Opinion

Farooq Kperogi : A Muslim-Muslim ticket in APC?

Published

1 week ago

June 12, 2022

Farooq Kperogi

When Obasanjo favored northern Christians in appointments during his administration, he defended his action by insisting that he was guided by considerations of competence, not religion or region.

Some of the same people who’re defending the prospect of a Muslim-Muslim ticket in APC using “competence” as a defense (as if competence is delimited by religion or region) told Obasanjo that sensitivity to intra-regional diversity trumped “competence.” Hypocrisy seems to be grafted into our DNA.

A Yoruba Muslim presidential candidate with a northern Christian running mate–or a Northern Christian presidential candidate with a southern Muslim running mate–would be transformational, even revolutionary. It would be Nigeria’s Barack Obama moment.

To make progress, we should transcend our familiar, settled, frozen cultural fissures. Everyone should be able to feel that they can be anything they want to be, that the accidental circumstances of their birth won’t perpetually stymie their dreams and aspirations.

Subscribe to Our VIP Newsletter

Related Topics:APC DNA Niger SGF

Up Next

Farooq Kperogi : The Peter Obi tsunami APC and PDP are underrating

Don't Miss

Farooq Kperogi : 5 key takeaways from the APC convention

Farooq Kperogi

Two Signs APC Still Not Ready to Govern After Buhari By Farooq Kperogi It’s OK to despise PDP and Atiku Abubakar. I do, too. But the truth is that, of Nigeria’s major political parties, only PDP has shown a readiness to govern at the national level from day one. We may not like how they’ll govern, but they’re at least coherent, earnest, transparent, and predictable. The party held its convention on schedule and submitted the name of its vice presidential candidate to INEC on deadline–with little or no internal rancor. APC, on the other hand, needed to extend the date of its convention by one week. Even so, it almost asked for another extension, and its poorly conducted convention spilled over to the following day. It also couldn’t turn in the name of its vice presidential candidate to INEC on deadline and instead submitted a “placeholder,” a vexing political anomaly Nigeria hadn’t witnessed before, which smaller parties have sadly quickly copied. That bespeaks a disorganized, ramshackle, “fire-brigade,” spur-of-the-moment, not-ready-for-prime-time political party. No party can effectively govern a sick, complex country like Nigeria with such indiscipline, insouciance, and planlessness. Should the party be voted into power in 2023, given its aggravating indiscipline and incompetence in organizing a mere convention and appointment a running mate to its presidential candidate, you can bet that it will repeat Buhari’s template of delaying the appointment of ministers and constituting boards of government agencies by several months. Or worse. We all know how that turned out for Buhari–and Nigeria. Governance never took off, directionlessness took over, a recession hit, and the economy tanked. The country hasn’t recovered up to now. It seems indecision, indiscipline, impunity, and ineptitude are inescapably inserted into APC’s DNA. For example, after its delegates convention, the party is now busy removing the names of people who won primary elections and replacing them with the names of party hon honchos who didn’t participate in the primaries. It is said that indecision is the graveyard of good intentions. APC doesn’t even have good intentions to start with. So, it’s burdened with a double whammy of indecision and no intentions.L

Click to comment