Welcome on board, APC

The eventual registration of the All Progressive Congress (APC) is a welcome development. By this exercise, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has lived above petty and parochial considerations, overcome the likely temptation of trying to please the ruling party, and thus created an environment that would enhance the deepening of democracy, provide healthy political competition, and offer Nigeria’s electorate credible alternatives.

Given the allegations and counter allegations that trailed INEC during the process of registration, many would have thought that the electoral umpire would have gone petty by denying the association its well-deserved registration. First, we commend the electoral commission for the registration which has further widened the political space. Second, the Federal Government under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Presidency in particular also deserve commendation for the maturity exhibited during the processes leading to the registration. We recall all the slanging matches occasioned by allegations of meddlesomeness in the INEC activities towards the APC registration. We are indeed satisfied with the stand-aloof posture of Federal government in the exercise.

We are inclined to believe that the APC registration is perhaps, the most eloquent testimony of the claims of openness, transparency, honesty, tolerance and political liberalism by the present administration.

Having said so, we need state emphatically that nothing less is expected from both the INEC and a central government in a democratic dispensation.

The APC is joining the fray with 11 states, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) controls 23, with All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and Labour Party controlling one party apiece

Now that the mega party has been registered, much is expected of it. APC must begin to refrain from utterances that are capable of heating up the polity, or creating apprehension in the minds of the Nigerian people. In this regard, we condemn the penchant for chieftains of the party to wash the country’s dirty linen abroad as was the case before the registration.  APC leaders must, as elder statesmen, henceforth, show maturity and patriotism. It is counter-productive to destroy one’s nation in the guise of building it.

To provide the suitable alternative which it trumpets, the APC must guard against the threat of un-healthy leadership rivalry within its ranks. There is a perception that the party is an amalgam of strange bedfellows who are in this inconvenient ‘marriage’ for personal aggrandisement. It has also been alleged that there is a discord among its leaders who are seen to only share mutual comfort in their dislike for the PDP. This is the time to disprove, or confirm, such uncomplimentary perceptions.  The new political platform should only be a tool towards achieving national development.

The party must also jettison any trappings of dictatorship but imbibe in all ramifications the tenets of democracy in directing its internal affairs.

APC, from the outset can leverage on the outpouring of emotions and enthusiasm that greeted its registration. These favourable emotions, we believe, represent an increasing doubt on the direction of the ruling party and its capacity to properly deliver the dividends of democracy to Nigerians.

This is the time for the new party to sit down and plan how to go about the redemptive mission it claims is at the core of its decision to seek power. APC must realise that its major task is not fighting the ruling party, but to put in motion effective and efficient machinery that will engender good governance in the country.

It is our belief that with the right political machinery and calculations, clear national redemption and development vision, and the necessary political behavior that can convince the Nigerian voting public of the seriousness of APC, the party may be on its way to electoral victories in 2015.