BY EMMANUEL AZIKEN

LAST Wednesday’s arraignment of the immediate past Governor of Lagos State and national leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has drawn fresh attention to the status of opposition political parties in the country.

The savvy publicity committee of the ACN successfully turned what is regarded as a purely ethical trial into a political trial of the national opposition leader.

The ACN publicity committee headed by the party’s national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has, in a way, somewhat re-shaped the role of the opposition in the country. Until the advent of the ACN, opposition parties had reduced themselves to the sounding board of the selfish political and economic interests of their chieftains.

It was as such not surprising that the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, particularly under the leadership of the late Edwin Ume-Ezeoke mortgaged the role of the opposition as constructive critics of the government at the centre.

The ACN has admirably refused to follow that dishonourable path of self denigration, trudging along as an irritating check on the PDP Federal Government.

For now, the ACN is playing out its role as a constructive critic of government. But that is not to say that the ACN is itself all clean. It has displayed sheer prejudice on issues affecting it, like its deafening silence on the party’s culture of imposing candidates, instead of electing them popularly through primaries. It is uncertain that everyone in ACN is comfortable with that.

While the ACN and its robust publicity machinery are giving alternative voice at the centre, across the country I am also beginning to see a positive growth of healthy opposition in some of the states.

Particularly of interest in recent times are the articulation of opposition forces in Imo, Nasarawa, Edo and Oyo States.

The new administration in Oyo State has had no time for honeymoon as a result of the strident criticisms from the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and officials of the former PDP regime in the state, led by former governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala.

When Governor Abiola Ajimobi showed solidarity with Asiwaju Tinubu with his appearance at the Code of Conduct Tribunal in Abuja last Wednesday, he drew flak from Otunba Alao-Akala who flayed him for exhibiting executive joblessness and condescending to the role of a groveling subordinate at the beck and call of his boss.

The ACN in its reaction was to condemn what it described as an axis of evil it claimed exists between the trio of Alao-Akala, his spokesman Prince Dotun Oyelade and the state chapter of the PDP.

The ACN frowned at the regularity with which the trio has been “flaw-shopping,” saying this meant the former ruling party and its officials were suffering from acute joblessness.

Positive image

Equally exciting has been the defining role of Chief Blyden Amajiriownu, the publicity secretary of the Imo State chapter of the PDP in aiming to give a positive image to the party.

Amajiruownu has to the commendation of party enthusiasts across the Southeast almost succeeded in turning the glorious coming of Governor Rochas Okorocha into a non-event with his unrelenting attack on the seeming weaknesses of the new administration.

So successful has Amajiruownu been in his tackling of the Okorocha administration that many Imo indigenes have today put the luckless former governor, Ikedi Ohakim in the subconscious.

In fact, I was surprised to hear the other day that Ohakim is still in the country. The same situation is also playing out in Edo State where the PDP has, despite the infrastructural development efforts of Governor Adams Oshiomhole sustained a rhythm that has kept the Comrade on his toes.

In Nasarawa State, former Governor Adamu Abdullahi, now a Senator, seems to have emerged as the godfather of the opposition. It is not that the opposition should at all times oppose everything. As the ACN and the Imo State PDP have recently been doing, the opposition should offer alternative ideas on policies and programmes.

What the commendable examples show is that despite our problems, our democracy is taking shape.