APC, A Pill Nigerians Must Swallow By Lauretta Onochie

Many years ago, before the advent
of Paracetamol, APC was the
medicine for headache, stomachache
and indeed, all aches and pains.
Today Nigeria has a headache, a
bellyache and all known and
unknown aches a d pains. The good
news is that we know the cause of
most of these aches. Diagnosis?
Corruption and the poor leadership
of the PDP! But it looks like the
good old tablet, APC is back in
Nigeria; not in chemists and
pharmacies, but as a political
conglomeration that promises to
heal Nigeria of many of her aches
and pains, commonly known as PDP
wahala. It is the ALL PROGRESSIVES
CONGRESS (APC).
Hear them, “We resolve to form a
political party committed to the
principles of internal democracy,
focused on serious issues of
concern to OUR PEOPLE, determined
to bring corruption and insecurity to
an end, determined to grow our
economy and create jobs in their
millions through education, housing,
agriculture, industrial growth etc,
and stop the increasing mood of
despair and hopelessness among
OUR PEOPLE.” In one short
sentence, they used ‘Our people’
twice… Yet, Nigerians are sceptical
about APC and their real intentions.
Nigeria is a nation where different
groups of people in leadership have
come to promise us heaven on
earth, only to turn around to confine
us to hell by impoverishing us the
more. The present reality is the
Peoples Democratic Party PDP.
These people, since 1999, have
made millionaires out of their
immediate families and friends. That
has also changed. They began to
make billionaires out of their cronies
and now, we are at a stage where
many suspect that there might be
more Dollars in Nigeria than in
America as they continue to make
‘Dollarnaires’ out of their close
associates.
Nigerians have met disappointments
at every turn of their recent political
history. Where we have been
promised bread, we got stones and
where we were promised soup,
sludge was forced down our throats.
Its all too recent and still raw as we
all are now choking from air
pollution, not only from the fumes
from our electric-generating sets but
from the corrosive materials in the
breathe of fresh air we were
promised by the current ruling party
and its arrowhead of corruption, Dr.
Goodluck Jonathan.
We, as a people have come to the
stage where we lost all hopes in our
leaders and consequently, in our
nation. They have cheated us out of
our national inheritance. They have
run down our national
infrastructures and left them in their
dilapidated states. Examples are our
roads and hospitals. They have,
through their greed reduced our life
expectancies to 47 and 45
respectively for men and women.
They have made us look small
among the comity of nations. We
have become a people who are no
longer warmly welcomed to other
nations. Close to home, some
African nations have been brave to
voice the fact that we are bad news.
Our leaders have become the butt of
jokes as they go around the globe
parading ignorance.
The Nigerian print and electronic
media mostly became instruments
of misinformation for peddling lies,
innuendoes, gossips and
propaganda in favour of those who
use our collective wealth to
suppress the truth. And then the
Social Media emerged! Subdued
Nigerians found a live wire. Many
began joining the social network
such as Twitter and Facebook. Some
went in with their body, soul and
spirit. Others went in slowly and
cautiously. And then, it exploded!
Nigerians threw caution to the wind,
taking the bull by the horn. They
went for the jugular, chocking the
day light out of the present inept,
corrupt and clueless government of
President Jonathan. Nigerians on
the Social media used it to their
maximum benefit, exposing the
corruption, ineptitude, incompetence
and the waste that were and are still
the hallmark of this sick
government.
But this government, this sick
government of President Jonathan
still refuses medication. It struggles
on, refusing to see that the people
they asked to serve needed to be
served. This sick government that
refused to take all prescribed
medications devised means of
avoiding contact with Nigerians for
fear of being lynched by angry
Nigerians. Private jets became the
new means of mass transit for our
corrupt leaders and their friends,
along with their religious associates.
Nigeria’s Independent celebration
events which we looked forward to
as children in Nigeria, became a
private affair. Children in our nation
have not been given the opportunity,
even on children’s day to interact
with the man who decides on their
behalf.
The new found confidence of
Nigerians, armed with the deluge of
authenticated data on the corrupt
activities of the present
administration of President
Jonathan, gave wings to the
courageous showings of the
#OccupyNigeria Movement a year
ago. That became the first arrow
shot in recent times by the Nigerian
people at their ignoble leaders to
put them on notice that it would no
longer be business as usual. A lot
more corruption has been unearthed
and exposed since then and all we
hear from them are denials, denials
and more denials. The complicity of
our National assembly is not in
doubt neither is the collusion of our
judiciary. It is common knowledge
that people, (yes they are Nigerians),
are eager to keep the Boko Haram
crises going because of the huge
gains from the unaccountable
security votes for that region.
“Vampires” I call them. Those who
flourish and bask in the blood of
others are called vampires.
Nigerians, ordinary Nigerians are
therefore left to their own devices as
unemployment soars. Lynching
popularly known as jungle-justice
and mass raping have become
popular in a nation that has lost her
morals and community spirit.
Campus prostitution, armed robbery,
kidnapping, human-trafficking fraud
and scamming etc are now ways of
earning a living in a nation blessed
with huge natural a d human
resources.
Therefore, I must say that I clearly
understand the apathy, suspicion,
scepticism and distrust with which
some of us view APC, the soup-pot
or what some of us call a collection
of strange bed-fellows. After all,
some of these apothecaries who
prepared this APC, have been in the
forefront of the Nigerian politics for
decades and have not been part of
the solution, to say the least.
However, we must look beyond the
people who are the principal players
in APC now. If one was drowning,
and someone threw him a life line,
he would grab it and ask questions
later about the identity of the life
saver. Our nation is sinking. We
have no time to dilly-dally. Our
problem had been that we did not
have a united opposition in our
nation that was proactive. Now we
do. One has presented itself.
A party like this APC is what many
of us have been campaigning for.
There is no way we are going to
have an opposition that is led by
people we do not know. Nigerians
and indeed the world, are
predisposed to starting from the
known to the unknown. Many
people may not know how tediously
many of our well meaning youth
have worked to build a solid
opposition, but were not taken
seriously because they are not
known. This is a chance Nigerians
must take with both hands and
firmly plant their feet on. APC is
made up of the known at the present
but unless we all join at this its
inception, the unknown would
remain in the background.
I therefore, appeal to Nigerians,
especially our youth population, to
join, no, to invade this APC. Its only
when we are in that we can have a
say from the beginning and make
the necessary changes like standing
against god-fatherism, mediocrity,
tribalism, nepotism and other vices.
Once we allow them become a cabal,
we would have ourselves to blame.
Nigeria was standing between the
devil and the deep blue sea and
suddenly, a ship appears out of the
deep blue sea. This may be our last
chance to recover our nation by
ourselves through democratic
means. It is not going to be easy-
sailing but we are the ones that
must make the difference. When the
known leaders begin to show self
interests, we the unknown Nigerians
in APC would be the ones to keep
them in check and insist on what we
want for our nation or push then
aside. Nigerians must arise and
hijack this party for their benefit.
With PDP, we are outsiders. We
don’t want to be outsiders with APC
too.
Suddenly, there is a light at the end
of the tunnel.
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