It seems that the falcon can no longer listen to songs from the falconer. And, in folklore, whenever the tortoise embarks on a journey, it is certain to return with something in its bag.
This seems to be the relationship now between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). It is now a fight between the ruling APC and the presidency-seeking APC.
Either way, it is the party at war with itself over its policy, which seems to have hit its members very badly. Get me right, the old and new naira swap policy is a policy of the APC government that has inflicted more pain on Nigerians.
But these Nigerians have become inured to painfully injurious and badly implemented policies of the APC government since 2015. And they have been plenty.
The only soothing balm that Nigerians have had to see the pain they bear for investing their political franchise in APC is the hope that February 25 is a date with history; a more realistic and practical event to pay APC back with its own coin.
It is at the thought of being ignominiously rejected at the forthcoming polls that some governors of the party suddenly found strength in the jabs thrown at the party’s leader and President of the republic, Muhammadu Buhari, by his opposition-in-chief and presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, to approach the Supreme Court in search of a superior order that would force the hands of a President whose strength actually lies in the exhibition of signs of pretense to be weak.
The President is at his strongest each time he is taken to be weak and an easy pushover. That is where the protesting APC governors are probably reading him wrongly.
Besides, shielding the President from his policies and seeking to blame others called a ‘cabal’ is simply making excuses for the President and shielding him from responsibility for the failures of his government.
Leaders take responsibility for the successes and failures of their programmes and/or policies.
Therefore, whatever is the outcome of the naira swap policy, whether it makes for a clean electoral process devoid of vote-buying and other cash influences or sabotages it must lay squarely on the President’s table, not that of any creatures called cabal.
This is why the resort to the Supreme Court for a judicial interpretation of the powers of the federal government to define timelines for swapping of old and new naira notes, to my mind, is the most appropriate democratic action that strengthens Nigeria’s laws.
It is the best-preferred option to instigate civil disobedience, which may impact negatively the timelines for the handover of government to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is now in a prime position to massively profit from the mismanagement of the will of the people invested in the APC since 2015, which most popular return on investment, for the people, has been pain, pain and more pain couched as multidimensional poverty for a greater number of the population as well as a huge harvest of insecurity and painful death in the hands of freely rampaging criminals now governing the nation’s expanding ungoverned spaces.
Note that, till this moment, the federal government has not been able to convincingly explain why the naira swap was an exceedingly very important policy that must be enforced, no matter the consequence.
It has also refused to communicate to the Nigerian why he or she must live with the pain of inability to buy basic domestic needs due to the non-availability of dispensable cash at bank ATMs.
This is why the governors who had gone to the Supreme Court in search of judicial relief will be seen to be altruistic in their actions. Many Nigerians are likely to see them as fighting for the people even when the reverse may be the case.
Systematically shutting the country on the insinuation that it would help checkmate the influence of cash on the February 25 presidential election is a public admission of the inefficiency of the anti-corruption agencies.
The anti-corruption agencies are legally empowered to take action against those who attempt to, or, sabotage and compromise the electoral process by deploying cash for vote-buying to polling booths on Election Day.
However, the failure to prosecute persons arrested for inducing voters with cash during the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states last year, to an extent, tends to give credence to plans by the federal government to frustrate the movement of cash during the February 25 election.
Nonetheless, election logistics cost money. And candidates fund them. So, free and fair elections may actually be negatively affected by a lack of money to pay for certain necessities.
This is why the decision of the Supreme Court, in granting a request made ex parte by some APC governors, putting off the swap deadline may come as a soothing relief. Though the order is an interim one, it may work to rejuvenate the economy while it lasts.
Essentially, the public mindset is that the APC government is imploding and the Buhari administration would leave a legacy by not granting Tinubu the support that he needs to enter the Villa as President. Many believe that the naira swap is just one of many plots against Tinubu, for which they are happy with Buhari.
While every effort to ensure that the influence of money in the electoral process comes to the public as a welcome development, there is also the feeling that the Buhari government, just as well, ensures that federal might is not deployed to the advantage of any particular candidate in the election.
In this regard, all the candidates will face the electorate standing on the same platform.
While the protesting governors may help strengthen the rule of law with their action at the apex court, the action is, however, a step further towards fragmenting APC and expanding the conflict that is pitting those on Tinubu’s side against those on Buhari’s side. some call them the cabal.