PDP: The “Titanic” Crash
By
Eziuche Nwosu, Esq.
Lucifer, the good books tell us, had the most beautiful visage among the angels and was God’s treasured right-hand man (or right-hand angel). Soon he believed he had paid his dues and it was time to launch a divine career of his own. And like the ancient mariner, as told by Coleridge, he then shot down the albatross and brought eternal doom to us all, including himself. Obatala, the great Yoruba god, had a role in creating the world but he drank too much palm-wine, became drunk and began making deformed people. It thus became his extra responsibility to protect and care for them. It was Nza the bird who, after a sumptuous meal, challenged his “chi” to a wrestling match. Though Achebe did not give us the result we can rightly assume that Nza’s fate must have been pathetic. Nebucchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, dispensed life and death at whim. Swooning under the heady Cyprian mixture of power and glory, he made an image of gold and suffered the nations to prostrate and worship same or be thrown into a great furnace.
In retribution he was driven into the wild to dwell with beasts with all beastly accoutrements. His son and successor, Belshazzar went several steps further: he set himself up against God and invited his wives and concubines to drink from the very sacred vessels of the house of God. He instituted gods of gold, silver, bronze, etc and questioned the existence of any superior power. In answer he got the handwriting on the wall that sang his Nunc Dimitis: Mene Mene Tekel Urphasin. At the peak of his might the great Julius Caesar declared that he and danger were two lions littered in one day and he, Caesar, the elder and more terrible: and even danger was privy to this arrangement!! - 2 - But when hands unsheathed and spoke for Casca we know who it was that implored, “et tu Brute”? Certainly not danger. Ghengis Khan, the Khan of Khans, the indefatigable Mongol warrior of the 12th - 13th century was unsurpassed in military prowess and rode roughshod over all territories he cared to think about. He conquered China, inflicted the Tatar Yoke on Russia, ran over Poland, Hungary, Turkey and the entire Europe. There was no stopping him. He set out to grab the rest of the world but was stopped by his Achilles heel. Though a master horse rider he lost his center of gravity, fell from his horse and was “precipitated on the macadamized thoroughfare” like Bombabilly in Ogali’s “Veronica My Daughter”. In my days at Government College Umuahia, we heard of a man called Nwakpuda who stood akimbo on a rail track that ran through his village and commanded the oncoming locomotive engine to stop because that tract of land belonged to his forefathers and he was the inheritor of their estate. He was crushed to barely perceivable smithereens and thereby created an unprecedented problem for the bereaved people of Olokoro, to wit: how do you bury a dead man who has no corpse? So Nwakpuda ended up with no grave, no tomb; his existence told only by griots.
When Adolf Hitler set out on his infamous mission of Jew extermination and eventual world conquest, he was sure his lofty project was quite feasible. After all he had time-tested and trusted generals and veterans like Geobbels and Himmler. For all his invincibility he and his dreams were consumed by the evil seed he had sown. Elvis Presley, unarguably rock ‘n’ roll greatest of all time, and his followers alike, believed tragically that Elvis was infallible, immortal and in a word, Godlike. And on his death in 1976 at 42 (with traces of over 50 different substances in his veins), an ardent fan, aghast, declared, “I die, you die, but Elvis can’t die!”. Since then I have been meaning to see and hug Elvis. Can’t find him though. Still searching. - 3 - And the icing of the cake. In the early part of the last century maritime gurus recorded an accomplishment of no mean feat when they packed their tools and declared the White Star Liner, R.M.S. Titanic ready to sail. She was the largest moveable object ever made by man with an incredible cabin hold of over 3,500 persons. Its dimensions were stunning: she was 883 feet long, 92 feet wide and 104 feet tall. She weighed 46,328 tons and stood taller above the water than most urban buildings of the time. The elite: merchants and bureaucrats, royalty, socialites and landed gentry across Europe and America acknowledged in great awe this gigantic achievement of man. There was thus an unabated excitement and eagerness among them to make the expensive trip aboard this mammoth ship. Before it sailed the makers had the great and boisterous audacity to boast to the elements that the Titanic was indestructible by any force, and that even God Himself couldn’t sink the ship, (no matter how badly he wanted to!). Setting out on April 10 1912 on its maiden voyage (from Southampton to New York) that great embodiment of human ego and arrogant wisdom on April 15, 1912 collided with an iceberg, erupted into an inferno and sank pitifully to the bottom of the Atlantic, drowning nearly all on board and burying wealth and opulence too great to contemplate. The greatest maritime disaster ever.
History is replete with amazing accounts of the heroic failures of man. It is quite interesting, nay, distressing, how often these incidents are soon lost upon us and are shortly reenacted many times in our very lives: the same God-like personalities and heir mammoth achievements, the same soporific ambience and success-mania, the same lame mistakes, the same madness and the same ultimate crash. From grace to grass. Many prefer however to learn these from a detached pedestal: no it can’t be me, no way. Of course, everyone is invincible in his own little mind: I am simply different. It’s happened because it’s him. My God is alive. I know what I am doing. Stuff. The foregoing treatise on the affairs of men and stars represents simply the unfortunate saga of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP under the unable leadership of President Obasanjo, (Nigeria’s - 4 - absentee president as aptly captured by Gani), the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, and his plethora of oligarchs, revelers, ass-lickers, drum-beaters and masqueraders. A kaleidoscopic array of political prostitutes, small and big time hoodlums, disgraced then re-graced scum of society, betrayers of the people’s faith, beguiling and inglorious political expendables mouthing cold impotent platitudes and tottering on stilted limbs while clad in scanty tatters that leave no room for speculation. Failures on their own fronts who abandoned ship to smooch with the enemy for a tot of ‘ogogoro’. Woe! Woe! O! tribulation!!. The PDP had a noble background; due credit is hereby given. But that is as far as its nobility goes. We all recall how Dr. Alex Ekwueme, living up to the full meaning of his name (the one who says it and does it) led the now decrepit G34 to meet the lion in his very den and tell him to his face that he could not do that which he then sought to do. Ekwueme left the lion’s den without a paw on his skin. That very event marked the reawakening of the strength of the people to vanquish any insensitive and intransigent leadership. Presently the progressive elements both of the old and new order found a rallying point and this gave birth to an offshoot of political associations and a conglomeration of other forces that eventually metamorphosed into the PDP.
Without any doubt the PDP was initially accepted by the populace because of the trust and confidence the people had in its ‘original’ leadership. But alas! Out of the wilderness comes a brazen usurper. The tortoise who was in the farm when his father was given birth to. At all relevant times leading up to the establishment of the PDP, and long after, Obasanjo knew and contributed nothing. Nothing! He came out of jail by divine providence and every right-thinking person expected him to adopt the very respectable stance of introspective reflection and to be a pillar of advice and direction for the emerging polity of the battered and traumatized people of Nigeria. But no, the valiant Uncle Shege will have none of that. He stealthily and foxily preyed aroundand found the PDP to be the most robust rooster in the backyard. Speaking with both sides of the mouth and - 5 - guzzling his very words, he then stuffed his ears, rolled up his sleeves and jumped with both arms and feet into the arena, hauling along with him sacks and sacks of money with which he foisted himself upon the unsuspecting and unwilling PDP structure. And before you could swallow a ball of ‘eba’ the Jos convention was over and Obasanjo, in his green parachute, mounted the saddle (to the utter consternation of the better of us), not caring a fly’s fart that he who was absent at his father’s burial will not know which way the head lies. The eventual contest between PDP, APP and AD was only an anti-climax and very sadly for Nigerians the PDP, as now managed, or damaged, was voted or vetoed into office to run the affairs of a disillusioned, desolate, weary and worn nation. Woe! Now to master the reins of the hijacked dragon drastic changes within the party became very necessary. Unavoidable. A hotchpotch troupe was assembled from the other ranks and given ‘Aso’ recognition. Although these moves sparked bitter disenchantments, the leader’s wish simply had to prevail. This, undoubtedly, marked the beginning of the end for the PDP.
However, the assembled revelers decked out in flashier carnival garbs (perhaps from Brazil), the drummers beat louder and more steadfastly (the hides were tanned in Congo forests) and the dancers contorted and twisted themselves to amazing angles. The grand masquerade himself walked on trees and rivers. The licensed praise-singers employed musical pitches never before discovered in any species of the homo sapiens. They spent long nights clearing their clogged throats, rehearsing lame lyrics and fine-tuning different tones of deceit. The ass-lickers? O! those ones!. They won’t be outdone, no way! They acquired new tongues from choice species of chameleons and sat gingerly on springy butts with their rare and sticky acquisitions, watching out for the barest indication of presidential anal display. The bicycle riders mounted their Raleighs and didn’t mind a fall into a ditch or two: the grand masquerade will see and be happy after all. A laughable bunch of half-witted buffoons - 6 - churning out unintelligent chicanery without a shame to spare. Such a pitiful sight to behold, Lord! You can fool some people some times, says Hon. Robert Nesta Marley, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time. Thus it did not take long for the people to see the fraud which has been imposed on them and the ignominy with which their rights and sensibilities were been trod upon. In like manner the men in PDP began to fall out openly with themselves. Those of them with strength and fortitude pulled out and made no secret of it. Those who remained and hoped to manage the mess have had their fingers to bite in regret.
The PDP was once a party, now it is a house of exile: an amorphous parody of itself clawing desperately at its long extinguished past glory. Those who stay on are only prisoners of conscience. They are racing against the wind and I pity them for they know not their mission. There is nothing prophetic therefore in stating the obvious. In the present political firmament and consciousness of Nigeria, the PDP has become an unfortunate relic of history, all by its own making. In the days to come the captain will bale out leaving the bemused passengers to perish at the bottom of the sea and in the belly of hungry sharks, just like it was in the Titanic of yore. This is therefore a wake up call, a clarion call to all aboard: bale out while you still have the chance. Bale out before your captain does. Bale out now. Eziuche Nwosu, Esq. Accra based Legal Practitioner.