SONALA OLUMHENSE FROM PUNCH
Last week, I opened my case for Nigerians not to vote for the All Progressives Congress this year. I refer to Nigerians who are led by reason, not sentiment; by the facts, not conjecture; by logic, not hot air; by self-respect, not idol worship.
Such a Nigerian, wherever he may be, is a witness to the perfidy of the APC brand in the last eight years. This betrayal has been so comprehensive that were APC a product, such as a food item or a medication, it would have since been banned by National Agency For Food and Drug Administration and Control and its manufacturer prosecuted.
Remember: this was itself the nature of the Peoples Democratic Party between 1999 and 2014, and I labelled that party the Profoundly Decadent Party. In 2015, in the belief that APC would be superior, I joined the clamor to ensure that PDP was jettisoned from control. It was.
Among other summaries of the situation as he advertised his presidential candidature, APC’s Muhammadu Buhari swore that the party would end corruption in the country, provide Nigeria and manage the country efficiently.
“We will stop corruption and make the ordinary people, the weak and the vulnerable our top priority,” he declared.
It was false advertising, part of the ridiculous practice where the leader of the federal executive branch, lacking laudable projects of his own, is forever running to the states to celebrate minor achievements.
Two months ago, such false advertising was flagged by Edo Governor Godwin Obaseki, himself of APC (now of the PDP), when he warned that Nigerians are poor because of the bad policies and decisions of its leaders. Only last week, the Arewa Renewal Forum offered the same explanation for the high poverty rate in northern Nigeria.
Think about it: what is one to learn from the swearing by APC that it would prioritise the ordinary people, the weak and the vulnerable” only for Nigeria to become the poverty capital of the world in his hands and continue to run out of control?
Perhaps it is no surprise then, that APC has emerged as a peculiar animal. Remember 2016, when Governor Nasir E-Rufai of Kaduna State penned a famous memo to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) in which he warned that the president was losing both the mission and the momentum.
Curiously, last week, El-Rufai also publicly criticised the decision of the Buhari administration to redesign the Naira and mop it up in a very short period, saying the measures could ignite voter rejection of APC in the presidential election. APC presidential candidate Bola Tinubu has himself said that those decisions were part of a plan to scuttle the election.
In the same interest, Governor el-Rufai faulted the Buhari administration for failing to remove the infamous petroleum subsidy and restructure the country, describing those policies as being inconsistent with the APC manifesto.
He blamed the developing fiasco on naysaying “elements” within the presidency. “The people in the villa—most of them are not (members of our party)…I believe there are elements within the villa that want us to lose the elections because they did not get their way. They have their candidate, but their candidate did not win the primaries.”
And yet this ramshackle chaos of a party, which has proved to be gargantuan in words but derelict in capacity and competence, wants to continue to rule Nigeria?
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