13th May, 2013
By Comrade Akido Agenro
Nigerian political class’ penchant for actions that heat up the political system is unbecoming of statesmen. Apart from their notoriety for corruption in addition to their steepness in undemocratic tendencies such as imposition of candidates for elections and rejection of electoral results except those in their favour among sundry subversion of the electoral process, they are always locked in one bitter wrangling or the other among themselves. This anomaly keeps the political environment constantly charged, intermittently exploding here and there. This is reprehensible. A case in point is the ongoing wrangling involving a coalition of opposition politicians angling for the registration of a new political party, with INEC on one hand and the PDP on the other hand over the eligibility or otherwise of the newly formed party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.
INEC, the agency saddled with the statutory responsibility of registering political parties in Nigeria has repeatedly announced to the promoter of APC that another political party with the same acronym, the African Peoples Congress has already been registered with the electoral umpire, but the conveners of the All Progressives Congress are not persuaded. In their reckoning it is the ruling party in its usual mischievously meddlesome manner that misguided the INEC into the decision with intent to stifle the fledging association out of existence. In other words, it is the hand of Esau but the voice of Jacob at work.
I think whatever be the case what makes a political party popular is not the name or acronym but the character of the men and women that constitute its membership and the programme that form its manifesto. Besides, I have no doubt that there are imaginative minds among the ‘Progressives’ fold with the capacity to conceive an alternative name with an equally scintillating acronym as the rejected APC which will be acceptable to INEC and thus put an end to the ongoing bickering and mutual recrimination resulting from INEC rejection of the name. After all, as the saying goes by whatever name rose is called it will smell sweet.
•Agenro is coordinator Democracy Orientation Movement, 18 James Street, Iju-Ishaga, Lagos.