By Donu Kogbara
On Tuesday, I attended an All Progressives Congress, APC, rally in Okrika, Rivers State. The stars of the shows were Dr Dakuku Peterside and Honourable Asita, the APC’s clever and amiable gubernatorial candidate and running mate.

The First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, comes from Okrika. Let’s be fair and admit that none of us would like the idea of our husbands’ opponents not only making merry on our doorsteps but also loudly listing our husbands’ shortcomings in a public space on the eve of an election!

President Jonathan

The First Lady does not own Okrika. And those who do not share her high opinion of her embattled presidential spouse and their cronies do not require her permission to engage with Okrikan voters and offer them alternatives.

Furthermore, Dr Peterside is an Old Boy of Okrika Grammar School and is certainly entitled to visit the town in which his alma mater is situated. And when I accompanied him and his entourage to Okrika, I assumed that I would be safe, not least because the rally was going to be filmed and screened live on TV.

I was wrong. Within minutes of the event’s commencement, bullets started to whiz around. Panic ensued. I fell over and nearly got crushed to death in the stampede to escape from the venue. That I got out of there alive is a miracle.

Someone very kind – a guy, a policeman I think – dragged me to my feet and dragged me to a vehicle that eventually conveyed me back to Port Harcourt.

I hurt my arm but was lucky compared to the poor brave police officer who was shot and the amazing colleague – a Channels TV journalist – who was stabbed. At one point in this nightmare, I wound up next to the dead police officer’s corpse. All I could do was repeatedly make the sign of the cross and cry and pray.

But I’m completely traumatised by the experience and will never forget that poor police officer who left his house that morning not knowing he would never return.

An unpleasant surprise

The All Progressives Congress, APC, was formed in February 2013, when Nigeria’s four biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA – merged.

I remember saying, at the time, that there was strength in numbers and that this new creation was very likely to become a formidable force to be reckoned with; but most of my friends disagreed with me whenever we discussed the issue. Widespread scepticism about APC also existed beyond my social circle.

So many people regarded the merger as an untenable marriage of convenience and were sure that it would never stabilise into a successful love match.

So many people were sure that the two main protagonists in the drama – APC Leader Bola Ahmed Tinubu and CPC icon, General Muhammadu Buhari – were strange bedfellows and too egotistical to compromise with each other. So many people expected them to clash spectacularly, very early on, and to never settle into a productive partnership.

Bola Tinubu, ACN National Leader

So many people were sure that Tinubu and Buhari’s followers would also find it impossible to bond…and would wind up squabbling constantly, like a bunch of ferocious ferrets trapped in the same sack and fighting over scraps of meat.

So many people seriously doubted that the APC could ever become a significant thorn in the flesh of the mighty ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

PDP card carriers were particularly disparaging about the APC’s chances of surviving and thriving, even when five PDP Governors – Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers); Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rabiu Kwakwanso (Kano);  Murtala Nyako (Adamawa);  and Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) – decamped to the APC in November 2013 and were soon joined by legislators who were loyal to them.

The almost craven belief in the power of incumbency is so deeply entrenched in our collective psyche that few onlookers seriously believed that the relatively ill-resourced APC could knock the PDP off its elevated perch; and SO MANY people assured me that Amaechi had made the biggest mistake of his life.

Some folks expressed this view sneeringly and gleefully because they loathed Amaechi and wanted him to be messed up. But most of the folks who expressed this view were fond of Amaechi and genuinely concerned for his welfare.

Looking back, I can see why so many onlookers were pessimistically convinced that the APC was Dead On Arrival. It was, after all, entirely possible that an amalgamation of so many disparate elements would fail in terms of internal mechanics, in-house relationships and its impact on the society as a whole.

It took me a while to coldly turn my back on Goodluck Jonathan – my onetime hero and Niger Delta brother – and buy into the APC’s “CHANGE” mantra.

Now that I have done so, it gives me great pleasure to say that the APC has done fantastically well since it received approval from the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on July 31, 2013, to become a political party.

Nobody is sure what the future holds. Some say that Jonathan is so desperate that there will be no election. Others say that there will be an election and that Jonathan is more popular than he currently looks and will win.

Whatever the case may turn out to be, APC has been an unpleasant surprise for those who yearned for its failure. Its different components have blended with surprising maturity. It has generated a massive momentuous bandwagon effect.

I thank Buhari, Tinubu, Amaechi et al, for providing me and many other disillusioned Nigerians who crave CHANGE with a sense of hope.