With the emergence of a Northerner as its presidential
candidate I wonder how Afenifere, PANDEM, Ohaeneze Ndigbo, the Middle Belt
Forum and the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum now feel about their
favoured child known as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)?
The virulent and avowed opposition that these august and
highly respected bodies had against a Northern presidential candidate has been
overruled by their party. Their call for an Igbo presidential candidate has
been ignored and treated with contempt and disdain.
Their preferred party is fielding a Northerner and there is
nothing they can do about it. They have been misled, fooled and scammed and
they have no influence or power over the affairs of their favoured party.
Despite their revered age, wealth of knowledge, profound insight and depth of
wisdom their PDP has tossed their collective counsel into the dustbin.
Permit me to welcome them to the world of realpolitik and I
advise that they stop allowing themselves to be so easily manipulated and
deceived. Politics is a game of numbers where words and the knowledge of
history alone count for little and where only insight, passion, a firm resolve
and a large war chest coupled with the ability to conspire and the courage to
build bridges even with past adversaries and former foes are the keys to
success.
In this game, like the words of Shakespeare’s witches in his
famous play ‘Macbeth’, “Fair is foul and foul is fair: hover through the fog
and filthy air!”. It is a strange and difficult game filled with intrigue,
betrayal and treachery. It is murky, it is foggy, it is dark, it is treacherous,
it is full of intrigue and mystery and nothing is as it seems or appears.
They thought their PDP would produce a Southern candidate
even if the APC failed to do so but now they know that the trust they bestowed
on their arrant yet favoured child was misplaced. This was a shock to them. And
let me assure them that more shockers and surprises are coming.
I believe it is time that they start thinking differently
and adopting a new approach in order to achieve their noble objectives of a
fair, equitable and just Nigeria in which we are all equals regardless of
ethnicity or faith. Constantly supporting and relying on the PDP and hoping
they will come to power to do something new, fix the problems and provide the
solutions is an ill-placed illusion and dangerous delusion.
It simply cannot work. I advise them to have a rethink and
to realign. In doing so they may well make a difference and achieve their noble
objectives. Now permit me to get to the meat of this essay. It is interesting
to note and quite an irony that the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC), a party
that the opposition PDP has wrongly labelled as a bunch of Northern
irredentists and hegemonists, are now the ones that could possibly provide a
Southerner as their flag bearer.
Conversely, the PDP, the party that has always claimed to
champion the precepts of equity, justice and Southern rights and that has
always prided itself on its strong Southern base, has opted to give its
presidential flag to a Northerner. They turned their backs on the people of the
South East who have given them more support than any other ethnic nationality
in the country over the last 23 years.
They spurned the people of the Middle Belt who saw in them a
hope of salvation and emancipation. They rejected the people of the South-South
whose sons and daughters stood firmly behind them through thick and thin.
Finally they displayed their usual and utter contempt for
the people of the South West who they have always regarded as nothing but the
biblical “hewers of the wood and the drawers of the water” and the poor
relatives of the party ever since President Olusegun Obasanjo left power in
2007.
Worse still they gave their ticket to a man who is the best
of friends with Sheik Ahmad Gumi, the defender-in-chief of the terrorists of
the North West, they gave it to a man who withdrew a public condemnation of the
savage lynching of Miss Deborah Emmanuel in Sokoto and they gave it to a man
that refused to condemn the brutal slaughter of a pregnant Fulani lady and her
four children in Anambra.
They gave their ticket to a man that lost the 2019 election
and promptly left the country for 3 long years for beautiful Dubai, abandoning
all his followers and supporters to weather the Nigerian storm and waters. How
this man can sleep at night I really don’t know!
They gave their ticket to a man who is soft on the
terrorists that are butchering the people of the North West and North East and
who has offered no solution to the plague of unknown gunmen and terrorists that
are slaughtering people in the South East. Is this a party that can be trusted
with power?
Have they not become the very monster that they once claimed
to seek to oppose and destroy? Have the tables not turned? Has the party not
been taken over by faceless hardliners with a hidden agenda? Can the people of
the South West, South East, South South, North Central or even North West and
North East trust Atiku with power?
I have my doubts. The truth is that the PDP has been
high-jacked by a dangerous cabal who have utter contempt for anyone and
everyone that is not part of their inner circle. Many ask, who are those in
this cabal? Who are those that now control the PDP and that ensured that Nyesom
Wike was defeated and Atiku eme
The same forces ensured the emergence of Atiku at the Port
Harcourt Convention in 2018 by whispering his name at the last minute to the
relevant stakeholders and they have done it again in 2022. How can a serious
political party not afford Ayo Fayose, Dele Momodu at least ONE vote each at
its presidential primaries simply because they refused to bribe the delegates?
How can they lose Rabiu Kwankwaso, Peter Obi and Enyinnaya
Abaribe to other smaller and totally inconsequential parties just before their
convention? How can they deny Anyim Pius Anyim the presidential ticket?
How can they not encourage Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, who is the best
of them and the brightest star in the South East, to run for the nomination?
How can they reduce Emmanuel Udom to 13 votes, Bala Mohammed to 20 votes and
Bukola Saraki to 70 votes and how can they deal such a ruthless death blow to
the aspirations of Nyesome Wike who struggled so hard to bring the Presidential
ticket to the South?
Had it not been for Aminu Tambuwal’s decision to back Atiku
at the last minute, Wike would have won with flying colours. And look at their
Convention itself? Was it not a show of shame where the highest bidder simply
took the prize? Were the activities there not worse than those in an 18th
century Parisian whore house where money was exchanged for services rendered?
This was not an election but a shameless gathering of
corrupt souls in which the dollar determined the outcome at the behest of its
providers. The delegates were bought and their price was on open display. It
was a shameful dollarfest in which honor, decency, politics, merit and
seriousness had no place.
It was a jamboree of spending and an act of open worship to
Mammon, the god of money. A candidate that emerges from such a gathering and as
a consequence of the invocation of such dark and bestial forces and powers
cannot be expected to do any good.
If there was any reason for INEC to nullify a party
Convention this particular one provided. Put together, the PDP convention was
worse than an Arab carpet bazaar and an Indian brothel all rolled into one. It
stank to high heavens and it resulted in a shameless mess which lacked any pretence
to legitimacy.
The truth is that there really is something defective about
the thought processes and reasoning of the PDP. Time will prove that.
Interestingly there are many in the ruling APC who have expressed a strong
preference for a Southern presidential candidate for 2023 and most of them are
from the North.
Would it not be a remarkable thing if President Muhammadu
Buhari, the man many in the South have constantly viewed with suspicion and
skepticism and who many have wrongly labelled as an ethnic warlord and
religious bigot, was the one that gave the South what they wanted?
And make no mistake about it, this decision is Buhari’s and
his alone. He alone will most likely determine who APC will field and where
that person comes from. If he chooses to stop any presidential aspirant from
emerging even at this late stage he can do so, no matter how popular, rich and
powerful that aspirant may be. Just one phone call from him to the relevant
stakeholders can achieve that.
He can also endorse the weakest and most unlikely contender
even at the last minute and that person will emerge. Such is the respect, trust
and affection that the leaders and members of the party at every level have for
him. As they say, he has the “yam and the knife” and he can determine what will
happen or choose to sit back and allow all the aspirants to slug it out until
the best man wins.
I am on record as saying that the three zones that ought to
be considered for the nomination before others are the South East, North
Central and North East and I stand by that. Compared to the South West, North
West and South South none of them have had a fair crack of the whip when it
comes to democratically- elected Presidents and they all deserve to have their
chance. They are not slaves and they need to be encouraged, given a sense of
purpose and carried along.
I maintain this position even if I am the only one that
refuses to hedge my bets and say so publicly. I also maintain that it would be
easier for a Northerner to defeat Atiku but, if truth be told, it would also be
a reflection of the courage and sense of fairness of the President and the APC
that, even if it means risking the 2023 election, it is better to do the right
and proper thing, assuage the fears and worries of the South, honor past
commitments and allow a Southerner to take over.
This alone will make Buhari a hero above all else. This
alone will give Nigeria a new lease of life and will restore and strengthen
North/South relations. This alone will assuage the feelings and heal the wounds
of those that live in perpetual fear of Northern hegemony and domination and
quench the awesome fire of the militants and separatists that thrive in the
South East, South West and South South.
This alone will send a strong signal to Boko Haram, ISWAP,
the killer herdsmen and the foreign terrorists that they have failed to destroy
our fragile unity and to divide us. This alone will be a legacy that will speak
for our President and our party into eternity. The question therefore is
whether we do the right thing by giving the ticket to the South or do the
politically expedient thing by giving it to the North.
That choice will be made at the APC convention in a few
days’ time. Let us wait and see.
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