Tag: Congress

Abia PDP is at crossroads. It is gasping for breath. Yes, it suffers from self-administered poisoned chalice. The hegemonic clique that calls the shot is bent on holding to its siege mentality. In fact, what played out in the last state congress was a rehearsal of democratic despotism that held the state by jugular and emasculated the robustness of party politics. The initial betrayal of the unchanging spots of the leopard was the illegal inauguration of a State Congress Committee, peopled by virtually the same persons that turned the last PDP primaries in Abia to Bureau De Change. The grim harvest of the committee’s merchandising with the then aspirants was an unprecedented level of internal sabotage, double-dealing, back-stabbing and a large army of fifth columnists during the 2015 general elections in the state.

On the face value, empanelling a committee for the congress, could be viewed as administrative pro-activeness, but underlying the  illegal committee’s mandate was a tall order to limit the political space and cut to size those with towering profile termed “non- conformists”. That brings to the fore the illegality of the State Congress Committee. It is only the national leadership of PDP that is empowered by the constitution of the party to appoint members of Congress Committee. As a corollary, the Abia PDP Congress was without the usual fanfare; no tenor; no fragrance. Abia’s first-eleven in PDP, the likes of Chief Ojo Maduekwe, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, Senator Ike Nwachukwu, Dr. Uche Ogah, Senator Adolphus Wabara, and Professor Ihechukwu Madubuike were conspicuous by their absence. Do not lose sight of the fact that the party had lost to the ruling APC, the likes of Senator Nkechi Nwogu, Chief Emeka Nwogu, Senator Chris  Adighije, Chief Anthony Ukasoanya; no thanks to the unresolved issues of 2014 gubernatorial primaries and ‘animal farm’ treatment meted to them by Abia ‘trinity cabal’.

On the D-day of the state congress, the charade took an unchecked flight. First, the moderator of the event goofed by naively missing the Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly from the list of protocol. The costly tomfoolery nearly turned the event into disarray. Take note that there is a ‘manhunt’ for the Speaker’s seat by the same ‘cabal’. Second, a dangerous misnomer and a monumental breach of protocol were glossed over. The former governor and his hordes of praise singers and bootlickers took the shine off the incumbent governor who was already seated before them. Unknown to many, the late entrance of the former governor was premeditated. The  contrived ‘ovation’ that greeted the former helmsman’s appearance at the venue of the congress was intended to send a message that the old horse is still in charge and invariably, dissuade any attempt towards eye ball-to-eyeball assertiveness by the incumbent. The incumbent governor, in his characteristic calmness, maintained his cool but his mood was not ecstatic throughout the event. That was why the governor deserted the rubber-stamp casting of votes midway and that brought the event to a laughable end.  The congress was a joke taken too far. While the illegal State Congress Committee was busy doctoring the lists of new party officials that emerged from the wards, in the guise of harmonization, the big show of shame reached a crescendo at the state congress event.

After the excruciating experience of screening of the ad-hoc delegates under a scorching sun, the delegates, at the arrival in the hall were ambushed with the announcement of the names of would-be state officers of the party without undergoing any election, which they came for. The pin-drop silence that greeted the daylight robbery was as confusing as it was nauseating. Questions reared up in people’s faces. Agitated minds were rife. Murmurings ensued but like a typical slave camp, nobody dared to interrogate the mockery with democracy apparel. The hot bags of sachet water served the delegates in the name of entertainment heightened the tension. And our great ‘democrats’ boasted and celebrated the muzzled voices as acquiescence. They pontificated that it was the most peaceful in the history of democracy. Peaceful, my foot!  Peace of the graveyard! It is comparable to the ‘peace’ between the biblical Jonah and the fish. While Jonah was languishing in solitary hopelessness in the womb of the fish, the fish was enjoying its aquatic environment with Jonah intact.

Abia North Zone is even the worst casualty of the whole mess.  The deputy chairmanship slot allotted to the senatorial zone was awarded to a person with legendary political liability in his Ward, Local Government and the state. A ranking member of House of Representatives from the zone stoutly opposed his selection at a meeting held at the Deputy Governor’s Lodge before the sham election called state congress but the cabal’s penchant for snubbing cerebral personalities in the state made the unpopular person to assume the position. The illegal State Congress Committee constituted by the ‘cabal’ to carry out a hatchet job in Umunneochi Local Government in the same Abia North also  worked at cross-purposes with the committee set up by the PDP national leadership. While the federal committee conducted the Local Government Congress in the presence of INEC, Police and DSS as monitors, the illegal committee brandished another list of Local Government and Ward officials of PDP, cooked up by contractors and business men with no democratic trajectory. Confusion almost set in but the maturity displayed by the torchbearers of the party in the area saved people’s revolt against those on the path of a psychopath. Indeed, Abia PDP is walking on clutches having been amputated by contradictions of greed, propaganda and pocket autocracy. The days of reckoning are imminent.

• Nwaubani Ejike wrote in from Umuahia.