Since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC), we have witnessed, quite expectedly, asituation where virtually every political statement, interview and even opinion articles have been focused on it. In that childish way we react to new things, we have seen commentators run to town screaming uhuru and expressing their optimism that the new party finally presents a viable alternative, the absence of which in their opinion, has been the bane of our political development.
But there is a difference between expressingoptimism and twaddling. In Segun Balogun’s articleyesterday, I witnessed finally, the descent into banality of this ‘it is now well with us’ sloganeering that has plagued public discourse in recent time. Mr. Balogun, obviously a strong sympathiser of the APC, had sought to educate us on how blessed we are to have the APC and to chastise thosehe referred to as blabbers for expressing doubts about the new party. As much as he tried, he did not seem to advance any logical argument in favour of his position, nor did he succeed in providing us any new information beyond what has been repeatedto the point of cliché, about a change that was now set to birth in our land.
What we got from the piece instead was a condescending sermon on how we should be eternally grateful to the proponents of APC and how they (by the singular feat of registering a political party) were now deserving of the same respect we accord our founding fathers. This was after telling us that the emergence of APC was the biggest thing to have happened on Nigeria’spolitical turf since independence; a statement that makes me seriously question the Nigeria history credentials of the writer.
Then, in classical counting of the chicks evenbefore the cock and the hen have mated, Mr. Balogun declared that “every obstacle against APC’s success as a political party has already been overcome” and therefore, the party had (by the simple act of getting registered) become triumphant.
Mr. Balogun is entitled to his opinion no doubt, but the cynics who do not share the APC excitement have a good reason for their position as well; and instead of condemning them, their concerns should be taken very seriously if the new party is interested in making any difference. It must be stated thatit will be irresponsible for anyone to dismiss those who do not sing the APC tune as PDP apologists. Indeed it is for the same reasons why many are disenchanted by the PDP that they are unimpressed by the APC.
The PDP, as we all know, was (as is still is) a gathering of people of diverse views solely for the purpose of winning elections. Over the years, many have sighted the absence of a common political ideology as the bane of the PDP’s reign, stressing that a robust opposition, one that will bring meaningful change, must be that with a strong ideology and a pragmatic manifesto, peopled by persons of proven integrity.
Politics, as we know, is one of the social domains whose practices are virtually exclusively discursive. Political cognition is bydefinition ideologically based, and political ideologies are largely reproduced by discourse. Ideologies embody the general principles that control the overall coherence of the social representations shared by the members of a group. Therefore, you expect that members of a political group must share certain ground principles, a coherent understanding of society and an agreed socio-economic direction framework based on which the people can assess them, vote them and benchmark their performance.
The APC is at best a negotiated compromise by people as different as the day is from the night, with the only ideology common to them being the capture of power at all costs in 2015. It does not help their case that a number of their more prominent members, who seem to have undergone overnight repentance and are now currently championing this song of change, are the very same persons who have in various positions in the past failed to deliver on theirresponsibilities, and who in more decent climes should either be serving jail terms or be ashamed to even appear in public.
The APC has been flirting with and courting many of these persons of questionable character, leaving one to wonder how possible it is for any meaningful change to emanate from those stables; and with the way the out-of-favour PDP members are being welcomed with open arms, one can be forgiven for saying the APC was simply a botanical name for the PDP.

*concluding part*


The assumption by Mr. Balogun in his piece is that the component parts of the APC, having “burnt their ships” to form the new party, have no option but to dig in and makeit work, is a stretched logic bothering on wishful thinking as our knowledge of the behavior of the individuals involved tells us otherwise. Indeed, we expect to see the usual cross-carpeting and reverse-migration as soon as primaries are concluded and those political jobseekers do not find all the favours they seek in the new contraption.
Towards the end of his piece, Mr. Balogun, however, stumbled on some truth and was able to state a resounding fact, that “the onlyway Nigeria can benefit from the emergenceof APC is when manifestoes take front burner of political discussion.”
Unfortunately, this is one area the new partyhas so far failed woefully in. Besides the nowroutine daily attacks on President Goodluck Jonathan and the rehashing of the same old talk, the party does not seem eager (if its communication so far is an indication of its thinking) to sell its own plans to Nigerians and present itself as an alternative. It rather seems fixated at name calling and derogatory remarks, including some that I think are outright disrespectful of the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Mr. Balogun’s mention of the existence of some 400-page APC manifesto is quite interesting. Where is this document? What are its contents? They certainly do not expect Nigerians search for this document like it is the Holy Grail. One would expect thatthat by now the party should have an active website, but a quick search on Google will reveal that we should not be expecting one until after about 43 days.
A strong and viable opposition is no doubt an essential part of any electoral process, and a major opposition party is desirable forincreasing competitiveness in the polity and making life better for the people. However, the existence of one (in this case the APC) does not guarantee Nigerians automatic enjoyment of the expected benefit, nor does it mean that we should now all scream eureka and go to sleep. We are still a long way from home, and if the APC represents the kind of progressive politics that is expected to bring us out of the woods, then we really have quite a long and tortuous journey still ahead.
I will conclude by recommending this recent article by RW Johnson on what lessons Nigeria could learn from the American experience. The writer, after highlighting a period in America’s history when she faced the same challenges as Nigeria does today, proceeded to show through historical fact, how a people can truly take over their land and cause real change.
Until we start thinking that way, raising a fresh breed of ‘tomorrows men’ who resent the dominance of plutocrats, hate corruptionand are sincerely interested in cleaning-up the system, we will merely be running dangerously round a bonfire.