Hard time for futurologists
These are not the best of times for our horde of star-gazers, tarot card readers, marabouts, parapsychologists and self-acclaimed mystics. In the past, they could easily have made predictions about what the political elements hold in store for parties and candidates. Not this time. Things are so fluid, the ongoing horse-trading so intense that the alphabets keep being juggled around - APC, r-APC, PDP, n-PDP, ADC, SDP, APN, PRP, etc.
In the Nigerian variant of politics, a PDP man today could migrate to SDP or APC if the grass is greener on that side. Ideology counts for nothing in Nigerian politics. With the possible exception of PRP and KOWA parties, all the other political camps appear to be contraptions for seeking power only. There is no identifiable philosophical theory underpinning their manifestoes. Yes, they all promise life more abundant for the people. Any carpetbagger can do that. But through which path do they want to lead us to the land of promise?
In other more developed democracies, there is no sitting on the ideological fence. Even within the same ideological camp, there are tendencies to the right and the left. Depending on where a politician is on the ideological continuum, you can predict his policies. That is why there is a difference between a Hilary Clinton and a Bernie Sanders although both are Democratic, and between a Donald Trump and a Ted Cruz even as they are both in the Republican Party.
Over here, the house that our past military ‘messiahs’ built did not allow for any philosophical thinking. People were simply told to fall into as many lines as the uniformed dictators would allow under a constitution designed and produced by the military instead of throwing the process open to the genuine representatives of the people. And we have carried on as if a maize crop could beget anything but maize.
In this culture of anything goes, the people are often confronted with difficult choices between six and half-a-dozen. Whichever way they turn, they are short-changed. Their children serve as strong-arm fixers for those who have cornered resources and are desperate for power. In a climate of poverty where many people are looking up to the heavens for the next meal, futurologists step in and reap a bounty, predicting where the mango of fortune would fall.
Now their job has been made more complicated by the unprecedented fluidity of alliances sweeping through all the political parties. The party in power, APC is losing many of its nPDP members who seem to have come to a conclusion that they are better off in the same PDP they cannibalised, demonised and abandoned three years ago. That camp is led by senate president Bukola Saraki who, I hear, wants Buhari’s job.
Saraki is emboldened by his recent victory at the Supreme Court which cleared him of all charges and removed the moral albatross hanging on his neck. His current No. 3 position is apparently not his preferred destination but a mere bus stop to the presidency
Don’t laugh. In politics, never say never. What appears as black and white to you may have many shades of grey. We are in for interesting times. Whereas PDP as a party would gladly welcome back its former members, and indeed any of the other political parties interested in some sort of alliance, old members of the party who stood by it when the going was tough are not likely to sit idly by and allow serial political migrants take the plum political offices.
The Nation newspaper quotes an unnamed PDP Board of Trustees member as saying, “We won’t allow them to come back and take over our house. Many of us believe that the R-APC leaders are looking for a refugee camp in PDP and they should not be dictating to us from a position of weakness. If we decide not to readmit them into PDP, they will be politically stranded.”
Even within the r-APC, will Tambuwal and Kwankwaso bury their rumoured presidential ambition for Saraki? Will old horses like Atiku Abubakar (who has been holding consultations round the country) Sule Lamido and Ahmed Makarfi step back to allow Saraki claim the top spot?
On the side of APC, the defection of a sizeable chunk of notables in the n-PDP/r-APC cannot be good news. They have their followers, even if their method is opportunistic. What will APC replace them with? New alliances?
The nightmare scenario that could finish off APC would be if all the other notable parties team up with PDP to fight the presidential election. That would be the dream of all those who want Buhari to lose his job. But, knowing Nigerian politicians, one can bet wager that they will not muster the required selflessness to go to the elections as one body.
Money, as always, will play a very big part in deciding which way the pendulum swings. The seriousness with which the opposition is confronting the task ahead is underscored by the recent revelation that former President Obasanjo has reportedly shifted from his hardline anti-Atiku stand to say that he would back whoever emerged as the consensus candidate of the ongoing coalition talks even if that person is Atiku Abubakar.
This is no time to predict anything, even for futurologists!