Strategic and key political players are not taking chances anymore over the leadership deficiency bedeviling the country which has created so many problems and crisis, giving birth to escalating security, socio-economic and other concerns for the nation. Issues that are expected to be resolved through the instrumentality of democracy itself have gone out of control with elected political leaders behaving abnormal, and showing no signs of capacity and willingness to addressing them.
The national mood and psyche has been that of isolation, exclusivity, frustration, depression and starring hopelessness, while those at the helm of affairs watches helplessly. Its very obvious that the situation has overwhelmed the leadership of the country led by president Muhammadu Buhari under the watchful eye of the ruling APC. It is no longer news that things are not well with Nigeria, neither is it well with its people and systems. The increasing level of fear, poverty, division, backwardness, insecurity, lack, pain, anguish, hypertension and even death is unimaginable, yet the nation’s leadership has not shown any expected or commensurate concern nor pay commensurate attention to solving it.
It is out of this deep concern that former elected PDP Members of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2019 gathered Wednesday in Abuja to brainstorm on the way forward for effective and efficient political leadership for the country. Regardless of the short notice of the meeting, the large turn out was a reflection of the national concern and testimony of determination for change in the leadership of the country. Even those who had left the party in times past, were all back to reconcile and put together the PDP spirit that has given the nation a good direction from 1999 to 2015. It was clearly a reunion borne out of nationalistic and patriotic concern to save the country from its present woes. It was a historic movement drawn out of fervent desire for change in leadership for good governance for Nigeria. Eminent personalities like Rt Hon Chibudom Nwuche, Rt Hon Austin Okpara, (both former National Assembly deputy Speakers), Rt Hon Emeka Iheodiha, (former deputy Speaker and immediate past Imo State Governor), Senators Mao Ohunbunwa, Atta Atoi, Rt Hon Jagaba Adams Jagaba, Rt Hon Aminu Shehu Shagari, Rt Hon Binta Bello and many other former principal officers and other senior citizens were on ground to deliberate, discuss and encourage one another on the way forward for Nigeria. It was an excellent session where new ideas and inputs were advanced for the good of the nation.
It all starts with a strong desire to mobilize support for the presidential candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his running mate, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa to win the 2023 presidential elections and carry on with the excellent spirit the PDP was and is known with. Overwhelming speeches and well calculated remarks of commitment and fervent determination to take back power dominated the air. It was a moment of history,review and optimistic postulation.
It was a gathering of eminent political actors that cut across almost all the nation’s constituencies by the former lawmakers of the green chambers, some of whom later became Senators. To boost the morale of such a determination, the former PDP lawmakers also agreed to have an international summit on leadership as a way of reawakening active leadership thinking and generating new leadership ideas needed for contemporary democratic consolidation. The summit seeks to reunite all PDP political players, encourage them about the goals of the party in government, draw comparison between what the party left in 2015 and the woes presently happening in the country under the APC. It was an excellent consensus agreed upon to re-energize the machinery of the party towards winning the 2023 general elections and for a new wave of governance expected to be driven by a PDP led presidency come next year under Atiku and Okowa.
The significance of such a gathering is better imagined than described. It is a fall out of patriotic concern for the nation and the sheer willingness to put heads together to change the course of governance for the better. As politicians committed to the nation, it is not palatable to be watching the diminishing style of governance in the country under the current dispensation in which the strong legacies of the PDP has been depleted. The truth is that governance has been reduced to its lowest ebb. Having lost power in 2015 and 2019 to the APC, the ruling power has not done anything close to what was achieved by the PDP between 1999 and 2015, hence the fervent desire to reinvent previous successes and prosperity for Nigeria. Kudos to the former lawmakers.
As the gathering gathers momentum, all former legislators especially those of the green chambers, are expected to join in working out a way forward for the good governance of this nation. Out of experience, these legislators have so much to contribute to adding value to the leadership process having also learned from previous inadequacies and limitations. The goal here is to save the country from imminent collapse. If for close to the end of an eight year tenure and nothing new has been put on ground by the APC, and the good legacies of the past are being depleted , then it is a serious matter of worry to any politician who feels the pulse of the nation.
As a former Vice President of the country, Atiku has a lot to offer to the nation from where their productive and very resourceful tenure ended. Together with his boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a lot was achieved between 1999 and 2007 and continued under the late Musa Yar’Adua of blessed memory and Goodluck Jonathan. Their legacies are still very much the pride of the nation. Even those from the ruling party have testified to this.
