Nigeria general election 2011 - While on that visitation I cannot forget what looked like a subtle prophecy and warning given by Archbishop Peter Jatau of the Catholic church when he hosted us in the company of his Methodist church counterpart, Bishop Achigili. He said and I quote, "Chief Ige, you can count on the support of Christians in this part of Nigeria. If there's any place where I will strongly advise you do your home work now, it is in your home, where you come from. If they offer you to us, we shall support you." I was smiling because I thought Uncle Bola was indisputably entitled to the AD ticket.

The party was his initiative. Ideologically he was sound. He had the experience, resilience, brilliance, competence, courage, and commitment. The other challenger people broached in muffled tones was Chief Olu Falae identified with the much-dreaded Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the very unpopular Babangida administration, wherein he earned the unenviable nickname of the "Apostle of SAP". We thought it was a joke.

But, eventually, it turned out to be true. Three days to the parley a 23-man presidential selection panel of the AD had scheduled with Uncle Bola and Chief Falae, Uncle Bola packed a suitcase and headed for his residence at Kent, United Kingdom. What of a contact phone? I asked, virtually trembling. He said I shouldn't bother wasting money to call him in the UK. An Uncle Bola supporter with a streak of hooliganism badgered me with phone calls while the 23 wise men met at D'Rovans hotel, Ibadan, telling me he had it on good authority from his agents around the venue that things would not go Uncle's way. He only needed Uncle's say so to end the meeting in his own way. I told him I had no means of connecting him to Uncle. The rest is history.

This was another case of the progressives bungling it. I don't know the measure of blame to apportion to each of the parties involved in this saga that ultimately sounded the death-knell of the AD as a party.

Falae got the AD ticket and lost the election. I'm sure Uncle Bola would have won if he was AD's flag bearer. One, the AD/APP alliance was quietly conceived months back in the hope that Uncle Bola would pair with Shinkafi, whose personal relationship with Uncle bordered on a romance between two teenagers.

I remember Dr. Paul Unongo, Former Minister of Steel under Shagari, phoning to express his shock over the choice of Falae, asking me: why did you people bungle your own end of our deal? I didn't know what to say. To say the least, not picking Uncle Bola weakened the resolve of APP members in the North to campaign for a Falae/Shinkafi ticket. I felt then that Shinkafi himself merely tagged along as a loyal party man. Not out of genuine interest anymore. Two, had Uncle Bola been picked, PDP would have been split into two.

Uncle Bola himself told me in confidence that there were progressive forces in the PDP who had been his long-standing allies, who would mobilize their supporters to back him the way former Governor of Adamawa state, Alhaji Saleh Michika, cast aside party loyalty and openly campaigned for M.K.O. Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) against his own party's presidential candidate, Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC) in 1993. Uncle's body language pointed at people like Chief Solomon Lar and Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, his co-Second Republic governors of old Plateau and Kano states, respectively. Three, the then Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, and Uncle Bola were quite fond of each other.

Uncle Bola, it was, who reassured me that the Abubakar transition wasn't going to be another wild goose's chase like IBB's. If Uncle had won the election; Abubakar (also my friend) would have been the happiest person to hand-over to him. In other words, everything was in Uncle's favour, except that the progressives bungled it. Once again!

Presently, the progressives are at it again. The masses of this country from North to South are thoroughly fed up with the PDP. They want change. The only snag in their quest is that those who can furnish the desired change among the progressives in the opposition camp are divided as usual. I refer to the inability of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to forge an alliance. Each of them is going it solo after keeping concerned Nigerians in suspense for several weeks over an alliance that is practically a flop as I write. I am not interested in the details of their failed alliance talks, of who was forthcoming and who was recalcitrant. I only want to appeal to them to present a single candidate in the interest of the masses of this country.

In a traditional Yoruba conflict resolution set-up, if I and my father are at dispute, I would be asked to prostrate and apologise to my father, even though it is apparent to the elders' jury that I am perfectly in order over my stance and my father deserves all the blame. Afterwards, I would be asked to excuse the jury.

In my absence, my father would be told the home truth by his peers who would direct him on how to appease me. Thereafter, I would be called in and my father himself would talk to me in appeasing tone. As a Yoruba man schooled in this tradition, I would advise Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, ACN candidate, to step down for our father, Gen. Buhari of the CPC. If Ribadu could hand-over a $15 million bribe offered him by former Delta state governor, Chief James Ibori, to the Central Bank of Nigeria as disclosed by him to some of us on 29 May, 2009, at the Rocket Hall of London Metropolitan University, he shouldn't find it too hard to make further sacrifice to bring a regime in which he can play prominent role to power to end a corrupt social order and deliver our suffering masses from the woes of PDP's misrule.

To be concluded.

Dr Meyungbe-Olufunmilade is of Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State.

'Femi Meyungbe-Olufunmilade

Daily Trust/05/03/2011