr. Abdulsalami, are members of the PDP.
They had also visited and successfully wooed five governors elected on the ticket of the PDP, namely Musa Kwankwaso (Kano), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Chibuike Amaechi (Rivers), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) and Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), all of who defected to the opposition party on November 26.
Other notable members of the PDP who have joined the APC are Senators Bukola Saraki and Abdullahi Adamu, former governors of Kwara and Nasarawa State respectively.
Only last Wednesday, 37 other PDP members of the House of Representatives decamped to the APC, thus making it the majority party in Nigeria’s lower legislative chamber.
On Saturday, the APC leaders also visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who recently wrote an 18-page letter complaining among other things, the state of the PDP.
The activists expressed anger and disappointment that the APC, whose registration last May they hailed, had gone on to recruit characters, who might taint it with conservative bent.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Femi Falana, said the APC leaders were recruiting the former leaders who have been excluded from what he termed the “come and chop” policy of the PDP.
“In bourgeois politics, the ongoing development is called ‘realignment forces.’ In the process, those who have been excluded from the ‘come and chop’ policy of the PDP are now being asked to choose their place at the table in case the APC takes over power in 2015,” Mr. Falana said.
Lamenting that the APC leaders did not have any plan to woo the youth who constitute more than 60 per cent of the country’s voting population, Mr. Falana said the mobilisation of the past leaders and other PDP chieftains had basically shown that the opposition leaders were only interested in power.
He said, “The APC has no plan to woo the youth who constitute more than 60% of the voting population. It is the belief of the leaders of both APC and PDP that the 2015 general election is going to be fixed by the traditional manipulators of elections. This is the basis of the ongoing mobilisation of the PDP chieftains including those who cannot win elections in their own wards.
“By wooing discredited military and civilian despots who have destroyed the country since 1966, the APC has shown that it is only interested in power for the sake of power.
“I understand that one of the retired generals is going to become the chair of the Board of Trustees of the APC! This is a case of alienation from the people. How can APC leaders believe that Nigerians want Generals Obasanjo and Babangida to be rehabilitated after destroying the country?
“The duo ruled for 20 years and ruined the country in the process. General Obasanjo has just confessed that he has been installing incompetent leadership since 1979. And he is not ashamed to make that provocative disclosure. Has he offered public apology for his maxima culpa before wooing him?
“The situation is not different in a number of states and local council areas where the new PDP is busy taking over all the structures of the APC. Since the APC is positioning itself to retain the status quo it cannot become a truly progressive party.”
Mr. Falana said the PDP had started fighting back ferociously and violently because the stakes were high, adding that huge funds and weapons of mass destruction were already being assembled for the general elections while money, religion, ethnicity and other primordial sentiments were being deployed to confuse the electorate.
Another lawyer and activist, Bamidele Aturu said he was not surprised by the visit of the APC leaders to some of these prominent Nigerians, adding that he had always known that there was no difference between the PDP leaders and their APC counterpart.
“APC is not different from the people they are visiting,” Mr Aturu said. “They belong to the same ideological camp. They (APC) are not progressives as they claimed. You are not a progressive because you gave yourself that label.”
“They are going round to woo these people because of the succession crisis in the PDP. What then is the difference in ideology and vision? PDP believes in selling everything. They sold PHCN. I won’t be surprised if some of them (APC) leaders bought it.”
Mr. Aturu challenged the APC leaders to tell Nigerians how that they are different from the PDP members they are wooing
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