Executive-Legislative Crisis: Ben Obi Warns of Imminent Danger to Democracy, Accuses APC of Political Inexperience

An elder statesman with a vast experi­ence in political trou­ble-shooting in Ni­geria has warned that unless urgent steps are taken by em­inent Nigerians from across all the divides in the country to intervene and resolve the on­going crises of confidence be­tween the Executive and Legis­lative arms of the government of the federation, the situation could derail the country’s frag­ile democracy and throw the nation into anarchy.

Chief Ben Ndii Obi, a for­mer senator who was also the running mate to Alhaji Ati­ku Abubabkar when he con­tested for the presidency un­der the banner of the defunct ACN, warned that the face-off between the Senate and some senior members of the Exec­utive arm at this time is capa­ble of derailing the democrat­ic practice in the country and throw the entire system into an uncontrollable confusion, as according to him, the situation is also capable of giving wrong signals to anti-democratic ele­ments that might be lurking in the shadows.
While speaking to The AU­THORITY in an exclusive in­terview in Abuja yesterday, Chief Obi, therefore, called on all stakeholders and all people of goodwill, from all over the country, across the ethnic, re­ligious, political and other di­vides in the country, to bury their differences for a while and rally together to save the coun­try from the imminent collapse which the current political im­passe portends.
“That was exactly how statesmen and concerned el­ders from across the country had rallied together in 2015 to save the country, when tempers were rising during the cam­paigns for the general elections that year, resulting in the peace­ful and hitch free elections that gave rise to the seamless take-over of power by the victorious APC candidate”, the PDP chief­tain stated.
Chief Obi, who is the sec­retary of the Makarfi faction of the Peoples Democratic Par­ty (PDP) also lamented that it is really unfortunate and dan­gerous that the current impasse would be happening between the different arms of the gov­ernment that are controlled by the same party, APC, while be­moaning the fact that the situ­ation which he said could lead to a total system collapse in the country would not have been happening if, in his words, “the ruling APC had not been frus­trating all the efforts at build­ing a formidable opposition in the country”.
Senator Obi claimed that the APC was responsible for fanning the embers of crisis in the PDP in the hope that the party would not emerge as a powerful opposition to the rul­ing APC, a step which he said has proved to be counter-pro­ductive and injurious even to the interests of the APC in par­ticular and the entire political system in the country in gen­eral.
“Because the APC has been frustrating every effort at build­ing a viable opposition in the country, the internal contra­dictions within the ruling par­ty have started boiling over and suffocating the members, while threatening to implode the sys­tem, if not nipped in the bud,” Senator Obi lamented.
The Anambra State-born high chief told our correspond­ent that what is happening was unprecedented in the political history of Nigeria as it smacks of lack of experience and pat­riotism on the part of the peo­ple currently holding the reins of power in the country, as ac­cording to the PDP scribe, “it is a big surprise that neither the legislators nor the con­cerned members of the execu­tive seem to be unaware of the dangers to which they are ex­posing the country and its citi­zens by persisting in the ongo­ing conflicts” which he says are mostly ego-driven.
“A situation whereby sen­ior members of government fail to appreciate the necessity of bowing to the Nigerian people through their representatives who are performing their con­stitutional functions, and while the representatives of the peo­ple fail to appreciate the dangers of holding the government, and therefore, the system to ransom, is very scary and potentially ex­plosive”, said Obi, adding, “the entire fragile system is at the danger of collapsing.”
Obi, as the special advis­er on inter-governmental af­fairs to President Goodluck Jonathan, was responsible for brokering peace and harmony between the different warring political interests in the last administration, as well as for convoking the forum and plat­form under which the two pres­idential candidates of the two major parties in the last elec­tion, namely Jonathan of PDP and Buhari of the APC, signed an agreement for the conduct of peaceful campaign and elec­tions, after publicly embracing each other, to the delight and relief of all. In addition, Senator Obi had earlier negotiated the peaceful environment for the gubernatorial election in Edo and Ondo states.
Chief Obi was also the man who had brought together em­inent personalities like the for­mer UN Secretary General, Kofi Anan and his Commonwealth counterpart Chief Emeka Anya­oku to become part of the pro­cess for the peace building that had led to the holding of peace­ful general elections in 2015 and the subsequent hitch-free hand­over from Jonathan to Buhari. It was from that platform that the Peace Committee being chaired by General Abdulsal­sami Abubakar and which has such other eminent members like the Sultan of Sokoto, Car­dinal Onaiyekan of the Catholic Church, Bishop Kukah of Soko­to Catholic Diocese among oth­ers, had emerged.
Apart from intervening and stabilising the polity before and after the general elections of 2015, the peace initiatives by Chief Obi had earlier brokered peace and harmony in Edo and Ondo States as a run up to their gubernatorial elections and pre­vented them from being ranco­rous.
Chief Obi told our cor­respondent that nothing was more urgent at this time than ensuring the survival of the na­tion’s democracy which is being threatened by what he described as the current fight of the two APC elephants.