by Ahmed Kaita
It was laughable reading a presidential spokesperson, Dr. Doyin Okupe accusing the newly registered “APC” of plagiarising PDP’s manifesto. To be honest, I never knew PDP have a manifesto – or if it takes it serious to be worried if, and when it is plagiarised; assuming it was, of course.
I’m certain not all members of the “great” PDP, a party acclaimed to be the largest in Africa, could say precisely what it is that make the party prone to crisis. This seemingly open and close question, though easy, defies members of the party for one reason – absolute insincerity and lack of the needed vigour necessary for building an ideological coalition in a multi-cultural and multi-religious societies. PDP, supposedly a democratic party operates like a military garrison but without the discipline that make the military profession one of the most disciplined.
Suffice it to say that PDP is about the only party in the whole world ruled by sophistry and cheap propaganda, and whose members each have a different set of democratic values to work with. It is therefore, not entirely unexpected that the party, though had been in power for a considerable time, is powerless to have a clear agenda for Nigeria and may even explain why the party is daily sliding deeper into the abyss of crisis and confusion. It was laughable reading a presidential spokesperson, Dr. Doyin Okupe accusing the newly registered “APC” of plagiarising PDP’s manifesto. To be honest, I never knew PDP have a manifesto – or if it takes it serious to be worried if, and when it is plagiarised; assuming it was, of course.
I speak the minds of millions of Nigerian if I condemn PDP as the worse thing to happen to Nigeria since the abolition of slavery. Certainly, it has institutionalised a regime of hopelessness and stagnation in Nigeria that almost everybody is waiting for the impending ‘Sodom and Gommorrah’ kind of judgement that will be meted out to it at the appropriate time. In simple terms, PDP is synonymous with pain, poverty and persecution.
This much could be glimpsed from the enveloping happiness that always engulf the nation whenever the party is embroiled in crisis which, by the way is too often. I don’t know what is they serve at their meetings/conventions, but definitely it most be something that cannot be handled by ordinary mortals. It is apparent that the movers and shakers of the PDP don’t even realise that they are only dancing naked to the their tunes while Nigerians watch their nakedness. Like always, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Nigeria listening to the clownish PDP bunch reeling out imaginary successes at the just concluded ‘special convention’ where (just as expected) the party was further fragmented and a new faction, complete with a new set of leaders emerged. I was horrified to even imagine the upcoming polls under the supervision of this bunch.
If anything, the ‘success’ of the special convention is the same kind of success Nigerians should expect in the 2015 polls. At least, the level of desperation within the ruling PDP is no longer in doubt. It is reasonable to assume that the party is in no shape to conduct the much needed free and fair elections that everybody believes hold the key to a new Nigeria. Undoubted, the same “special convention” scenario will be replayed using the talents of ancient politicians like Tony Anenih aka “Mr. fix it”, a foxy expert versed in thwarting and substituting popular opinion with cheap options to ensure the safe return of PDP into power.
Going back to the convention venue where the sensibility of Nigerians was insulted by one speaker after another, I wonder where Nigeria got it wrong to be saddled with these marauders as leaders. One thing was clear, the whole PDP machinery spent a whole day reeling out lies that they wouldn’t dare tell their primary school kids if they have an ounce of honour left in them. Of all the silly diatribes, the one I found most funny was President Goodluck Jonathan’s glowing tributes to his successful resurrection of the railway lines. In his words, “children that only hear about trains in cartoons could now see what a train looks like” (emphasis mine). For God sake, what was the president handlers thinking when they wrote that speech for. Of course, I appreciate the fact that there isn’t much to write to prove the lies which PDP have been living on in the last few years, but do they have to be so primitive and disingenuous in their lies as they are in their cluelessness? Don’t we deserve some measure of respect to be told better lies than this? This is 21st century and we are saddled with a president blowing his top celebrating the return of a locomotive engine while his peers are landing on the moon as a full time business while breaking every breakable land speed with state of the art super speed trains as a hobby.
Even more absurd is the continued celebration of the GSM revolution by the PDP gang at any given opportunity. Expectedly, it is yet to register in them that the same GSM revolution is what exposes their complete unpreparedness to captain the Nigerian ship in a manner that needs no further clarification. The socio-economic revolution unleashed by GSM service network providers could only be designed, executed and sustained by seriousness, the type of which is alien to the PDP family. It is sad to know that these service providers turned the economic fortunes of more than half the population of Nigeria, with their impact felt in every village (including those the FG didn’t even know exist) in Nigeria with only a combined investment portfolio of less than N1trn; less than half what was stolen in the name of fuel subsidy by PDP and the gang.
