The Holy Bible recorded the story of a man called Job, a Chaldean, from the land of Uz, around the present day Iraq [known as Far East in the days of old]. God Himself attested to his character in Job 1:8 “that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fear God, and eschew evil”. For this reason probably, God blessed him tremendously. But typically to its work, the devil brought great calamity on this upright man when in just one day, according to the Bible; Job lost everything he had, including all his children – seven boys and three girls.

When the news of the death and destruction of all he had got to him, all Job said was “God giveth, God taketh,blessed be name of the Lord”. The Bible says that in all these, “Job did not sin against God” as he worshipped his Creator instead. The lesson in this story of Job is that whoever gives something can also take that thing away.

Something similar to this Job story happened last week during the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly, where there were loses to the All Progressive Congress; the Party with overwhelming majority in both Houses of the National Assembly, the Party that formed government on the 29th of May, 2015, as the APC ‘allowed’ the election of the National Assembly’s leadership to be put in place by the opposition party – People Democratic Party.

It was a dramatic turn of events. It was one miscalculation here and there. It might have even be as a result of “temporary moment in display of arrogance of power” or even inability to manage “success of victory”. Whatever the reason, victory had been slashed by the PDP to the humiliation and detriment of the APC. Something must have gone wrong. What is that thing?

Obviously, there is no way an article like this can capture the totality of the forces that turned “a winner to a loser” overnight because it must be the combination of many things. I am of the opinion however that the first mistake the APC made [in arriving this land of disaster] immediately after the general election that brought it to power is that of not sitting back to analyse the cogent political dynamics that delivered success to its path. If it had done that, it would have been able to know about the many errors of the PDP, which included but not limited to, “error of judgement by thinking that the departure of five sitting governors [mostly from the North West, North East and North Central] would not affect its electoral fortunes”.

Again, if the APC had truly analysed and appraised its “routes to success” during the general election,it would have seen another colossal error of the PDP when it “stuck to the belief that one man [Bamaga Tukur – its chairman then] was indispensable. Even when the aggrieved serving governors of the party confronted their leader [then President Goodluck Jonathan] to choose between them and BamagaTukur, the leader stuck to the latter and this became the “tonic” those governors [and their mentors] needed to exit the party. At the end, PDP learnt too late that “a tree does not make a forest”.

Though, there are many other reasons, like large scale corruption [nearly all Nigerian politicians across the political parties are guilty of this], arrogance of power, lack of internal democracy, betrayals based on “dogs eat dogs”, uncontrollable greed, gang-up of one section against another, religious intolerance, that led to the PDP “giving away its mandate to rule” to the APC, the two most important reasons, to my mind, were the PDP placing “too much premium on one individual [Bamaga Tukur] and allowing those five sitting governors “walked” away.

It is becoming so unfortunate to know, too early in the day though, that the APC did not learn from these identifiable two mistakes that “nailed” the PDP. Because if it had evaluated the situation and taken these facts to heart, it would, from the first day of coming to government, taken to the wisdom of not building its continuous route of greatness around one or two individuals.

Yes, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu; former governor of Lagos State, with his larger than life posture, might have translated to become the undisputed “Jagaban of Lagos politics” and a political leader of the Yoruba race in the South West geo-political zone, truth is that he is not yet the maestro and godfather of the Nigerian political kingdom.

The fall-out of the 8th National Assembly election has proved this logic. It is sagacious therefore to conclude that if the name of the APC national leader, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, did not come as “insurance cover” on the two”anointed” candidates for the leadership of the National Assembly [more of Honourabe Gbajabiamila than Senator Lawal] they probably would be presiding now as President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives respectively. The name of the national leader is no more an asset to those who operate under his umbrella but now a great liability.

In addition to this bitter lesson, the APC is equally failing to understand the dynamics of power block that made the emergence of the Buhari presidency possible. And until the ruling party carefully evaluates, analyse and understands the real hideous ‘principality and power’ [as the Holy Bible calls them] that made ascension of Muhammadu Buhari,as democratically elected president possible, it shall be losing power gradually but steadily to the opposition.

But even, of more importance to the APC, is to sit down and re-evaluate the difference in “acquisition and usage of power” because President Muhammadu Buhari”is for every person and he is not for any person”.Could that be the reason he did not meet with his party leaders and elected representatives at the International Conference Centre in Abuja while the greatest ‘coup’ of installing the leadership of the Senate was being perfected at the National Assembly? This question should be food for thought.

But for now, like Job in the Bible, APC can as well learn how to sing this one bitter chorus: “PDP gave it to us by its numerous mistakes and blunders and PDP has taken it away from us by our own miscalculation and blunder – may the name of the PDP be blessed”.

Mr. Godwin Etakibuebu, a commentator on public affairs, wrote from Lagos.