By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Because of the fragility of national emotions right now and the thinness of political skins, I will enter a caveat from the onset. I am not using the word idiot here in the literary sense but in the context it was used by ancient Greek philosophers to connote self-centredness and abysmal lack of emotional intelligence and public philosophy that contribute to the greater good.
I will come back to that shortly.
Prof. Wole Soyinka once described the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a “nest of killers.” That was at the height of PDP’s power when former President Olusegun Obasanjo held sway and prominent political personalities were routinely murdered.
Many, including the Nobel laureate, construed those killings, rightly or wrongly, as politically motivated. He was particularly incensed after the brutal murder of his childhood friend, Chief Bola Ige, who, as the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, was the country’s chief law officer.
Soyinka is yet to put a sticky tag on the All Progressives Congress (APC), a political party he helped catapult to power in 2015, although he seems to have put some distance between him and party’s alter-ego, President Muhammadu Buhari, in recent times.
In 2017, I argued that if the PDP was a nest of killers, then the APC was at best a nest of liars.
“The party like the swashbuckling United States President, Donald Trump, came to power by serving the people cocktails of lies, and it has sustained itself in office for 21 months by upping the ante, feeding the people more egregious lies,” I wrote then.
I concluded that such tendency should be expected of a political party of APC’s inclination because, “Unlike truth that stands on the parapet of facts, realities and evidence, and therefore needs no further propping, lies stand on nothing. And because lies stand on nothing, for sustainability, they must be hoisted on an effigy of more invidious lies.”
That has been the story of the APC since it happened on the political space six years ago. Its high priests take pride in worshipping at the altar of mendacity.”
But beyond the intrigues, chicanery and outright whoopla, APC in the last five years has demonstrated another uncanny capacity. It has become a nest of idiots and tribesmen. As defined by the ancient Greeks, founders of modern civilization, there are three kinds of people in any society – the idiots, tribesmen and citizens.
The idiots, who are by no means fools or mentally deficient, the Greeks elucidated, are utterly selfish, always out for personal gain, and do not have any public philosophy. They are all out for personal pleasures and treasures. The idiots, the Greeks insisted, are just upgraded barbarians who look for personal gain and self-interest in everything that they do, lacking in public philosophy, knowledge and skills that contribute to the greater good.
And like the idiots who are not necessarily fools, the Greeks expounded that the idea of tribesmen does not necessarily mean belonging to a certain tribe, which in itself is not bad, but having skewed mentality.
The tribesmen are those not able to think beyond their tribes and ethnic groups. For them, the ultimate allegiance is to their tribe. The only people they know and can trust are their tribesmen. They are always suspicious of the motives of others and deal with different people and difficult situations with intimidation, force and violence.
Unfortunately, these are the two categories of people who presently populate the APC when Nigeria needs citizens
In a lecture titled, “Of leaders, the idiots, tribesmen and citizens” to mark the 15th anniversary of Bridge House College in July 2019, Mr. Austen Okere, founder and executive vice chairman, Computer Warehouse Group Plc., beautifully captured the idea of citizens as espoused by the Greeks.
As it is with the other two words, citizen, in this context, does not refer to the legal or political status of a person but embodies the very idea and ideals of citizenship.
“The citizen according to the Greeks is someone who has the skills and the knowledge to live a public life, who is able to live a life of civility,” Okere wrote.
“The citizen recognises that he or she is a member of a commonwealth and thus strives for the common good.”
He knows his right as well as responsibility to society. The citizen can fight for his right but always with an awareness of, and with the respect for the rights and interest of others.
If APC leaders make a conscious decision today to be citizens in the true sense of the word, rather than being at worst idiots living only for themselves or at best tribesmen unable to think beyond their tribal affiliations, Nigeria’s developmental curve will be dramatically different from what it has been in the last five years.
Democracy, rule of law and peace recede in any society led by idiots and tribesmen rather than citizens because common good is an anathema. Idiots and tribesmen in power are motivated by greed and elephantine ego.
As the entire global community battles a deadly pandemic and the catastrophic downward economic spiral it has engendered, Nigeria, which at the best of times is a socio-economic mess, is asphyxiating politically with the knee of an idiotic and tribal elite on its neck.
Today, APC, a party that produced the president and has majority in the two chambers of the National Assembly, is in a mess because its leaders have refused to become citizens, preferring instead to be idiots and tribesmen. And they have infested Nigeria with the deadly virus just because of a standalone governorship alone in Edo State.
The consequence is that today, Nigeria is tottering on the democratic cliff because of the inability of those who call themselves leaders to answer to a higher, ennobling call of common good.
As you read this, there are well over 37 cases in court, instituted by APC members against the party, its leadership and individuals.
A party that adorns itself with the tag of progressivism is yet to inaugurate its Board of Trustees (BOT), the organ that ought to be its conscience, five years after it was constituted.
Article 25(B)(i) of the APC Constitution (2014 as amended) states; “The National Executive Committee shall meet every quarter and or at any time decided by the National Chairman or at the request made in writing by at least two-thirds of the members of the National Executive Committee provided that not less than fourteen days’ notice is given for the meeting to be summoned.” This article has been serially observed in the breach.
Of course, these breaches raise a fundamental question. How can a political party that wilfully violates its own laws, rules and regulations, where civil discourse is an anathema, run an egalitarian society?
Last week, the party’s dance of shame spiraled out of control after the Court of Appeal affirmed the suspension of the National Chairman, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole, by his ward in Edo State, and stripped him of his duties and privileges.
His suspension was the fallout of the crisis of confidence between him and Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, which culminated in the governor’s disqualification from the party’s governorship primary election and his defection to the PDP.
Almost immediately, a bitter power-grab ensued among contending tendencies in the party, leading to the emergence of three acting chairmen – Senator Abiola Ajimobi, Victor Giadom and Hilliard Eta – within 24 hours of Oshiomhole’s suspension and police briefly took over the national headquarters in Abuja.
The battle grounds have since expanded with Lagos, Rivers and Ekiti states also becoming epicentres. It is a proxy war for 2023 where the gladiators take no prisoners.
On Wednesday, the hitherto absentee leader of the party, President Muhammadu Buhari, finally waded into the crisis by endorsing Giadom as the “legal” acting chairman and thereby throwing Oshiomhole under the crushing wheels of the APC locomotive.
Maybe, the Giadom-declared and Buhari-endorsed virtual NEC meeting will hold on Thursday, June 25, but anyone who thinks that it will signal the beginning of the end of the APC crisis does not know the party and the philosophy of the idiots and tribes people who run it.
In a country convulsed by insecurity, extreme poverty and a debilitated economy, it would have been great if this was all about good governance and the promotion of common good.
If there is ever a time Nigeria needs citizens as leaders, it is now. But expecting such from a nest of idiots is an illusion.