By Ugo Egbujo
ABUJA (Sundiata Post) Atiku’s defection is good for everybody. The opposition oscillates between abject idling and feverish convulsions. When it’s not drowsy, it’s raving and coughing hate and insults. In the absence of a clear direction , it has wandered and languished in the wilderness of bellicose politics.
The opposition will find organization and strategy in Atiku. It will find in Atiku a piece of what Tinubu learnt Buhari. Atiku is media savvy and understands corporate structure. He won’t bark like Fayose. And won’t ooze violence like Wike. But he would be more effective that both of them put together.
He has his weaknesses. He cannot singlehandedly deliver any state. But he would enhance the party’s general wellbeing and would make it competitive in many places. That’s why he is a turbo charger. He won’t only come with money. He would come with an understanding of how to use the courts to check political intimidation.
His defection would help the PDP shed some bigotry. Its southern vuvuzela’s will no longer call Hausa Fulani demons once Atiku becomes its leader. PDP needs to moderate its antipathy towards the north. Atiku will tame that and enhance PDP’s appeal. He will not improve the perception that the PDP is friendly with corruption. Some say he is the face of corruption. But he will help to project the PDP as conversant with the issues and result oriented.
Atiku’s defection is good for the APC. It would help Buhari understand that the alliance with other stakeholders cannot be taken for granted. He would have to renegotiate the union and APC may find more cohesion in the wake of the imminent load shedding.
The relevance of political lightweights that constitute the cabal would have to be answered. Atiku’s defection will strengthen anti cabal sentiments.
But Atiku would help APC in many other ways. Atiku will resurrect a prostrate PDP media machinery. He will infuse propaganda with issues. He will hire and pay real experts. The APC will be put on its toes. Not with a profusion of malicious rumours but by a painstaking portrayal of the Buhari administration as weak and incompetent. Perhaps when the debate becomes about only issues and not insults and bigotry, Buhari may come to terms with his performance and find urgency.
The defection is good for the country. A strong northern PDP candidate will slow down the fiery sectionalism PDP has used as primary propaganda tool. The nation has never been more divided. The emergence of Atiku as head of the PDP will check the harsh divisive rhetorics and inclinations of some of its governors.
The defection is good for Atiku. He helped Buhari. He was marginalized. He had no voice, no hand in the APC. He is in dire need of an alternative platform. He has money. He will seize political structures of the PDP in APC states and revive them. He has a good chance of impacting national politics. He is 71. It’s now or perhaps never.
Atiku’s defection is good news.
Source: Facebook