PDP, 2015 AND THE BURDEN OF A CARRY OVER PAST (2)

By: Udeme Uyoata

Behind the festering sore of mass character murder of those who would have contributed immensely to advance the ship of State by building the dreamed commonwealth, what heinous damage have those, who conservatively believe and conceive themselves to be concretely entrenched in the power corridors not adopted to do criminal harm to otherwise perfect characters? What have they not achieved through tainted gossips on the so-called “loyalty” and “anti-government” insinuations?

What democratic advancement has the “Owo Esa” or “Owo this and that” syndrome added to our culture of democracy? To my mind, besides offering a setback to growth structure, it rather reveals the presence of quite a petty and insecure band of muckrakers, who daily spring up within the cultural depths of the party to continually target and destroy the innocent and creative; causing in the process, a collateral damage to progressive growth.

Still, for the party to meaningfully move, this negative culture must to every extent be discouraged, because as one would be aware, it is about time the party as an agent of growth and civilization, must take a definite step and stop those who do not really wish it to grow in a most positive, and formidably meaningful direction.

The party must do away with those who are traditionally out to derive material benefits and parochial satisfaction by maliciously working the political exclusion of those otherwise considered as huge political capital by the masses through a tactical or systematic disadvantaging of such class from stepping into the party to flush it of the ever increasing influence of otherwise cultural ambassadors pampered to mediocrity and destructive mendacity.

Actually, the socially disadvantaged, in terms of capacity intellectual assets are universally identified as causing the ever crippling undertow or undeserving drag in the mechanism of human progress. So, as the party has arrived at a point, it deserves a degree of elitism to drive its required face for the next level. And being very crucial to its life, the party should not fail to grasp this vital point except it is too self-conscious to do so.

But meaningfully speaking, the party must be knowledgeable of the fact that a likely future collapse of its growing entity and acclaimed popularity will come as a result of discontent with its internal processes and a lack of commitment to reflect what is essential. The blitzkrieg of the “broom revolution” in the last electioneering, should of course, act as a guide in point. The party must take responsibility now and realign for tomorrow.

Much as the party will become aligned to moving away from the bogey-men of opposite interest and practically step in to appreciate the reality that would confront it in its 2014 primaries, it must necessarily be seen as effectively strategizing and carefully ready to gauge the appropriate people’s interest and particularly work to justify such popular interest.

More to this, such commendable actions on the other hand, will afford the party the capacity to walk itself from suffering a damning crisis of public confidence to winning popular endorsement by simply effusing those appropriate and democratic methods which will present it as being very accountable to the people.

In a critical sense though, acting otherwise may save the party in the short term, but it won’t certainly serve the state and her people who may stand-up to demand for the better, the best in 2015. In such sense, it would certainly pay well to hearken to this warning.

If it were to be carefully observed, many absurdities are increasingly happening at every turn in the life of the party. And it is particularly necessary the party learns to look beyond concessionary interest and the self indulgence of some class of party men who would rather sink with an unstructured party than flow with an efficiently restructured one.

Part of this will involve stemming the misplaced arrogance of a self believed biggest party in Africa that is inflicted with a propensity to rule and by directing its strength and subscribed power in the interest of the majority – the masses.

So long as the denial of justice and the corruption of the political process, remains the single major bane of political development in this part of the world, its continuity in the discriminatory technique of evolving the required and necessary political leadership in every cadre of the State and national political life, will in the end constitute a grand failure of the system.

But for it to appear that the party is no further degrading the system, she must be seen as lividly living up to its purpose of providing and promoting good governance through a truly responsible and accountable system that would at all times produce and not ordain its set of political leaders.

In all parameters, and for fairness and a consolidation of purpose, it is really considered a time that the best of opportunities be given to those who can meaningfully take the party as an institution, and the State as an entity of people to the deserved and desired levels of governance.

If PDP were to learn to become a master of opportunities, by always looking for stellar political capital like Chief Ime Albert Akpan, most of the institutional issues militating against the party would have long been overcome.

As an essential of the way forward, the party as a crucial necessity must fall back on past experiences to know the right and most appropriate way to go. But in this direction, transparency and internal democracy among other democratic traditions should become treasured as the very corner stone of Peoples Democratic Party.

The party must devise plausible and effective solutions to everything that has made some of her candidates in the State very unpopular with the masses during election periods. It must unweight itself of the siege mentality and garrison command it has been content to grapple with since its founding thirteen years ago.

As PDP is deserving of a new expedition, it must definitely be ready to break new grounds much as it is considered an auspicious time to change the operational scheme and terms of Nigeria’s ruling but most criticized political party.

Part of this necessity arises that, among the Nigerian polity vis-à-vis Akwa Ibom State, there is always a possibility of the party improving on its conduct and content especially on issues of internal transparency that has always weighed it down. To many, a holistic subscription of a readiness to inject acceptable democratic standards, which practice is what is currently falling short of public expectations on the party, will go a long way to effectively rescue the fate of Africa’s biggest political party from defeat and self ruin.

As it has repeatedly been made obvious that what will really place PDP at the level it deserves in 2015 remains the issue of justice, this justice is the justice derived to two sets of the party faithful – the individual on the one part and whole sections of the polity on the other, as those who seem to have constantly feel alienated from the process of power.

Just as it has become necessary that PDP must transform in character before 2015 and by letting those who can perform come in and fly its respective mantles, it must categorically be also recognized along the party lines that Chief Ime Albert Akpan has paid his dues several times over and since the history of the rebirth of democracy. At some stages, these had come at the gross expense of the worst forms of injustices and humiliation meted out to a single individual at anytime by any system.

Having consistently remained a faithful and consummate party man in the State, his patience and adamant resolve, indicates that it is time he be singled out for service having painstakingly invested so much to win the confidence of his growing followers, over the workability of democracy for the common good of all.

In approaching the entire analysis of giving right to whom it is due, the party in its reasoning must not allow wisdom to flee because those characteristically obsessed with the charisma, accessibility, plain lucidity, ordinariness and the personable humility of Chief Ime Albert Akpan may never again allow themselves to be denied the opportunity of voting for his sterling vision and in such material victory, witness him convert his special abilities and power of public office to curbing the many social and economic challenges that have kept recurring as a common decimal which results from a large inability of many to give the needed drive and purposeful leadership in the face of elective representation benefiting those subjected to crass opportunistic influences.

Therefore, in pushing for 2015, let PDP be strongly reminded of the mistakes of her past and courageously move to jettison the hallmarks of an inequitable political order noted against the background of a future which presently prevails that Chief Ime Albert Akpan, be given a deserving place in its 2015 structure.

And as it rightly stands to logic and reason, this figure deserves to benefit same as PDP will earn so well by providing that democratic capacity to a man, whose function in the emerging politics of the State will guarantee the party some continuity in providing the required leadership for the State and her people.