The APC Is Losing The Plot By Jude Egbas

Images of leaders of the newly registered All Progressives Congress (APC) smiling sheepishly and fawning at the feet of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) last week, should be seen for what they were: A Public Relations gaffe and a Branding mis-step.


Those pictures may return to haunt the new party but I can understand why they all filed to the hill-top mansion of IBB last week:

1) For all his obvious failings, IBB still commands a cult-like following in the North of Nigeria and is often feted by an army of his people–the same persons he helped impoverish with one inhumane policy after another while he was Nigeria’s President.

2) The APC is desperately trying to shed the toga of a ‘Yoruba Party’ and broaden its appeal across Nigeria. To be seen as a National political party worth the description, the APC strategists have arrived at the decision of wooing as many past and present political party bigwigs, no matter how tainted they are. It also helps if those political bigwigs are PDP rejects. The APC’s immediate goal is to field a candidate of Northern extraction who will give President Jonathan a run for his money in 2015 and prevent his inroad into a manic northern voter base. Courting the likes of IBB and Abubakar with Buhari leading the ‘courting process’, fits snugly into that game plan.

3) Nigeria doesn’t practice a truly representaive democracy yet. A mostly semi illiterate voting population often does the bidding of a ‘big man’ in the community who dispenses favor in the form of Rice and Indomie noodles ahead of voting; amidst feral shouts of ‘ranka dede’ from starving minions. An IBB or an Abdusalami Abubakar will only need to wave their hands this way or that to ask thousands of people to vote against their own consciences or task them to ‘rig’ for the ‘party’.

The reasons highlighted above may have played heavily on the minds of the APC leaders as they trudged to Minna against their better judgment. It was smart politics from a third world point of view but it was rudimentary and asinine politics from a party that rode into the scene with a promise to do things differently and rejig a political landscape bereft of ideologies. It was deceptive politics from a political party that waltzed into the scene with a promise to make young Nigerians a major plank of its structure and foundation. It was atavistic thinking from a party that has been telling everyone who cares to listen that it is the new cool in town–a break from the norm where politics (in Nigeria) has often been run along the lines of what Nigerian born Canadian Professor, Pius Adesanmi, calls the ‘elite paradigm’.

A few months ago, I listened to my friend, Rinsola Abiola, sell the APC to younger Nigerians on National Television. A young Nigerian who obviously believes in the party, Ms Abiola was a study in sound articulation and eloquence; her cadence parting the sea of unbelief amongst young and first time voters who had tuned in. “This is your party”, Ms Abiola told young Nigerians, “take ownership of the Party and flock to register when the party opens its registration platforms nationwide”. This was how the APC arrived our consciousness—a political party of the market woman, the farmer and the poor student. Until last week, that had been the APC’s strongest selling point for the un-initiated.

Three months on, the APC is beginning to look like its forebears: Political Parties where the people who vote are not factored into the decision making processes and are not courted or sold manifestoes before polling. By visiting a former President who contributed in no small way to the mess this country presently finds itself as cameras clicked and rolled, the APC was doing ample damage to its perception among a sea of young people who may well turn out the most significant voting demographic with the general elections looming in the horizon.

It may well have been a “harmless solidarity visit” as a few ‘voltrons’ of the party would have us believe, but images of the APC leaders courting the proletariat or flocking student campuses to sell their ideology may end up a smarter move than hoping that the likes of IBB would wave magic wands or help ‘rig’ elections the party’s way in the future.

What the APC needs is an army of young people or ordinary Nigerians taking its gospel of “new politics” to the far reaches of the country. What the APC needs is empowering the poor to vote wisely and defend their votes against the elite and their machinations. If the APC intends to hand power back to the people from whence it was stolen, this is exactly what it should be doing differently. The party could even afford to look beyond the next elections and begin to forge a formidable movement across the country from the ground up. It may sound very quixotic, but successful parties the world over have trod this path.

On the surface and as it stands, the APC looks like a poor imitation of the much derided and lampooned ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It appears like the more things change, the more they have remained the same. It appears like we have been sold a dummy. It appears like we are stuck in a rut. As Nigeria’s second biggest political party, forgive us if we were hoping for an unlikely miracle from Bourdillon.

This is not the same APC medication the Doctors recommended.