David Mark: Poised to make another mark!
By Simon Imobo-Tswam
Against the backdrop of bizarre happenings in the polity, it is fitting that I introduce this piece with the timeless words of the Roman statesman, Markus Cicero: “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treachery from within.”
If you substitute “a nation” in the quote with “a political party,” you bring the PDP, the erstwhile ruling party into context and sharp relief.
Since every nation is blessed with its fools, the over-ambitious and the treacherous, Nigeria (and PDP in focus) also has its fair share of these. But we zero in today on the treachery from within.
It is to grievously wound the PDP; deny it medication; frustrate its healing; keep it hemorrhaging; and continue to buffet it – not to the point of fatality, but to a point of where it is too weak to serve as a functional opposition- party.
It is in this crippled and comatose state of dysfunction that it would hobble into 2026, organise an APC-sponsored “PDP National Convention” that would produce an invariably APC-signatured “presidential candidate!” It is this candidate who would play at challenging President Bola Tinubu with symbolic gestures or proceed to adopt him as “the consensus presidential candidate” in the guise of national interest!
Some may say this is far-fetched and fantastic; that Nigeria is not a Mafia-state or a Banana Republic; and that this projection is the stuff of legends or a copy for Nollywood. But not everyone is politically blind. And even as we watch uncritically, Nigeria is becoming a theatre – a theatre of the absurd where reality is imitating art.
But this is where Nigeria stands now, at the Theatre-Junction. It is here that the dramatis personnel, a conspiratorial clique, is feverishly scheming to remake Nigeria in its diminutives image.
It should worry us because that Nigeria is not the one of our collective aspirations, but a dystopia where poverty is democratised and democracy is just a veneer for Mafia-rule; a Nigeria where big ideas are recruited – not for national growth, but for the enthusiastic building of personal empires.
In this age and time, this brazen state capture, this wholesale minoritisation of power and the mindless microtisation of privilege, constitute an aberration, a democratic abomination.
The PDP was not formed to be an opposition-party — it wrestled power from the military to rule Nigeria; and it did so marvellously for 16 years until it succumbed gullible to APC hypnosis. So, not formed for opposition, the PDP has tried, but failed to live up to that bidding since losing power.
Patriots, coming together under the banner of the ADC, are saying: “Nigeria is our country, and it must be made to work for all. Something needs to be done to save the Commonwealth from APC’s Locust-rule. That is why we’re stepping in”
Enter David Bonaventure Alechenu Mark.
At 77, Mark is not a small boy. Perhaps, the only thing small about him is his size. But Mark is proof that mind power will forever trump manpower.
He has been everything in the context of Nigerian politics and power equations. He has been Governor, Minister, General, Member of the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), Senator, Senate President and Professor Emeritus of the Doctrine of Necessity.
Since joining the PDP in 1998, Mark has been a faithful member – not taking a break for even one day! As the last man standing, he saw the handwriting on the wall and understood that it was time to jump ship.
In the universe of Nigerian politics, David Mark is someone who can be boldly described in superlatives: political juggernaut, political enigma, a political institution, a colossus, a political general. And being a minority in the context of Nigerian demographics, this is saying much.
Some may want to protest, but the facts speak for themselves. In the military, he was a governor, general and minister. In politics, he has been the most consequential senator in Nigeria legislative history. After five senate inaugurations, he got tired and yielded way for a protege.
A man like this cannot be anything less. If we desire, we may borrow the words of the late Chief K.O. Mbadiwe to describe him as: “a man of timbre and calibre.” Otherwise, we can just call him: “a caterpillar and bulldozer” who is always making his marks.
As far as winning elections is concerned, Sen. Mark is a political institution and a subject for endless academic analyses. He dumbfounds his critics; he shocks and awes his opponents; he thrills his supporters beyond measure; he dribbles his rivals to giddiness; he confounds analysts and shatters political permutations; and his fantastic wins sometimes defy the statistical tabulations from the opponents’ camps.
He is familiar with the infrastructure of power, he understands the power-game through and through and he is at home in the gilded palaces of power.
This is the man the APC sees standing against its 2027 hopes, like a bulwark, with his ADC Armada of positive disruption.
So like him or hate him, you must give it to Mark: he knows how to make his unique marks. He comes unto the political pitch with the mind of a conquering general. He may not necessarily subscribe to the “Take-no-prisoner” policies of Gen. George Patton or Gen. Maxwell Taylor, but mark my words: Mark can be as tactical as they come.
His political journey is littered with the political cadavers of his opponents. Even those who survived the devastating effects of Hurricane-Mark are still living on life-support, in political oblivion.
This is the stuff that is the David Mark phenomenon. This is the man that is now the centre of gravity of the coalition to end Bola Tinubu/APC’s tenancy in Aso Rock. He is the freshly inaugurated Interim National Chairman of the ADC.
All eyes are now on him: the ruling APC looks at him with trepidation while Nigerians see him as the rallying point for a redemptive leadership shift.
It’s a good and a bad thing. It’s a good thing, even flattering, that even in old age, Nigeria is still knocking on his door, to lead the redemptive-charge against ineptitude, mediocrity, cluelessness and predation.
On the other hand, it shows, sadly, that Nigeria is not working; and stopped working since 2015!
This is why Mark cannot be allowed to enjoy his quiet and deserving retirement with his grandchildren; he still has to shoulder Nigeria’s burden on his 77-year-old frame.
He doesn’t have to do it, but he has agreed to. When a solemn duty such as national redemption calls, patriotism has to answer affirmatively. Retirement can wait. Grandchildren can be persuaded to understand.
This brings up the issue of sacrifice. If a grandfather has to come out of retirement to lead the rescue coalition in a country of over 200 million people, the matter must be serious and grave.
Mark’s love for Nigeria must be deeper than his love for his comfort. It is the hope of all angry, suffering, marginalised, bypassed, ignored, disenfranchised, terrorised, traumatised, impoverished and despised Nigerians that Mark’s coalition, the revived and rebranded ADC, will make the historic mark, Come 2027.
Nigeria hopes. History waits. Oppression panics. It’s time to shake off despondency and begin the process of national rebirth.
Imobo-Tswam, a retired newspaper editor and good governance advocate, writes from Abuja.
