Nigeria Content Online

With developments
and events playing out in convoluting sequence in the political arena,
there are clear indications of the passing of certain givens in the old
order in which politics is played in our country. One clear source for
these ripples is the emergence of the Jonathan presidency and his
adamant refusal to back down in the face of scathing opposition by some
Northern politicians within the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

The Northern
Political Leaders Forum, NPLF, led by Adamu Ciroma, which was clearly
not on a mission necessarily to choose the best candidate from among
its candidates, spent over two months on what must have been a tasking
search for a presentable candidate from the line up of Ibrahim
Babangida, Atiku Abubakar, Aliyu Gusau and Bukola Saraki.

It probably did not
matter that the aspirants from whose fold they laboured so to produce
Atiku, came largely with back bending baggage, gathered mostly from
stints at the nation’s most powerful political positions with
unregulated access to public funds.

One of them
Babangida, still has questions to answer over his role in the
disappearance of over $12.8 billion proceeds from the sale of crude oil
during the Gulf war and allegations of involvement in the 1986 murder
of Dele Giwa, founding Editor-in-Chief of the Newswatch magazine.

Atiku is fighting
hard to distance himself from money laundering allegations involving
his fourth wife, Jennifer Douglas Atiku, a US citizen now relocated to
Dubai.

With battle lines
clearly defined between Jonathan and Atiku in the PDP primaries, the
dynamics of forces and issues at stake have seen a compelling
alteration. But for the emergence of a Jonathan on the scene, the
contest within the PDP would have perhaps been a straight fight between
Atiku and Babangida.

The two men have,
over the years, marked out for control choice chunks of the political
space from which they operate ‘political structures’ buoyed by the
massive personal wealth they acquired. In reciprocity, the
beneficiaries of the patronage make themselves useful by placing
themselves at the ready to defend the interests of their principals
when duty calls.

Such duties may
involve those that have thrown up the Soboma Georges and NURTW’ Tokyos.
A young man Oseleye Gideon, who said he was part of such political
structures that were active in the riverine areas in Rivers State at
the return of party politics in 1998, recently described how these
structures work.

“What happens is,
the big politicians, usually those vying for a position gather us in a
boat or bus to the communities during the elections. We get there and
carry out the thumb printing and stuffing of ballot boxes. In
situations of opposition, you have to be ready to run away with ballot
boxes when electoral materials arrive.

“It’s dangerous
assignment and people have been shot and killed or deformed with
machetes. But, by 1998 when I did anything like that, the risks were
fewer compared to what happened in subsequent elections. At the end, I
realise that I gained nothing. You get used by politicians who rise to
the few positions, while the thousands of youths they use are mostly
forgotten after the elections. I have moved on”

Like a stirring,
stormy wind from the coastal fringes of the Niger Delta’s demands for
recognition, for inclusion has been thrust upon the national
consciousness. Since Jonathan’s aspirations became public months ago,
some have held the view that he should have stayed off the fray and
merely played the role of umpire overseeing the political process to
birth what should be the first steps in the march to a brave new world
marked by the supremacy of the vote.

Perhaps so. But
against the reality that hardly anything in our political circumstances
can be described as normal, persons who are already in the contest must
be allowed the creative liberty to determine how they wish to engage
with the process. Indeed, many more Nigerians especially from among
groups, which have endured age-old marginalisation, view in Jonathan’s
aspirations, possibilities for their own desire to ascend to positions
which certain interests had captured as their birthright these long
years.

At the end of the
day, the sort of societal transformation which millions of Nigerian
citizens, activists and observers have canvassed for will not
materialise by merely wishing that reality into being. It will involve
people rolling up their sleeves to get into the fray.

Twelve years after
the youths and peoples of Ijaw and subsequently other Niger Delta
communities stood firm on their demands for equity and justice, the
penurious material conditions of millions of them have not much
altered. But no one can deny the changing dynamics of the oil bearing
area compelled into being by the tenacity of the original apostles of
the Kaiama Declaration and others. Certainly not the Nigerian political
elite, compelled by the thrusting, throbbing urgency of the rising from
the coasts to accept first a Vice President of Ijaw stock and now a
president, bearing in his insistence, the yearnings of millions for
unconditional inclusion in the Nigerian project for which they pay a
higher price than most.