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SUNDAY NARRATIVE: 2016 And Lean Politicking

By Alabi Williams
10 January 2016   |   2:50 am
I PREDICT that in the New Year, political activities will be low-keyed and that politicians will be very careful in the way they go about plying their trade.
Williams

Williams

I PREDICT that in the New Year, political activities will be low-keyed and that politicians will be very careful in the way they go about plying their trade. Those who used to be in the habit of being voluminous and excessive in their noisemaking would do themselves some good to keep benign. I also see a situation where Politicians will become more timid and their future aspirations subdued, because the body language of President Muhammadu Buhari does not admit too much of intra-party rascality.

Those, who before now, have earned for themselves labels, such as presidential materials or that they are kingmakers should take things easy for now, because there is a president in place. They may have been everything they claimed, but since they have surrendered their strength and resources to enthrone PMB, they should allow the man perform, so that they do not plot their own premature retirement.

But you would ask, what is democracy if politicians cannot freely express and mingle without inhibitions; and begin earnestly to plot their ways ahead of year 2019? Well, I think we are very much on course as far as democracy is concerned.

All the institutions of democracy are in place and thriving, except that this is Nigeria and we have our own brand. For example, a senator in Kaduna State, Shehu Sani has been suspended from participating in party activities, APC, for 11 months, because his governor, Nasir, el Rufai, see him as being too forward. Both the governor and senator love the klieg lights, they love to hug the media and neither wants to be outshined. Those who know say it’s all about 2019; so, the thing to do is use the instruments of the party to gain upper hand, which was what the governor did.

If he is able to keep the doors shut against Sani for that long, a lot would have happened in his absence, including his chances of either returning to the Senate or contesting the governorship primary. And that’s still democratic, isn’t it? See why the year could really be uncomfortable for those who are too eager, or overtly rambunctious. Better that we do not contemplate a replay of that Kaduna episode on the national scale.

Going by the political calendar, it seems too early to distract a government that has so much on its hands. Expectations of the people are very high and this is the time for all eyes to be on the ball. The ball is good governance and urgent delivery of campaign promises of the ruling party. The promises are legion and well documented in the social media by Nigerians who have become very active participants in the democratic process.

As time ticks, the people are counting. Very soon, it will be one year and it is better for APC to have something to show to the people, instead of externalizing their well-known rivalries. For that, I think it is in the interest of APC not to distract Buhari with fractious succession politics. They may leave that for mid-year 2017.

By tradition, an incumbent is given the privilege of first refusal. In 2015, age was not on Buhari’s side. With moderated breath Nigerians watched him do the arduous campaign rounds. When Buhari visited South Africa last year, he confessed that age was not really on his side. He wished he had been president earlier. By 2019, age would still not be on his side. But it is better not to add calculations of second term to his full plate at the moment. Such importunity could even be infuriating and frustrating.

It was former president Jonathan, who deftly parried questions about his political ambition and left his party members guessing. When he took over from late President Yar’Adua in 2010, Jonathan did not give a direct answer on what 2011 would be. He said any pronouncement from him would distract governance. A ‘yes’ would cause a misread of every activity of government, while a ‘no’ would throw the field open to all manner of shenanigan. He was right then. Countdown to 2015, Jonathan still did not know when to bell the cat; and that caused bedlam in his party, as some very ambitious governors desperately wanted to know what 2015 had in store for them.

They became fractious and set that party on the road to perdition. In the PDP, those who dared then are now comfortably quartered in prime locations in the ruling party. It is not clear yet if similar tactics could produce same or better result in their new party.

Another reason my crystal glass can’t pick too much of running around by politicians this year is the palpable, fiscal dryness in the polity. PMB’s enforcement of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), which policy had allegedly been in place for donkey years, but politicians in the past did not have the liver to implement, will render the playing field very harsh for players.

Political activism is a function of liquidity and lubrication; you do not play politics with empty hands. As we saw in 16 years of the PDP, and even in the Second Republic, the party in government is the dispenser of patronages. There are hundreds commissions, institutes, parastatals, federal agencies and boards, to which loyal party members have to be appointed. We are told the Federal Government will commence that process January ending.

Some party members are jostling for juicy jobs at the ports, oil and gas, academic institutions and the rest. Governors are angling to have nominees appointed, but we are told PMB is going to handle it the way he handled that of members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

Other APC partners would have loved to use such appointments to make money for the party. The president cannot claim not to know that persons and chieftains invested heavily to procure the votes that brought him to power. Details of the income and expenditure that brought the APC into office are yet to be discussed. We are waiting for them to finish that of the PDP before they open their own books.

Just to remind PMB that the way parties in government make money is by giving plum positions in money yielding agencies to trusted party faithful. Sometimes, rich agencies give contracts to party members and they will in turn return some money to the party, either at fundraising events or as election volunteers. But with the TSA, I don’t see how the APC will take care of its 2015 expenses, not to talk of making money to take care of future expeditions.

The point is especially instructive now, when members of the PDP who allegedly shared money from the Federation Account to prosecute their 2015 campaigns are now being invited to render account.

Apart from the sense of retribution that is engendered in this hunt for campaign funds (I remove the witch from hunt), which seems very appealing to the APC, I am more enthralled by its inadvertent advantage of sanitising the party system in the long term. If PMB is really serious in this hot-chase for stolen funds, by the time he is done with it, it could help to sanitise the parties and make them creative and sensible in money making. This idea of just going to pick monies, which were actually not invested in the 2015 elections, to me is most unfair, apart from the financial crime arm of it. If all these huge sums were actually used for the elections, perhaps, poor Jonathan could have narrowed his losses.

The point not to miss in this narrative is that in 2016, all those that will be appointed into juicy offices by the APC cannot operate in the business as usual template. TSA will not allow them to vire monies the way it used to be done, or award frivolous contracts to party members. Sincerely, we are waiting to see how the APC will do it and we are going to encourage them.

Then, we are also into a season of allegiances. All those who partnered with Buhari to make 2015 the huge success it was, have all pledged their allegiances. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, are foremost among APC members who can make2016 quake with political activism. But they have announced their unalloyed support for Buhari and put on hold further political calculations. No more nocturnal meetings, either in Dubai or in covens at Asokoro. Only prayers for Buhari to succeed first; 2019 will take care of itself.
The PDP is bloodied and will only rant in 2016. As for others who are stubborn and refuse to believe my prediction for the year; let EFCC, DSS and CBN teach them hard lessons.

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