Get Involved -By Sesugh Akume

At the birth and infancy of ANRP, December 2016/January 2017 I had a series of exchanges with the Great Oracle, Abdul Mahmud on necessity or futility of birthing ANRP from scratch, going through the rigours of registration at INEC and so forth, as against joining an already existing political party en masse, taking over its structure, enshrining our own principles, and taking it further from there. My take then, as now was, such a hostile take over or hijacking is stealing, plain and simple. Second, those other parties if you dig further have more problems than the APCPDP we love to deride. Many of them are briefcase businesses with zero organisation, they exist only for the kill during the political season. Some of them have the founder himself as chairman, treasurer, and financial secretary, auditor or some other position in the national exco. These contraptions may also look benign on the outside, don’t even try it, the principalities behind them are anything but that.

I was of the opinion that it’s easier to dig new well than to shift one already in the ground. Therefore we wished to create our ANRP to not just be a special purpose vehicle for politicians to run for office and fulfil their ambitions, but an idea, a philosophy, and lifestyle that’ll outlive all of us. This can only be built of the foundation of principles, values, ethos, morality and ethics, what we call the ‘ANRP DNA’. In the end we reached a consensus, he may not have joined ANRP as a registered member (yet), but he wished us well. He also has had kind words to say about us, defend us, comfort and console us, and continues to do so. He even attended the first ever national meeting of the party in April 2017 at the Yar’Adua Centre at great sacrifice having rescheduled his coming in from the UK to grace the occasion and be part of history; also volunteered a rapporteur of sorts sharing nuggets from the meeting live. I also recall, and indeed saved his message when ANRP wasn’t named among newly registered parties earlier in 2017, wherein he advised that we keep the faith and never break our ranks.

We haven’t broken our ranks and won’t, at least not within the lifetime of this present generation. In the past years we’ve tried to live what we believe in. I recall an instructive incident that day the coalition CUPP was inaugurated. All I could see ANRP people do was to make fun of the acronym and laugh and the entire arrangement. It touched me because, the partner members of the coalition hadn’t been named, but ANRP members already knew that there was no way we were part of that sham and were very sure about it. Why? 

Beyond running for office, ANRP does things no party does: environmental cleaning, tree planting, free trainings in various skills acquisition, visits and support to IDPs, blood donations to victims of disasters, medical outreaches, and so on, as if we’re some NGO/CSO and not a political party. Members freely donate to causes, with accounts rendered to the last kobo.
Why am I going into all this? One of those scams emerged from the shadows into limelight overnight because Oby Ezekwesili signed on as a member and presidential candidate. Yesterday, she resigned her membership and set aside her presidential bid; the party itself withdrew its support for its (erstwhile) presidential candidate, and pitched its support for the disaster in APC the incumbent, which they had purported to want to replace. Well, it turns out the lady hit the airwaves with her resignation first, so their plan at demystifying and humiliating her failed on that score. They still went further to make accusations bordering on financial impropriety, and that she always knew she wouldn’t win but was angling to be a finance minister. Dirty, filthy people. 

This lady resigned from being a minister in 2007 at age 44 where she went on to be the World Bank VP for Africa, and declined taking on a second term. Her last assignment prior to that was education minister which she did for 10 months only but the number and impact of her reforms make it seem like she was education minister for 10 years. It was for only 10 months! Previously she was minister of an otherwise obscure and low-level ministry of mines and solid minerals, which she reformed, rebranded and make into something no one had imagined. I won’t go into how and why she got to be called ‘Madam Due Process’ and the terrible fights she had to fight with virtually everyone and the billions of dollars her stewardship saved Nigeria before she was appointed minister. For dark minds, it’s always about money and raw power. It’s outside their comprehension that others really and truly care only about making our society work, no matter the amount of personal sacrifice it’d take. Shame on them on dark minds.
This thingamabob of a ‘political party’ has proven what we already knew. Some had said that which party doesn’t matter, it’s the players, you can find good people in all parties, whatever name they’re so called. Think again.

When Ezekwesili was in government, she never had anything doing with the PDP, not in her state Anambra, not in Abuja. She was a federal minster, so should’ve been the party leader and/or stakeholder in the party, especially ad the governor was in an opposition party. She wasn’t. She never associated with them, she saw herself as an interventionist, a technocrat, not a politician, she was too occupied and had no time or the temperament for their shenanigans. Fast forward to January 2018 she decided to be part of the process, the number one agenda was to oust the decrepit and irredeemable APCPDP, compelled by the blood shed, massacres but ironically the non-chalance of this regime as they were more concerned with their reelection. Like APC like PDP. By October she was running for the presidency. In January 2019 she’s out of the race, but firmly on course with the initial agenda, to oust APCPDP. What other quality people may think is, we already knew. It’s better to stay away and not soil one’s name n politics, but focus on being technocrats and an assured career path. Don’t let Omagbitse Barrow hear you thinking this even in recesses of your mind. He’s sold out to the campaign #LetsGetInvolved, as he’s running to be a rep for AMAC/Bwari in the FACT. Buy his book ‘Let’s Get Involved’. Until and unless the kind of quality people who usually stay out of this business of making our society work right at the foundation get involved in the process we’re going no where save further into the pit and worse darkness. You don’t necessarily need to run for office, join and/or support a cause. Join a party. Support candidates who share your values and aspirations. By all means, get involved.