Dele Momodu, the famed publisher of Ovation magazine, isn’t getting much ovation, over his controversial theory, on the abiding confusion in the opposition camp — or is he?
Momodu, a former left-of-centre political player, who once was a Labour Party (LP)/ National Conscience Party (NCP) presidential wannabe (2011), and also received no less crushing failure, scoring zero vote, in his right-of-centre PDP presidential primaries for 2023.
In his new camp — PDP or ADC: aren’t both different sides of the same troubled coin? — he’s dabbling into political punditry, albeit of a most primitive hue. Seeing the route to the Presidency being radically changed, with mass anti-PDP defections in both the South East and the South-South, Momodu now roots for a “northern” response.
In his grand opinion, President Bola Tinubu, ahead of 2027, seems to be sewing up the entire South, with defecting PDP governors, the latest being Enugu’s Peter Mbah and Bayelsa’s Duoye Diri, though the exiting Diri has not quite said where he would berth.
Momodu, himself a flamboyant southerner from Edo, is urging the “North” to retaliate, and also back a “northern” candidate of their own! His campaign is for ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, of course. Atiku had declared himself the candidate of the “North” in his failed run of 2023. But now, Teflon Atiku isn’t so sure! But to Momodu, Atiku, as adopted “northern” candidate, is a “sure banker”, as pools betters would say! Well, we’ll see!
It’s curious though how Momodu verbalizes the sheer panic in the PDP/ADC camp. PDP tries to put a sheen on its long-running nightmare, envisioning some strange utopia and rebirth in its November convention. But the route to that haven is paved with nothing but tempest.
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ADC, on the other hand, after what in the streets they call “initial gra-gra” — o that picturesque phrase! — is settling down to a crippling monotony. Why, even Atiku, said to have committed cash and goodwill to snatching ADC as special purpose vehicle for his umpteenth run, is yet to fully commit by formally joining ADC!
Less than two years to destiny time in 2027 may well be near-eternity in politics. But Momodu’s panic-stricken bluster just shows vanishing hopes in the opposition camp!
Still, Momodu’s theory, of a northern tribal response, echoes the second US-Iraq War. The doomed Saddam Hussein laid much store by his Republican Guard, formidable in all its analogue might! But before Saddam could mutter Hussein, he saw the elite guards blown away by an elite digital force!
Those that plotted base, mass, northern bad-mouthing of others are finding out you can’t step in the same river twice: with the rapid political changes in the old Eastern Region. In panic mode, maybe Momodu evokes more pity, by his emotive punditry.
As they say, in the pidgin high street, “jungle don mature”!
