The arrogance of APC shows it learned nothing from PDP's fall [Pulse Editor's Opinion]

At the height of its powers between 1999 and 2015, members and chieftains of the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) trudged around with chips on their shoulders and wrapped themselves inside this nauseating envelope of invincibility.

It was the era when President Olusegun Obasanjo could fly to the scene of a catastrophic bomb explosion in Lagos and tell grieving families and friends that he didn't need to be there.

It was the era when President Goodluck Jonathan danced at a campaign rally as terrorists picked up and killed dozens of school students for fun.

It was the era when a PDP chieftain, reveling in how his party controlled a chunk of Nigeria's 36 States, boasted that the PDP would rule Nigeria for 60 years and more.

It was the era when Chief Olisa Metuh wrote some of the most disgusting, arrogant and insensitive press statements ever; and practically pummeled media houses into publishing them.

The PDP era was one steeped in wanton looting of the treasury and corruption on a grand scale. It was a rudderless era, no less.

When the All Progressives Congress (APC) arrived the scene after unseating the PDP at the center in 2015, it promised to do things differently, to clean the Augean stable.

Six years after however, the APC has shown us that all members of Nigeria's political class are cut from the same cloth.

It is why some say that there is no difference between the PDP and APC in content, personalities, governance, direction and style.

I look at APC chieftains and President Buhari today and I see arrogance, a lack of empathy for millions of suffering Nigerians, a lack of direction and a lack of empathy and concern for thousands of Nigerians who bear the brunt of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping every other day.

Interact with some members of the Buhari presidency and some APC state governors today and that feeling of invincibility and disdain for the masses is palpable. You would think they reside in an alternate planet.

It is why President Buhari can repeatedly ask with rage and without a shred of concern in his voice: "What more do they (Nigerians) want me to do?"

Beyond the president's Aso Rock cocoon and bubble, however, the economy continues its nose-dive into oblivion, inflation gallops and a spate of insecurity continues to keep Nigerians away from farms, offices and schools.

Today, millions of Nigerians can't find food to eat, can't afford to purchase food for their hungry bellies.

But you wouldn't know that from listening to the president's spokespersons, Femi Adesina or Garba Shehu. They get irritated when reminded that the country they superintend over is falling apart.

Buhari is clearly Nigeria's most divisive, insensitive, aloof, incompetent president ever.

And like the PDP before it, the APC has boasted that it will be here for many more years to come, its incompetence and cluelessness be damned.

“Our vision is to provide a wheel that will drive the party to go beyond 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and even 10th term of office...to remain Nigeria’s leading political party," APC caretaker Chairman, Mai Mala Buni, declared with characteristic chest-thumping in March.

It is the arrogance and audacity for me.

Like the PDP, the APC has forgotten that power is transient. The APC wants to gag the media. It wants to stifle social media voices and suppress free speech.

It is worrying and disconcerting that 22 years after Nigeria's 4th Republic took off with some fanfare, there is not a shred of good governance or dividend of democracy anywhere.

Instead, we have all become poorer from the hare-brained and hollow policies of the PDP and APC. We need to stop these guys dead in their destructive tracks!!!

It would take some doing to unseat these band of robbers who have infiltrated every level of our political space, churning out loads of propaganda that neither puts food on the table nor keeps us safe.

No kidding---there's a whole lot of community organising, sensitisation and awareness campaigns ahead of us if we truly desire to unseat the clueless political class now calling the shots across the country.

There's a lot of work to be done in educating the masses on why voting right ultimately decides their collective future and those of their children.

And the best time to have started organising politically in order to bequeath a better nation to our children, was yesterday.

These greedy APC and PDP politicians haven't got a clue. And they won't exit the stage without a fight.

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*Pulse Editor's Opinion is the viewpoint of an Editor at Pulse. It does not represent the opinion of the Organisation Pulse.