The All Progressives Congress (APC) has finally applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for registration. This marks the attainment of a high degree of preparation for contesting the 2015 election. Hopefully, with that move and the consequent INEC decision, the controversy over which is the real APC would be resolved and a higher gear engaged by the political association.
By this, I am not being simplistic. I am not unaware that issues could always crop up requiring attention and impeding movement. But, it is my contention that registration represents only one real hurdle: fulfilling the legal requirement. The party has already done what is expected of it at this stage. It has painstakingly gone through the process of agreeing on a name, a logo and flag. The issue of officers and how they are to be picked has, also, been presumably settled. The ball is now in INEC’s court to prove if it is indeed an extension of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. Thereafter, the matter could be tackled.
However, the registration hurdle is the lowest. The real hurdles are political. The requirements to make APC a potent political force and an alternative to the PDP are legion and more difficult to handle. It pushes the political association (that is what it is until it is formally registered) to a terrain laced with landmines.
First, it is faced with the challenge of bonding with the people. The only concrete antidote to rigging and manipulations by the dominant ruling party is obtaining the confidence of the people. It is not a feat to be attained overnight in a country where cynicism is a religion. Many, and there is merit in the argument, believe that there is little to distinguish one set of politicians from another. After all, many of those in the APC have traversed the entire party corridor. Many were pioneer members of the ruling party and only left when handed the short end of the stick. It is an uphill task convincing the electorate that the APC is any different.
Second, the people need assurance that the APC stands a ghost of a chance to displace the PDP. Otherwise, some of those who may be sympathetic to its cause could decide to be apathetic to the process. All that the PDP strategists have to do is drum up the message that the party controls the federal executive, the federal legislature, 23 of the state governments and more than two-thirds of the local government councils and put up a nice argument that no other party could possible stand the PDP might in the run up to 2015. Again, it is left for the APC captains to prove that the battle is not for the mighty and there have been cases when such giants fell; if not in this clime in others around us.
Third, there is one question to be answered: is there a real difference between APC and PDP? This can only be answered in action. The campaign must be shifted to issues. Up till now, save regular rancor and acrimony, no one knows what the PDP stands for. Its governments cannot be held to anything. This is the common feature of the current party system. The APC needs to toe the line of the Action Group and Northern Elements Progressive Union in the period leading to independence. Both canvassed support based on a social ideology that located the people, the governed at the heart of policy. The AG that was reputed as the best organized in Africa had a policy paper on every issue. When it was coming up with the free education programme in 1955, Chief Adekunle Ajasin, Dr. Awosika and Professor Sanya Onabamiro and others had to work to produce a blueprint with the tiniest of details. It had similar policy frameworks on the Justice, economic, agriculture, industrial and health sectors, among others. The Unity Party of Nigeria built on that in the Second Republic with the famous four cardinal principles. This is a difficult but inescapable precedence for the APC.
Fourth, the cost of maintaining a solid structure required by a mass party must be staggering and enormous. But it is the only road to travel. The branches, chapters and cells of the APC must be visible and working. Its federal and state organs must function and the impression must not be given that it is owned and run by one or a few oligarchs.
One responsibility that the aspiring party can take up immediately is exposing the hollowness of the PDP government. Its men must take up the party on major issues of the day. Alhaji Lai Mohammed of the ACN has been doing a lot for the party, so has Rotimi Fashakin of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), but this is not substitute for structured responses and expert analysis. At best, the public sees Mohammed’s and Fashakin’s views as partisan responses, not detailed analysis on social issues.
On national development, where does the APC government stand? On federalism and restructuring, would an APC government convoke a national conference- within what period? Would an APC government introduce free education or insist that qualitative education must cost parents money? How would education be funded? What about scholarship schemes? What about state police? These are issues that the people deserve to know and should know.
The APC stands at a vantage point now. This is a unique opportunity to arrest the rudderless and inept leadership of the country. But the party needs to assure us that it is dependable and the future of the country could be entrusted to it.
Otherwise, the search has to continue.
