The opinion piece discusses the current state of Nigerian politics, particularly the rift within the APC due to the introduction of Tax Reform Bills. The author argues that the bills have provided a rallying point for northern sentiments against the APC, leading to a potential realignment of political forces.
“All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies” – Dr Arbuthnot, 1667-1735, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 191.
Note: This article started on the day of the Ondo State election. The result was not surprising. “You can’t beat something with nothing.” PDP is now nothing. Obong Victor Attah, a former governor of Akwa Ibom State and former Trustee of the PDP, is an internationally recognised architect. He was the first African to be granted a licence to practice as an architect in New York State.
Attah turned 86 on November 20 this year. Few Nigerians are aware that Attah designed the PDP flag. As a member of the G-34, a group led by the late Dr Alex Ekwueme, GCON, former Vice President, 1979-1983, and an artist like all architects, the flag symbolised an all-inclusive party. Its original constitution reflected the intention of the founding fathers to create a society in which glaring marginalisation of any group would not be allowed.
Ekwueme was on the way to becoming the first President elected under the PDP banner when influential people intruded into the party, forcing the PDP to violate its constitution and accept Obasanjo as their candidate. The facts are detailed in PDP: CORRUPTION INCORPORATED.
Self-righteous Obasanio was thus the first beneficiary of the corruption of a sacred set of political principles laid out by patriotic Nigerians. Obasanjo quickly moved to dismantle the PDP constitution and to substitute one that was an image of himself—a dictator at heart, despite his hypocritical pronouncements now.
He appointed and removed party Chairmen at will and approved candidates for elections at all three tiers of government. How he removed Chief Audu Ogbeh would bring tears to anyone’s eyes. He sowed the seeds of the destruction of our democracy.
Today, Attah is no longer active in politics. But at 86, he must undoubtedly feel disillusioned by what the PDP has become. The flag he designed is now a mockery of what the PDP has become in his lifetime. I was still writing this article when the result of the Ondo State election was announced.
“Notwithstanding the parlous state of Arewa’s glaring economic conditions, the policies of the current Federal Government have continued to make matters much worse…”
It is predictable what will follow. There will be a massive desertion of the PDP to the APC. A few years ago, when the late Vincent Ogbulafor, then Chairman of the party, announced, as if he was God, that “PDP will rule for seventy years”, I told him that he would not live for 70 years, but, he might live long enough to see the party out of power. He did both. PDP had been living on borrowed time since (President) Jonathan lost control of the party and suffered defeat.
Now, time has run out for the party. Even now, close to half of the leading members of the APC were once in PDP. More will now follow, leaving a party so weak as to offer little opposition to the APC. Mr Daniel Bwala, a former spokesman for Atiku, the presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2023 elections, who was blasting the APC as lustfully as he did since the elections in September this year, had been invited by President Tinubu to “come and eat”.
He quickly accepted the offer and is now eating in Aso Rock and singing the praises of his new paymaster. That raises the question: Which party will defeat APC in 2027? The answer may be APC itself or a new party primarily northern-based. We might be heading for regional parties such as we had before 1960. Two developments account for this position. The APC, never a political party, has left the North reassessing its support for APC in just nine and a half years.
Buhari’s eight years blinded the people to assume the party worked in their interests. His departure laid bare the truth. Under Buhari, the APC was a party of the elite, by the elite, and for the elite.
Tinubu’s presidency has marginalised the northern elite like never before. They want to redress the situation as soon as possible. Two, hitherto, northerners have lacked a rallying point; there was no common agenda. Tinubu’s Tax Reform Bills, considered anti-North by the vast majority, have provided the impetus for regional collective action.
It is doubtful if any northern politician will support the bills and survive politically. As one old friend from the North-West told me, “I canvassed for votes for Tinubu. He is holding a knife to our throats in the North. We will not allow him to get away with it.” Therefore, it was unsurprising that all the northern governors opposed the Tax Bills. The real surprise was the unanimous opposition of southern governors as well.
“The Tax Reform Bills are conceived in bad faith, poorly packaged and is a palpable threat to our unity and national cohesion.”
Most governors belong to the APC, which has revealed the party’s lack of principle. It is doubtful if any Republican governor will oppose a Tax Bill proposed by (incoming US president) Trump because the party’s position on taxation has been consistent for over a hundred years.
A situation in which the president’s party governors and most National Assembly members might turn against him is worrisome – even if expected in a nation where politics without principles is the norm.
The NNPP presidential candidate is not alone in condemning the Tax Reform Bills, which most commentators nationally have yet to read and very few understand. But they now serve as a fulcrum for moving massive northern sentiments against the APC in the region. The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, a few days after Kwankwaso spoke, made an even more unmistakable declaration.
Just in case anybody in Abuja misses the point, the ACF Chairman said: “Notwithstanding the parlous state of Arewa’s glaring economic conditions, the policies of the current Federal Government have continued to make matters much worse, with little indications of needed sensitivity to the precarious existential conditions of Arewa people… economic reforms while indeed desirable, should not impoverish the same people they are meant to serve…” A battle line is drawn.
Elected and appointed APC northern politicians are now confronted with an unpleasant dilemma: Continue supporting Tinubu and his policies or bailout. Either way, there will be severe consequences. I don’t envy Vice President Shetimma or Ganduje. The attempt by the Board of Trustees, BOT, of the ACF to distance the old association from Dr Mamman Osuman’s outburst by suspending the Chairman was a blunder.
The blowback by several northern groups, especially youth groups, points to the possibility that the more cautious and conservative elders might not be aware of the depth of hostility to FG’s reforms. Nigeria is getting ripe for demagogues. Historically, demagoguery triumphs when a furious, dissatisfied populace wants simple answers to complicated problems and when the section can identify another group to blame for its problems.
Kwankwaso, focusing on the section of the Tax Bills that recommends the principle of derivation to be adopted for Value-Added Tax, VAT, revenue allocation, represents the northern view that with Lagos accounting for over 50 per cent of the VAT revenue collected, any change in that direction will adversely affect their states. Kwankwaso has deliberately ignored that not only northern states will be affected. Even all the rest of the South-West states will lose.
However, President Tinubu is from Lagos State, so the conspiracy to further impoverish the North must be part of Lagos’ agenda. That is most unfortunate because it has shifted the discussion from addressing the merits of the tax proposal to the North versus Lagos.
More unfortunate is that the northern leaders conveniently forget that the Nigerian economy was already ruined by the time Buhari finished his eight years in office. More importantly, as the Emir of Kano, Lamido, has warned repeatedly, the North was ruining itself—not Lagos.
Virtually all those in APC, NNPP, and LP in the North were in PDP before the seeds of economic destruction were sown. Not to be left behind, the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, led by Professor Ango Abdullahi, sent a chilling message.
Read some of it, and it is clear why political lines have disappeared in the North: “The Tax Reform Bills are conceived in bad faith, poorly packaged and is a palpable threat to our unity and national cohesion. The brazen and suspicious manner in which the Tax Bills were imposed on the nation confirmed the sinister intentions of those promoting this outrageous Bill. The days are fast gone when such conspiratorial connivance against the vital and strategic interest of the region, either by those within or outside of the region, would be condoned or even tolerated.“
Nonpartisan political war could not have been more brutally declared. The attackers have the advantage. Severe economic hardship, especially coming so suddenly and brutally, invariably leads to the search for scapegoats—people on whom to place the blame.
Despite Benjamin Franklin’s 1706-1790 position that “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”, few people except government officials want to hear the word TAX. But, where there are political parties in the real sense of the word, the Tax Bills should have been discussed with party leaders of the ruling party, and everybody should now be out fighting for its passage. The party no longer counts in this struggle.
The opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily align with the views of JolibaLive News! or any of its staff members. The author is in no way associated with this online news blog.
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