Nigerians Are Sick And Tired Of APC And PDP, But Can LP Dislodge Them come 2023?
If there is any boredom which most Nigerians, particularly those that are of voting age, share together, it is unarguably that of being sick and tired of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for collectively been responsible for prolifically churning out bad and corrupt leaders at each passing political dispensation through undemocratic primary elections. Just recently, they’ve in their respective primaries elected, through their selected delegates, undemocratically imposed leaders on Nigerians. The foregoing scenario has been the pattern of the vicious cycle which Nigerians are faced with.
Without doubt, there is discontent with what both parties are offering: discontent with policy offerings that have overtime culminated into bad governance, with the lack of responsiveness, and with the lack of accountability.
In fact, just as not few Nigerians are of the view that APC and PDP are same of the same, apology to Jimi Agbaje, so also had political bigwigs said at media parleys, and thus buttressed the views; wittingly or unwittingly.
For instance, a chieftain of the APC, and founder of the Conscience Forum group, a former PDP Chairman and House of Reps member, Moshood Adegoke Salvador, recently at a media parley said both parties are the same. When asked at the parley, “Do you regret ever leaving the PDP for the APC?” He answered “You keep coming back to this question. What is the difference between APC and PDP, that you can regret going from one to another? I only moved my people to warehouse them in APC, so that the Conscience Forum members will not be scattered. You will need a political party to warehouse them and as you are doing so, it will cost me a fortune to manage over 300,000 people. So, when you do that, you’ll now ask them to go to the local governments”.
In the same vein, a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, has said that the difference between the APC, and the PDP, is just the name. Akpabio said though he won’t return to the PDP, he is not one of those politicians who will say they will die or commit suicide if they go back to their former political parties.
Ostensibly to doubt suspicion that he was mooting the idea of cross carpeting, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs made the foregoing convoluted comment when he few weeks ago appeared on Channels Television, and added that he would remain in the APC and try his best to work with whoever the party chooses as consensus candidate.
To any political observer that is imbued with discerning mind, it is not an exaggeration to conclude that both parties are seemingly membered by elites that are majorly, and ostensibly corrupt, unresponsive and unaccountable. Worse still, both parties share the peculiarity of being membered by politicians that are wont to scramble for what would only be of benefits to themselves. And they have the predilection to deceptively claim that they will engender good governance to the people when voted for at elections, and they are often wont to boast that the people deserve better representation at the corridors of power.
Not only are Nigerians sick and tired of APC and PDP, they are majorly membered by recycled politicians that have the penchant for crisscross both parties as if the nation’s political landscape is bereft of other registered political parties.
Unarguably throwing insight to the strength of LP, Peter Obi, former Anambra state governor and Labor Party (LP) presidential candidate, recently boasted that the party will win the 2023 presidential election by rallying workers and students to vote.
Obi spoke to journalists in Abeokuta, Ogun State, about his campaign alongside his Director General, Dr. Doyin Okupe, with LP leaders.
He noted that the PDP and the ruling APC have expired and lost their political relevance in the country and will be easy to beat in the 2023 election, and added that the PDP leaders ran out of luck and victory after refusing to zone the 2023 presidential ticket to the southern part of the country.
The presidential candidate knocked the PDP as “unjust and unjust” for ditching the party’s zoning.
According to him, those who opposed zoning in the PDP undermined the existence of the PDP and violated the gentlemen’s agreement of the party’s founding fathers, and added that he was banking on Nigeria’s workforce, youth, markets and women to beat both the APC and PDP in the 2023 general election.
He said: “The PDP was a true party put together by our elders and leaders. Those who came yesterday and said that rotation does not matter, undermine the essence of the PDP’s existence, the moment they took this step, the PDP stepped out of the line of happiness, the future, victory, because they suddenly has become unjust and unjust.
“There is no unrighteous and unrighteous pillar that will stand. The PDP was a good platform, but it’s expired. The APC was never a good platform, it is irrelevant. The two parties are out, these two parties have expired, they have no relevance to the new things Nigerians and youth are looking for.
“Labor Party is still a very small party in the scheme of things, but we were not unfamiliar with that before we moved here. But the Labor Party is a sleeping giant.
“The Labour Party’s potential electoral pool is more than three times the membership of the APC and PDP combined. NLC, TUC, NURTW, market women, professional bodies, and students are all part of the Labor Party.
Also throwing insight to the strength of party, its national chairman, Julius Abure while speaking in an interview with Osaretin Osadebamwen of Tribune newspaper said the role Nigerian workers will play in the election of a new president and how his party plan to rescue the country from its current ruling class in 2023.
When asked, “The party is known to be rather quiet, do you think we have the quality of aspirant that can change this narrative. Who do you have in mind?
He answered, “Power resides with the people and they own power and I want to say clearly that the people are disenchanted; the people are tired of poverty; the people are tired of unemployment; then you are tired of hunger and we are relying on people to make a change, and we believe that Nigerians in 2023, will make that change.
“Take it from me, the arrowhead of the 2023 election will be the people queuing behind the Labour Party. Essentially, it is the people that will drive the process and be able to sack the present crop of leaders that have not been able to better their lives. And our party, the LP will bring out its programmes and its ideologies. We are going to provide a solid alternative to the people and I am very sure that they will embrace the option we will give them for the desired change”.
Be that as it may, without “Ojoro” not few Nigerians are of the view that LP is the party to reckon with come 2023, and if the leaderships of APC and PDP continue to underrate the party without taking cognizance of its revolutionary velocity, they may live to regret it.
Sandra Ijeoma Okoye (Author)