In pursuit of constructive opposition

I am compelled to return to my blog after so long for reasons owing to my very erratic schedules in recent time. Taking advantage of some free time while here in the United States, it is indeed a good time to write about issues very dear to my heart especially considering my political inclination.

The first rule around here is absolute loyalty to your party and its leadership; this loyalty has nothing to do with the correctness of policies and/or ideologies, no! it is just about being loyal. This also does not presuppose that the ideologies are outrightly outrageous but for a system like ours that has consistently suffered doses of bad leadership; there has to be a crystal clear opposition strategy in place to give hope that better days truly are ahead.

My frequent twitter and facebook visits have opened my eyes to the emergence of a new brand of activist; I mean the e-activist!

The brand of activism is such that from the comfort of your hand-held smart devices, one can easily analyse issues and make submissions without hassles; this plus the fact that we currently have a leadership system where almost anything negative said about it may end up correct makes it such a very convenient approach to opposing government. I have nothing absolutely against the wave of e-activists as I equally qualify to be one and also that it rightly would be one of the needed avenues we would rely on if mass participation is anything to go by. It is equally important to note that not all e-activists go unpunished especially those whose activities take a physical dimension.

My wish is to see opposition parties especially that which I belong to outgrow its current approach to dealing with the activities of the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan led administration. It some sort appears to be automatic that a reasonable number of Nigerians already know what is wrong with the utterances and actions of our president just about as it happens; a situation that practically reduces my party to a mere projector of known facts as it were. This in my opinion isn't the right approach to opposition except that we wish to add to our very long list of names, the 'doomsday gospeller'.

What would really portray the party in the right light is taking a more constructive approach in dealing with policies of the government. We can’t afford to busy ourselves with what is already in the public domain while shying away from articulating proactive ways forward.

That the PDP led government is bad is as common as saying it’s raining, what is missing is that we have not successfully as a party proven to the people that we are a better option as most arguments presented in recent times only end up telling what is wrong with PDP and not what should have been done or what we intend to do!

This trend seem to be scoring the emerging party to the negative region as the whole alliance seem to have further galvanized the same old approach of condemning without proffering solutions.

Another interesting fact is that the ease of condemning the wrongs of the current administration which without apologies, I strongly agree must be properly situated seem to outweigh giving kudos for the few right judgments of Mr. President. While it is natural to want to argue against praising an opposition, it all boils down to the fact that we should owe to our country a sense of loyalty more that we can ever pledge to whatever political organisation we belong to.

In recent times, a number of issues have pitched our party against overwhelming public opinion on very crucial security matters; a fact that underscores the popularity of our said promises to outdo the current administration.

My point therefore is to get our acts right, busy ourselves with designing pragmatic ideologies, raise a soldier of young think-tanks to critically analyse happenings and come up with critiques and ways forward. This is in my opinion, about the only way we can end up representing a viable replacement for this current crop of confused individuals managing the affairs of our dear country.

At the end of the day, what is important to an average Nigerian is that daily life is improved upon and the pride of being a Nigerian is revived as against the current exchange of hot words that end up not solving any problem but compounding the existing ones.

God Bless Nigeria…