What if I said PDP Is Haram

What if I said PDP Is Haram?

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

What if I said PDP is Haram? Wouldn’t I be unnecessarily looking for trouble? Wouldn’t I be branded a terrorist and the SSS sent off to haunt me? Wouldn’t the most vicious men of the Nigerian army be sent after me and my clan? Wouldn’t my body be pumped with hot lead and brandished before tv cameras as a vivid example of what becomes of a renegade? Wouldn’t I get the same compliments as Mrs. Clinton got after she said the same thing in different words?

What if I really insist that PDP is Haram and deserved the same kind of treatment that they recently meted on the Boko Haram? No, not from the police or the army, but from me and you. What if I had proof to substantiate my claim? would I get a followership like Yusuf Mohammed, willing and eager to execute my own style terrorism that aims to chase the evil way?

What if I told you that for ten years PDP has done nothing but sing us a two versed poem. Verse one: Reform, Verse two: War on corruption, would you sign up to my unusual agenda? What if I told you that the reforms have been very successful only in the area of turning the reformed into competitive scavengers, recharge card sellers and graduate okada riders? And that the war on corruption has seen the anti corruption body with the eagle eye logo turn into a debt recovery tax force, would you then be convinced of the exigency of my call?

Oh! Sorry, how could I have forgotten so soon? Yeah, indeed there is a third verse to their poem; Rule of law. What if I said it was actually a rule of no law? What if I said there were no rules and no laws? What if I showed you countless news items to prove that? What if I wrote you a dictionary sized book about it all? What if I told you that we were all prisoners of their complete lawlessness? Would you then sign up to my noble course?

What if I told you this particular evil would be everlasting? What if I told you that their sixty years boast is not a bluff? What if I told you that a one party state is closer than we can imagine? What if I gave you Zamfara, Bauchi and Imo as proof? What if I told you Abia is being baited? What if I showed you the rancor in APGA and now PPA as more proof? Would you become as worried as I am?

What if we continued to grumble about our woes in the safety of our bedrooms; daily watching as two pieces of meat reduces to one in our dinner plate until there is none? What if we lamented about the rigged elections, the pot hole infested roads and our mortuary of hospitals until bloods instead of tears flowed down of cheeks? Would it make them change?

What if we all decided to troop to the US and UK embassies daily begging for visa, running to safer climes and shouting from the other side of the fence, would it take away the spot from the leopards skin? What if we decided to Kneel down and pray, calling the name of God more times than the waves of the Atlantic hit the bar beach shores, would it make them to suddenly repent?

What if instead you decided to join me in employing my kind of terrorism? What if we turn those tools at our disposal into fuel bombs? The facebook, tweeter, blogger, and Youtube. What if we stop gossiping on them for a while? What if we stopped spending hours on them chatting with faceless people? What if we sang less of hate songs and beef raps? What if we wrote more, blogged more and sang more against them? Don’t you think they may begin to snore less in their sleep?

What if we did more than just write and sing?, what if a million of us marched down the three arm zone, into the National Assembly to tell them our mind on the issue of Electoral reforms? What if we remain on the road until they grant us audience? What if we carry placards and scream out our demands? Oh yes, the Public order Act! I have not forgotten. But what if we went to court to challenge that obsolete law? What if we resist the police and their rusty guns?, what if we reminded the police that the future of their kids was also threatened by this evil? Don’t you think we might strike a cord?

What if we publish the names of their children and the schools they are attending abroad…and of course, the fees they pay? What if those of us in the Diaspora march out and take our petition to the United Nations. What if we told them our undergraduates have been idling at home for months while they share banters over glasses of sparkling white wine in Wadata Plaza? What if we champion the call for a law that makes it compulsory for their children to attend our public schools? Do you think our teachers and undergraduates will begin to get a fairer deal?

What if we printed pamphlets condemning them? What if we all went down to our villages to talk to the youths? What if we get them to see who is responsible for the uncompleted school project and the higher cost they pay for kerosene? What if we are able to talk them out of carrying arms for them on Election Day? What if we told them to insist on the best candidate? What if we talked to them about insisting that their votes count? What if we got them to resist false results? Would we have to wait for sixty years before the plague disappears?

What if I told you PDP is Haram? What if I am no more guessing but speaking fact? What if I am rounded up for daring to say this? What if they come in a convoy of trucks to seize me? What if they don’t shoot me, but charge me for treason and leave me to languish in “awaiting trial”? What if my ink dries up and my quill breaks? What if my voice cracks and my heart fail? Would you say the things I say today? Will you carry on my struggle?

(Tributes to Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi 1938-2009)

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

www.nzesylva.wordpress.com