So the NWC of the PDP has balls after all? It is now tit-for-tat. It is now fire-for-fire. It is ‘talking’. It has found its mojo. It is firing almost on all cylinders. Before the election that is sending a ‘statesman’ and a ‘good’ man who goes by the name Ebele Jonathan, home, the NWC had been no more than the side kick of the more robust and tough talking Presidential Campaign Council chaired by the famous Ahmadu Ali, a notable Obasanjo ally.
I find this newfound bravado unbelievable, suspect even. No matter how hard it passes the buck, the NWC can’t escape blame in the defeat of the outgoing president. It wetted the ground for the resounding whitewash. Consider, if you may, the muscling of other presidential aspirants on the party’s platform. It is in public domain that the NWC printed only one presidential nomination form strictly for the incumbent. Accepted, the tradition in other climes like the US is for the incumbent to be given the right of first refusal but in the case of Jonathan’s aspiration, those who posed real challenge were muscled out.
Again, Jonathan was a hard sell. He came across as cunning and sly. He also came across as conveniently forgetful. He forgot for instance, his party rotation principle enshrined in its constitution. In 2011,his capacity or lack of it was not visible. Actually it was concealed. It was a lot easier then to market him. But in 2015?Nay. The president was under preforming for one. In critical sectors, the PDP candidate failed to deliver spectacularly. He came painfully short. He promised lavishly and big. He delivered at the height of a midget. Insecurity has been has been an embarrassingly recurrent decimal in the preceding four years. Few of the electoral promises made four years earlier were redeemed. Instead and looking back now, by choice, the president led from behind skirts.
The party itself was progressively being weakened. In 2011,it was relatively close-knit. In 2015,it had raptured. Hawks hijacked it. The aggrieved exited. The bulwark of the APC, the party waiting to have its candidate sworn in as president in three short weeks, is PDP. Rotimi Amaechi, the DG of GMB, the president-elect was PDP. He was Speaker on its platform for eight years and governor for nearly another eight years. He was one of the five governors that defected to the newly formed APC. Others are Kwankwaso of Kano, Wammakko of Sokoto and Ahmed of Kwara.
Truly, I find the buck passing by the NWC curious. What took it this long to talk tough? Stomach infrastructure? Why was the NWC when the hate campaign mongers forcibly took over the prosecution of the ill-fated presidential campaign? I recall here the role of the national secretary in labeling the President-elect then a mere candidate as ‘’semi illiterate jackboot”. What did it do to caution the spokesman of the presidential campaign? This particular character has a history of drug abuse. His mental state is suspect. Besides, what message was the government sending appointing a man facing corruption charges to the very visible office of image maker? A man notorious for calling a spade shovel at the sight of “stomach infrastructure” Is it now that it suddenly realized that elements in the presidential campaign were violent?
It took an electoral trouncing and threat of annihilation for the NWC to wake up from its slumber. It is now doing what it ought to have done six months ago-assert its supremacy over all party men. But nay, it didn’t. Instead, it was merely applauding the road to perdition. Buck passing won’t save its skin.
Let me wax philosophy. In every duel there will emerge a victor and a vanquished. Our recent national election proved this. The underdog APC is now the top dog. It caused a major political upstage unheard of in our shores. No thanks to all the clueless ones in the once “behemoth” PDP.
“Politics”, according to Mao Zedong, that venerated late Chinese leader, “is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed”. Unlike other duels, like say boxing, politics is inexact. In boxing, statistics give an inkling of the out come. Rarely the statistics fail to add up. In such an instance, a major upstage is caused like when James ‘Buster’ Douglas defeated bookmakers favourite Mike Tyson in 1988.The presidential loss of PDP however, was predicted for all and more of the reasons itemized. Its well-deserved defeat in the recent polls has opened a Pandora’s box. Hooked on steroids for 16 years and used to bludgeoning its way to power, its shocked trouncing in the election has melted the glue that held it together as a veritable alternative to military rule. I see the PDP closing shop at this rate.
