Nigeria is a country that is still trying to find her rhythm when it comes to productive and functioning governance and the current two leading political parties that can make realistic governance possible are the APC and PDP but both, incidentally, are considered by many Nigerians to be defective. In this opinion, NAIJ.com's editor, AANU ADEGUN examines the possibility of any of the political party making a clear difference in the country.
On Saturday, March 31, I was at a beer palour close to my residence, quietly sipping from a bottle of Star Lager and minding my own business when these two elderly men started quarreling about which is the better party between the former ruling People's Democratic party (PDP) and the current ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
I was initially amused because I thought they were only trying to impress the ladies sitting with them but before long, the quarrel took a new dimension and they started cursing and threatening each other with death and unimaginable curses.
The bar manager came out and in efforts to diffuse the tension, called on me to mediate as a journalist. I laughed and asked him in Yoruba language, ki ni mo mo ni ibi ti awon baba mi ti n soro? (what do I know where my fathers are talking?). We all laughed and surprisingly, everything cooled off and the old men resumed their drinking.
Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's minister of Information and Culture and former National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress. Credit: Google
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And for my effort, one of the old chaps asked the bar boy to give me another bottle of star lager and a plate of goat meat pepper soup. I thanked him and gladly accepted the goodies.
After a while, my mind drifted to the source of the quarrel between the two elderly men and tried to solve it. I mean my mind tried to categorically point out the better party between the APC and PDP but surprisingly, like the old men, my mind began to quarrel with itself, arriving at conflicting conclusions.
I now realised that both the names PDP and APC are just what they are - Just names. But what makes them bad or good are the people using the names. So in that case, if we all agreed that PDP members destroyed Nigeria in their 16 years of reign but who are the people now in the APC? Are the majority of them not from that PDP stock? And will a leopard change its colour overnight or change at all?
In another scenario, let's remove PDP, and look at it this way - APC was formed by coalition of different political parties, but before the formation, these parties are somewhere ruling in one capacity or the other. Now, how did these parties fared when they were in, let's say, little position of power? Were they able to make functioning difference in that little capacity?
After processing everything, I stood up, took my seat and joined the old men who are now laughing and regaling themselves with a new topic. I told them that I had come to answer the question of which party is better between the APC and PDP.
They were surprised and amused but asked me to go on. I told them it is just my humble opinion and I may be wrong but I strongly believe in it.
Uche Secondus, chairman of the PDP national working committee. Credit: Google
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I told them none of the party is better in the real sense of things. I said both are considered evil but the question should be, which is the better evil? I said APC, for all it cares can fight corruption till eternity, there will still be corruption, reduced or not. It can build all the rails it cares to build, still it will still be dogged with serious question marks because of (1) the people it accommodates and sanctified (2) the way the country is structured and (3) the pettiness and lack of foresight of some leaders.
I concluded to them that, however, the APC, being the ruling party, has the chance to be the better evil, if it does everything to holistically restructure Nigeria.
You know what, they nodded and ordered me another star lager and another plate of goat meat pepper soup. I declined the beer but accepted the goat meat pepper soup.
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Source: Naija.ng