By Oguwike Nwachuku
On Monday, May 29, Nigerians were treated to the usual pomp and circumstance at the headquarters of the party in power across the country in celebration of the so-called return to democracy. We call it Democracy Day.
For 16 years, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), now in the opposition, boasted to be Nigeria’s political behemoth and largest party in Africa and marked May 29 with gait and relish that made for it as many friends as enemies.
PDP members said gleefully that it was their turn. Anyone not sold on their style, flamboyant of course, was taunted to join the “winning PDP” train or wait for their own turn.
That was the lot of Nigerians during those years. It was part of the democracy dividends showered PDP leaders who created fun for themselves promoting the (in)famous return to democracy – Democracy Day.
However, while they were distracting everybody with their return to democracy mantra, a few right thinking persons knew that rather than return to democracy, May 29 only represents a return to civil rule because not much has changed, properly speaking, from 1999 to date.
And as we have witnessed since May 29, 2015 when the All Progressive Congress (APC) captured Aso Rock, the same modus operandi – an attempt by politicians to use May 29 to rub it in on Nigerians that they are now in charge – has remained.
Monday, May 29, 2017 was once more the turn of the APC to continue the chest-beating over non existing achievements, the trade mark of politicians in this era of democratic governance.
Last year, the APC did it and asked for the support and continued cooperation of Nigerians, claiming to have just taken over the reins of power.
The APC pledged to get Nigerians out of the economic, social and political woes the PDP left the country in, or in the new political lexicon, to “fix the mess the PDP left behind.”
Two years down the road, Nigerians are still looking up to the APC with the Midas touch to deal with those problems.
The party had created the impression that it did not see the heap of challenges dotting the nooks and crannies of the country before setting an agenda for itself.
Since 2000, politicians of all hues have celebrated May 29 not to take stock of their activities in the spirit of accountability to the electorate who should be the reason for their being in power in the first place.
May 29 ought to be for stock taking where politicians showcase their achievements with a view to returning all political campaign promises from the mismanaged trajectory to their right track.
But, as we know, May 29 this year was hardly an attempt for them to revisit the drawing board of their bogus electioneering promises, as their preoccupation with plots for the coming election would not permit that.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced the timetable for the 2019 general election. Governance across the country is effectively put on hold for politicking.
And that is why nothing spectacular happens, or will happen. We saw that during the heyday of the PDP, and I doubt if we will not continue to experience the same under the APC whose leaders embrace propaganda as the most potent tool to sell its manifesto.
May 29 has become a ritual. That is why the APC marked it this year. It is not because any tangible achievement has taken place since the party climbed the highest deck of the country’s ship of state two years ago.
The same ritual was exactly what Nigerians experienced on Monday, May 29, 2017 when the shakers and movers of the APC, at national, state and local government levels, gathered to mark the clichéd return to democracy day.
Two years into Muhammadu Buhari’s four-year tenure, his aides think it is too early to assess his performance.
Presidential Media and Publicity Adviser, Femi Adesina – in the presence of Media and Publicity Assistant, Garba Shehu, and Vice Presidential Media and Publicity Assistant, Laolu Akande – said so.
Adesina’s words: “You cannot write the report card of this administration in two years. The mandate is four years and it is too early in the day. You don’t reach definite term in the mid-term.
“We will have a lot more to fulfil. If anybody tells you the APC has failed, tell them it’s too early in the day, we still have two years, it’s a four year term.”
As far as Adesina and his colleagues minding the image of the president are concerned, to judge Buhari when he still has two more years in office would be the most unpatriotic thing anyone can do.
Do they realise that election is two years away?
Where are the benefits for Nigerians after two years of supporting and cooperating with the APC which it asked for last year?
For how long will Nigerians continue to support and cooperate with the APC without anything tangible to show for it and, instead, are being ravaged by recession, some say depression?
Does it bother APC leaders that in some parts of the country where the party is in charge the electorate are burning their umbrella, cursing, binding, and casting out the demons that have made it impossible for the APC to perform, and pouring libation for the tenure of this administration to end so that they will experience a new beginning?
If the APC shied away from telling Nigerians the direction it was headed after 100 days in office, which probably dragged six months, one year, 18 months, and today two years, does it not mean, therefore, that May 29 is another ritual and jamboree where the public will look more and see less?
Why then did the party promise Nigerians that it would hit the ground running after winning the election? Or has the Nigerian ground become extinct that there is no more ground to run on?
For God’s sake, Nigerians are simply yearning for low hanging fruits they can pick two years after, while looking forward to the full benefit of supporting and cooperating with the APC when the administration would have run its full course in May 2019.
How else can one imagine the lack of democratic dividends in Nigeria today better than the assessment of my Indian friend who said during a recent visit that he has so much pity for Nigerian youths who eke out a living by operating okada (motorcycle taxi).
Much as it sounds incredible that youth unemployment is over 20 per cent, the point remains that were leaders cut out to lead well, most of the challenges militating against the realisation of the full potentials of the youth would have been taken care of.
Going by the huge sums recovered from looted public funds (which may have been re-looted by now), does anyone still doubt why infrastructure development remains in the back burner?
Where on earth has a country spent the trillions of naira Nigeria has spent on power supply since the return of democracy in 1999 and yet generate darkness?
How many of our political leaders tell our youths to show them parcels of land where they can grow cash crops instead of buying them motorbikes in the name of poverty alleviation?
May 29 is what it is – another loud sounding nothing, signifying disservice to the country by the leaders. It clearly unveils the few who benefit from the charade due to their conspiracy of silence to the yearnings of the people.
The only hope on the horizon, if Nigerians resolve to practise democracy, is to take note of all the politicians who have caused them so much hardship since 1999 and ensure none of them – repeat, none – gets the opportunity to lead them again.
That way, voters would have celebrated Democracy Day the way it should be.