The Grotesquely Contorted Face Of Democracy In Kaduna State
The Oasis Reporters
February 28, 2018
Curled from President Buhari’s speech to participants at the All Progressive Congress, APC NEC meeting in Abuja on 27 February 2018 are the following ” It is perhaps inevitable that there will be differences of opinion within the Party. If we didn’t have differences, we wouldn’t be a genuinely democratic Party “.
From these words all those who view contrary views particularly within the framework of the Party and seek to exterminate those dissenters must now know that their views on how democracy works is largely jaundiced particularly the political rascals in Kaduna State.
For all I know, there can be no democracy without a credible opposition. In Kaduna State, the only opposition is within the APC itself. The PDP is still so shell-shocked after the beating received in 2015 that it can barely speak and is rather content waiting for the demise of the APC in Kaduna State and Nigeria by extension so that the vultures can have a good meal of the tendons and other tiny pieces of flesh buried deep within bones.
Given what is happening to governance in the State, one would have expected a true opposition party to be more involved in challenging the decisions of the government. If the policies and programmes of government are pro people, then there will be no need for bickering even by the opposition.
Kaduna State made the greatest mistake of voting a political neophyte to power who is so puffed up about his knowledge and therefore sees all else as nonentities. This viewpoint is at the core of the schism within the APC in Kaduna State. The moment anyone holds a view that is contrary to what the State governor turned dictator holds, such becomes marked for liquidation in one form or the other.
This is the strategy that has been playing out since the Mallam was sworn into office. He has played the role of a political bully and as eminently postulated by Al Qaeda’s military strategist In Chief, Alman Al Zawahiri, “All bullies behave the same way, they over react even when pricked with a needle”.
Did we not see this play out after the attack on the World Trade Center and a section of the Pentagon on September 11?
As a sequel, did we not withness the invasion of Iraq and the rise of the Islamic State?
Where is the place of the policy of pulling down the homes of political opponents or the targetting of their businesses as is currently happening in Kaduna?
Sometime last year, the home of the Chairman of the Northwest APC was so viciously pulled down because there was a minor disagreement, similarly and just a little over a week ago, a property at No 11b Sambo Road housing the parallel State APC headquarters was pulled down on the orders of the emperor. The incident prompted the despatch of a fact finding team which visited Kaduna to see for themselves. On Sunday February 25, the team arrived Kaduna and did visit the ruins of the demolished APC headquarter building at 11b Sambo Road and were conducted round. This was in an effort to heal and reconcile the parties to the disagreement when the Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu committee arrives.
On February 27, 2018 as the APC NEC was in sessions in not far away Abuja, as if to blunt the reconciliation efforts initiated by the President, the dictator of Kaduna State had directed the bulldozing of what was left standing of No 11b Sambo Road.
How is this to be interpreted if not spiteful if the President himself, everyone else and most importantly democracy not only in Kaduna State but the country as a whole.
Where will this naked arrogance take us and our democracy? It is far past time that something was done and urgently in Kaduna State in the face of this madness if the slide towards anarchy is to be averted.
Elections are due to be held to fill vacant positions within the APC in the State as well as in preparation for the general election next year.
Will such elections hold in the face of such intimidation and threats as witnessed in Kaduna State? We the electorate will remain calm in the face of such provocation and intimidation to see what will accrue from the mediation effort of the Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu Committee.
Written by Gora Dauda.
