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An Earthworm and Salt, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP): A Family Affair By Prince Charles Dickson Jos Plateau Nigeria
Two men met recently and struck up a conversation. One was telling the other about some problems he was having with one of his kids.
After a while the other guy said, “you think you have family problems? Get a load of my situation. A few years ago, I met a young widow with a grown- up daughter and we got married. Later, my father married my stepdaughter. That made my step daughter my stepmother and my father became my stepson. “Also, my wife became mother-in-law of her father-in-law. Then the daughter of my wife, my stepmother, had a son. This boy was my half-brother because he was my father’s son, but he was also the son of my wife’s daughter, which made him my wife’s grandson. That made me grandfather of my half brother.
“This was nothing until my wife and I had a son. Now the sister of my son, my mother-in-law, is also the grandmother. This makes my father the brother-in-law of my child, whose step sister is my father’s wife. “I am my stepmother’s brother-in-law my wife is her own child’s aunt, my son is my father’s nephew and I am my own grandfather. Sheesh! You think you have family problems.
Nigeria is at the moment experiencing family problems worse than the above illustration courtesy of the Peoples Democratic Party. The manner at which the recent PDP registration has gone is one that ordinarily should not attract any form of opinion. However, if the collection of persons who govern this nation derive their power from the party whether by moon slide or earthquake. One cannot overlook the recent drama as it has bearing on the general polity of the nation.
After days of cat and mice game, Vice President Atiku was finally issued a card, earlier he had been denied registration, the brouhaha ended with the party’s National chairman personally handed the card to Atiku in the state house.
The party through what I call the “Obasanjo forever” team has divided the party into the “Abuja connection” and “home based player”. From Plateau to Adamwa, Imo to Oyo.it is the same story and it only shows that our problem is much more than we can see.
PDP, a convent of thieves, which is why every Tom, Dick and Harry wants part of the pie, my prayer is that the party would collapse. When I say the party, it is not a political party, but a party in the sense of confused persons dancing James Brown’s disco to Sunny Ade’s Juju. Somewhere, in Kano it is Alhaji Abubakar Rimi’s Peoples PDP, we have Jubril Aminu’s PDP, Mantu’s PDP, Isa Yuguda’s PDP in Bauchi, Obi Okoye’s PDP. Ladoja and co’s PDP and all forms of PDP factions and groups. If it is not the ‘rainbow coalition’ it will be the ‘force 2007’ arrangement, all sorts of crazy acronym. When the PDP was being founded during the Abacha and post Abacha era, call it G1 or G20 I remember I was one of those that pointed out that it was one thing to drive out Abacha, it was another to define what the next logical move should be. In the e uphoria that followed all manner of confused buddies came together with no purpose.
I once in a piece referred to the Continent’s largest gathering of party faithful as a colossal failure, not that one expected otherwise. Because naturally the Continent’s sleeping giant should be home to a comatose political party. In that piece I expressed my concern that the nation was gradually becoming a pariah state run by a cabal of crooks. A deceptive undemocratic, demonic, devilish and dangerous party, where dog eats dog. The inability of one to distinguish between the federal government and PDP is the reason we are in this mess called a family affair. A love affair between an earthworm and a container of salt.
Because one is unaware of where the line between PDP and the nation stops, it is a dangerous trend that in a nation of 120million now (pending the postponed census). The so-called PDP faithful are not more than a President, his VP, some Senators, House of Representative members, Local Government Chairmen and Secretaries, Councillors, special assistants, special advisers and all the special thieves we call hangers on. Infact they are not up to 25,000, yet are holding an entire nation hostage.
The recent registration exercise has clearly shown that Nigeria is a cake fought for vigorously by some bunch of political bankrupt persons. The way PDP is being run simply shows how our beloved Nigeria is being run.
A certain madman that roams the street of Jos, has this popular phrase “they refused to give me, I go”. Madman you say, but that’s a common man’s truth, if you are denied party registration, leave for another party. Must everyone be a PDP member, after all a typical Nigerian politician would naturally belong to ten political parties before winning election through one way or the other, what is in this PDP, the picture is that we have a single party state, the nation is PDP and PDP is the nation. No credible opposition.
Over 20 million Nigerians are PDP members, so what happens to the over 100million Nigerians, can’t they revolt against this misrule of 20/20 that is, 20 million registered voters, 20 million voted, none died, none was sick nor hit by tragedy of any type, all voted for one man resulting in slides of nature similar to hurricane Rita, Anita, Catherina and Celina.
Anywhere there is PDP, it is people destroying people through the most bizarre method of family marriages, one panel after another, probing each other. Each probe traceable to money and power disagreement, one minute they are clicking the drink glasses and the next they are breaking the bottle on their head.
The Peoples Democratic Party is not Nigeria and cannot be, until we realize that the path we are treading is full of thorns and booby traps these crooks would lead us to an expected doom. In Imo State it was double congress, in Gombe the registration and congress both cancelled. It was with disgust that I listened to Obj accept that the PDP was not yet a political party, its strange that it took him all this while to discover that fact. However, it is one thing to locate a problem and another to solve it because the manner in which the revalidation cum registration exercise has gone is only going to further certify the PDP as a club of rogues. The President should be ashamed that he is in a party at his age of people with irreconcilable difference on matters of economy, politics, social and ethnic issues.
A party full of prostitutes, a party of any where belle (stomach) face. Till today I should to be corrected 95% of the so- called party elders and faithful do not know, nor have any working manifesto of what they intend to give Nigerians in terms of quality and forthright leadership, rather it is a bunch of people who have decided to come under the umbrella of greed power and wealth sharing. The motto is punishment to the people and vision statement in one sentence the public be damned. A bunch of bushmen who can hardly be guided by any principle, philosophy or ideology.
PDP, the big elephant, with the highest numbers of internal squabbles and court cases, easily the highest number of confused people. One minute the President calls the party, a political association, the next he calls it a great party. What is it that portrays the PDP as a great party, right since inception, the party has been one of two timing, double dating monsters after power, speaking from both sides of their mouths.
From Solomon Lar, the pay as you win Chairman, Barnabas Gemade who was used and dumped or the pounded yam sensitive Audu Ogbeh and today’s post sharing Ahmadu Ali whose days I can say authoritatively is numbered because the banana peel is still there. What really is special about a PDP membership card, is it now a tax clearance certificate or an academic qualification. The people are sharing the country like oranges to kids.
In my reading of over 10 National Newspapers with coverage cut across the nation in the past six years I have come in contact with over 60 men and women who claim to be founding father, mother, elder, member and son of the PDP. These people from different backgrounds, different desires have hardly agreed on one thing or anything.
Bukar Abba Ibrahim tagged the administration of Obj the most corrupt in the world by extension, he was referring to the PDP led government.
It is only in the PDP, that a godfather arranges for the abduction of a sitting government of the same party, and gets a mere suspension for kidnap. One half hijacking the registration from another half, every accusation disagreements and squabbles having its own merit and what not, one is forced to ask is this registration for a national common entrance into primary school. The old school members of the club have accused new members of taking control, the new school is dancing to the drum beat of their success story of conquest, ignorantly the club members are scheming forgetting that no matter how hard the beans seed, put in water and on fire, give it time, it would surely boil.
The PDP has remained a contradiction of all it stands for, with the party holding power at a 7/10 ratio, it is a pity sight that is has not been able to show much for its power. After sweeping the entire South- West, excluding Lagos, Fayose in Ekiti has been from crisis to conflict, wahala to palaver, in Oyo, Ladoja and Adebibu, In Ondo, Olusegun Agagu has been more concerned with 2007. The situation is same everywhere you find the PDP.
The use of linkmen and women only reminds one, of the use of such link in the Columbian/American drug cartels. One cannot really see the justification for such link persons if the business is not shoddy. Obasanjo’s foot soldiers have described the registration as fair while the anti-Obj or pro-Atiku has been on the receiving end. Conman dies another con man buries him.
In Plateau and I am sure some other States, there were cases of fake cards. The PDP has blamed fraudsters, who are these fraudsters if not members of the same PDP. The party has proven beyond reasonable doubt that they have nothing to offer the electorate, and I believe they do not owe us any explanation because they were not voted in. In 1999 they were ‘begged’ into power, in 2003 they ‘rigged’ into power. Two characters of a play the salt and the earthworm in one drama feigning love for one another, it is only obvious that we would attend the funeral of the earthworm soonest. God save the nation.
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