The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) seems to have reached its final political denouement in its short period of existence in the political history of Nigeria. For sometime to come, scholars and political analysts would continue to ponder on what went wrong, with the political party that swept across the Nigerian nation particularly the northern part like a blitzkrieg. This was a party that menacingly threatened to take over the government of Nigeria at the federal and local levels.
However the “cookie appears to have crumbled” for this once promising political party which many thought was a viable alternative to the ruling political party in Nigeria, the People’s Democratic Party [PDP]. As at the time of writing this, the CPC appears to have been able to win only one [1] state in the gubernatorial elections in an election held in more than 25 states of the federation, and few federal and local parliamentary seats even in its so called strong holds. It was shellacked in the presidential polls by the ruling party. It is instructive to note that the CPC posted such a dismal outing, in spite of the fact that the 2011 general elections in Nigeria was adjudged by both international and local observers as relatively free and fair. But what could have led to such a dismal outing at the polls which is now threatening to eclipse the existence of a once promising political party?
Many informed observers may tend to situate the failure of the CPC and its imminent extinction within the realm of a multivariate analysis, that is, preponderance of factors. Hence it may only be possible to highlight just a few of such factors.
It may be recalled that the CPC was a break away faction of another opposition party, the All Nigerian People’s Party [ANPP]. The prime mover behind the CPC was Muhammadu Buhari a former Nigerian Head Of State who had run for the presidency on the platform of the ANPP twice in 2003 and 2007 and lost. Hence as a result of his dissatisfaction with events within the ANPP then, he and his supporters decided to form a new political party not tainted and not burdened with the problems and poor public perception of the ANPP.
This decision instantly won the support of many people particularly the common man on the streets especially in most parts of northern Nigerian. The seeming honesty, integrity, sound principles and iron-cast discipline of Muhammadu Buhari became something which the common man particularly in the northern parts of Nigeria could identify with. This looked logical given the severe neglect and disappointment the common man in the north had suffered in the hands of the mainstream traditional/business/political elites in the north who incidentally have been in charge of governance in Nigeria as a whole over the years.
This led to frenzy particularly in the north, as support for the party in the north spread like wild fire particularly amongst dregs, miscreants, urchins and barely literate members of the society, most of whom did not even have voter’s cards! This proved to be one of the greatest undoing of the party, as the party either deliberately or due to an oversight or a combination of both could NOT organize its exultant, delirious and wild crowd which some people prefer to identify as a mob into an effective, cohesive and articulate group that understands the issues at stake and knows how to achieve its objectives and can generally help the party to achieve political success. Hence it was not so surprising that the “CPC mob” went for anything in sight when it became obvious it has lost the presidential elections. Or how do we explain the burning of churches, torching of houses of innocent Nigerians, killing and maiming of perceived opponents particularly in the Northern parts of Nigeria. This singular action may have further alienated the party and its torch bearer Muhammadu Buhari from most people and even would be supporters in a country as diverse as Nigeria. The pitiable state to which the CPC appears to have driven itself, could be gleaned from the restriction order slammed on Muhammadu Buhari a former Head Of State from entering some states of the federation to campaign for his party in the just concluded gubernatorial elections on security grounds.
The other major costly mistake which the CPC appeared to have made was the inability or refusal of the party to reach out to or ally with other opposition parties especially in the southern part of Nigeria, particularly the equally popular and more successful Action Congress Of Nigeria [ACN] which was brimming with a lot of “Young Turks” and politically savvy strategists and apparently better organized both politically and financially. In as much as Nigerians were disenchanted with the status quo as exemplified by the PDP, they could not fully trust a political party who although was led by someone who is honest, and has integrity yet could not remove the misconstrued Toga of a religious and ethnic irredentist no matter how hard he sought to remove it. The inability of Buhari and his CPC to dissolve itself into a Pan Nigerian coalition of progressive forces seriously imperiled its ability to gain national prominence in the elections. The insistence of the CPC to go into the elections particularly the presidential elections alone is akin to someone who wants to travel to Manhattan from The Bronx but insists on going through London or in local parlance wants to make a journey to Lagos from Kaduna but insists on going through the Republic of Chad.
In conclusion, it’s quite obvious that it is sunset for the CPC but only time can tell if the party can bounce back fro its present self-contrived situation.
