PDP has imploded again. That cannot be news to Nigerians who have come to know that party like their palms. But then am not referring to last week’s fracas at the party’s National Headquarters in Abuja over which the member representing Ideato North/Ideato South Federal Constituency of Imo State and spokesman of the Coalition of United Political Parties, the once – expelled, Ikenga Imo Ugochinye, so praised one of the cruiserweights, you would think that one had just won a national wrestling contest.
The bruising contest had erupted when thugs from the two flanks of the embattled party emerged, fighting for either of the National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, and the former National Youth Leader Sunday Ude-Okoye – see the names, and mentally recall the unending imbroglio for the position of President of the senate in the Obasanjo years, and give yourself a good laugh. This cannot but be so as while in office, the U. S Ccommittee on Foreign Relations had long concluded that this is a party that thrives on rent seeking and clientelism. Giving Nigeria’s current challenges they are believing themselves as capable of winning elections in 2027, even without planning, without attempting a thorough cleasing of their Augean stable of a party.
Let them carry go!
Resplendent in their VIP seats as the war raged were the big guns, who never stopped deluding themselves, calling PDP ‘our great party’, rather than a hollow party – the BoT Chairman, Senator Adolphus Wabara, the Acting National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Damagum.
BoT Secretary, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, Hajia Inna Ciroma, Senator Ben Obi, Chairman of PDP Reconciliation Committee, Gen. Olagunsoye Oyinlola, and former Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu, among others.
The scene easily reminded me of what I wrote here recently in the tribute to my inimitable teacher, Dr Segun Osoba, to wit:”looking back now, one of the very important lessons I learned from him was the importance of understanding the past in order to appreciate the present, with a view to shaping the future. He taught us that history is not just a series of dates and events but a rich tapestry of human experiences, cultures, and traditions”.
So is it a tradition of the PDP to always implode?
Yes, of course, majorly because it have always been an ensemble of the same kind of people, united as President Obasanjo once said, by love of office, and patronage, or a fresh craving for office.
Unfortunately, even if this were not the case, the mere presence of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the party would have been enough to set it into a tailspin as has been the case since he returned from ACN, and later, APC. When he exited the party for the ACN, it was for the sole purpose of wanting to emerge the Presidential candidadate of a party he did not found but which Ahmed Tinubu indulged him, and then went, solely on his own, to pick his VP without consultation.
He actually has never been able to invest the patience and intellectual depth needed to found a political party.
And that ambition to ride roughshod over any, and every, party to which he belongs, believing that money will make that a done deal.
Read Also: Enugu PDP begs LP guber candidate Edeoga to return
I enjoin Nigerians to watch out as the equally ambitious politicians like Obi, Saraki, El Rufai, Ogbeni and others he must be surreptitiously romancing now, will not lie low and be prepared to play the monkey.
Let us hear how President Segun Obasanjo situated this Atiku’s corrosive ambition on reliance on Marabouts.
He wrote in MY WATCH, Pages 31 – 32-
“What I did not know, which came out glaringly later … were his propensity to corruption, his tendency to disloyalty, his inability to say and stick to the truth all the time, a propensity for poor judgment, his belief and reliance on marabouts , his lack of transparency, his trust in money to buy his way out on all issues and his readiness to sacrifice morality, integrity, propriety truth and national interest”.
Had Atiku not sacrificed morality, he would have known how immoral it was to think that a Northerner should succeed President Muhammadu Buhari after completing two terms of 8 years. And to imagine that some myopic Northern leaders so supported him they bulldozed a frightened Aminu Tambuwal out of the race is insulting.
As a historian this leads me to my article of 16 January, 2011 titled:
AS PDP IMPLODES –
It reads:
It is a settled truism that a house built of spittle must, of necessity, collapse. So let it be with the Peoples’ Democratic Party which one of its unreflective past chairmen once said would rule Nigeria like forever. Since they do not read, he could never have heard about Hitler’s Third Reich. But then, we must not be deceived; for a dangerous game is afoot, and Nigerians, especially those in both the ACN and the Labour party, two parties currently receiving hordes of departing decampees from the PDP, and therefore, the obvious gainers from the demise of the party, must show themselves much smarter than either the manipulators within the PDP or the miserable cast of individuals now jumping ship in droves, determined only to go out there to prostitute, profit and then promptly return to their vomit. Therefore, they must be understood for who they are, and must be kept at reasonable arm’s length.
They must be made to campaign for the presidential candidates of their new parties, whoever it turns out to be.
We said it long ago that the party’s Chairman, Board of Trustees will lead it to its demise.
The hour has come and even with the very best of intentions, it is now beyond the PDP to save itself. But we must ensure that Nigeria does not go down with this ‘biggest rally’ in Africa.
I haven’t the slightest doubt that those now decamping are on a mission to go and find an avenue for their political ambitions whilst leaving their supporters for the would-be PDP presidential candidate. In which case, the parties now receiving them in droves may actually end up being used and subsequently dumped. They must not be allowed to eat their cake and at the same time, have it.
The scenario building up before our very eyes is one more reason why the Almighty God must always be given His full due of thanksgiving in all circumstances, as the holy writ enjoins us. He uses anybody, or anything, to accomplish His words and desires. He appears ready to use a once, all-conquering, Obasanjo to set this country free. God in His infinite mercy is about taking plan – lessness, dubiety, profligacy and kleptomania out of our body politic. He is setting us on the right path, in a way that Nigeria’s traducers would no longer blaspheme that God gave us abundant resources but fools for leaders.
The implosion of the PDP must be celebrated like the Israelites did the unprecedented parting of the red sea. Or where today is Nigeria after 12 years of outright rudderless – ness in the hands of a manipulating, and thoroughly unfeeling PDP? What is the status of infrastructure stock, energy or security in a country that received, in the last 12 years, an unprecedented quantum of petro – dollars?
As you read this in the year of our Lord, 2011, twelve years into PDP’s stranglehold over the country, you do not have a dedicated road from Lagos to the nation’s capital, Abuja.
In my view, nothing better illustrates the complete irresponsibility of the PDP than the state of our roads; not even the equally parlous state of electricity after blowing 16 billion dollars? How can PDP, buoyed together only by patronage, be so acutely bereft of a plan to genuinely move this country forward, not as in their slogans, but genuinely, for the sake of today’s, and even unborn Nigerian generation? What exactly is that party doing to ensure that our young ones do not graduate into unemployment or into paving the streets, selling cheap imitation goods from China and Taiwan under the scotching sun?
Should Nigerians, whether in our collective un-wisdom, or cruel trickery, allow the victory of the PDP come the next elections, then we would truly deserve our servitude, condemned as we would then be, to four more years of the same.
What was true of the PDP in 2011, is true today, 14 years after, as Alhaji Atiku Abubabakar’s purpose for it has not changed one bit.
He sees it as a Northern political party to be used solely for the benefit of the North.
