18th November, 2010
“The illiterate of the 21st century is not those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.†—Alvin Toffler.
After losing Ondo, Edo, Ekiti States and now Delta State, the short-sighted and narrow-minded National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo said recently that other political parties should not bother to contest the 2011 elections because of what they will do to re-capture Delta State will send a clear signal to them on the futility of such exercise.
According to Nwodo, the outcome of the Delta State re-run in the next 90 days will once again show the strength of the PDP in Nigeria. As preposterous as that statement is, it was bare on what will scare other Nigerians and the opposition parties run away from what has been termed as a crucial referendum to decide the fate of the party, which has presided over the destruction of Nigeria in nearly twelve years.
We leave that to Nwodo as we await the crucial elections. This statement itself was coming just a few days after Nwodo made the specious, outlandish and reckless allegation that Ekiti State was priced from the hands of the PDP with forged documents, as a way of building the sagging confidence of the South West PDP, which faces a big threat in Osun State presently.
But Nwodo is being economical with both truth and reality as they pertain to PDP’s relevance and existence after twelve years of mismanagement. Nigerians are voting so loudly with their voices and so forcefully with their feet against the PDP as that election draws nearer. The loud and widespread celebration that always attend the retrieval of one state after another from the claws of the PDP should be a good indicator to the PDP that singularly, it is the biggest object of hate to Nigerians.
Nwodo knows this, as every other member of the PDP but they can’t stop revving up the hopes of PDP members and all who still hang on the tailboard of that crumbling contraption to give them unearned access to the national treasury, as in the past twelve years.
Okwesilieze Nwodo is a political prostitute and political opportunist who berths where he feels his bread is buttered. When he was enjoying the bliss as the National Secretary of the PDP, he boasted that Nigeria will collapse if the PDP splits. After he lost favour with the PDP, he ran to the Action Congress and seeing himself in the opposition was a business Nwodo was not prepared for. He was to return to the PDP last year and being a party with no known rule of engagement, he was offered the post of national chairman. His selfish interests have now pitted him against his state governor whom he is wrestling with for the control of the state PDP and the crisis that effort is generating in Enugu presently is subsisting.
But then, let us return to Nwodo’s latest gaffe of Nigerians agreeing to abandon the 2011 election to the PDP after the Delta re-run. What will be the reason for such illogical action? Suppose the PDP wins the election, fair or foul, would it be enough to make Nigerians abandon the 2011 election to the PDP? Will it be sufficient for the Action Congress, the CPC, the ANPP and other fledging parties to surrender the 36 states to the PDP? On the other hand, is Nwodo forewarning of another shameless bazaar that will make Nigerians throw their hands up in surrender? Is he forewarning of another electoral charade for that is the only avenue through which PDP will avoid extinction in 2011 given the feelings of Nigerians about the party? Is Nwodo forewarning of another bizarre outing in 2011, which would be test run in the Delta re-run? Is he forewarning of another do-or-die war on Nigerians by the PDP in 2011?
However one answers these posers will not remove the fact that Nwodo and his PDP are aware of the deep hatred Nigerians have for the party for wrecking the country in twelve years of unceasing destruction. Nwodo, as a medical doctor, knows that a chronic cancer patient’s health status is deemed terminal and when a disease is terminal, the affected person is living on borrowed time. PDP is infected with terminal illness. It is living on borrowed time, caused by its misrule for twelve years and Okwesilieze knows it. What he is doing now, with these strings of embarrassing gaffes is ‘Whistling in the Dark’. Whistling in the dark, according to my good friend and consummate writer, Olaitan Oladipo, is all about someone walking alone in the forest at night, whistling as he goes along. He is whistling so that people will think he is not afraid, whereas he is whistling because he is afraid and scared stiff. Nwodo knows that his useless party called PDP has forfeited her right to be considered as a serious political party in Nigeria, based on its track record, its historical knack for corruption, inconsistency and terrible performance in the last twelve years.
Gradually, concisely, stupidly, the PDP led Nigeria into a failed state status in twelve years. Our country now ranks alongside Chad, North Korea, Cameroun, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, etc. there is total decay in infrastructure, our universities are down and out, federal roads are in quandary, teaching hospitals have turned into bursting mortuaries, insecurity has overwhelmed all and sundry, unemployment, social anarchy and strife have become the order of the day. Economic development is nonexistent and as a result, our best brains and not so brilliant have been besieging the foreign embassies to escape from the dungeon Nwodo’s PDP has led Nigeria into. PDP has criminalized the country, corrupted our hard earned democratic space and has made nonsense of our electoral process. The business of kidnapping which we see today was first witnessed during the blistering PDP reign and it started with one Chris Uba kidnapping a sitting governor till it became a full business in the Niger Delta. Tell me, if all the above stated are not symptoms of a failed party and failed governments, what is?
PDP thinks that its wishes are laws. It thinks that its interests and selfish desires will always have free rein. It believes that Nigeria is like a tree, before you know it has collapsed. But Nigeria is a state not a tree and the indices of failure differs. There are indices of a failed state and Nigeria is presently being confronted with these indices, no thanks to the PDP and its governments.
I am in total support of Dr. Festus Iyayi’s thesis that the Nigerian ruling elite led by the PDP is a deformed and failed ruling class that has to be liquidated and destroyed if Nigeria must make progress. They can’t be patched up, reformed or persuaded to change. God knows that PDP is finished in Nigeria, as the party is living on borrowed time. Its many sins have found it out and it has no more hiding place. The signals are there, bright and clear. The signs are there that it is all over for the rouge party. If Nwodo and his gang in PDP think that they can once again, manipulate the 2011 elections and be allowed to go scot free, they should start thinking otherwise. The good-for-nothing party has destroyed Nigeria and its development trajectory as designed by God and we need to send them packing to enable us reverse the trend.
We wait for free and fair elections in 2011. We hope that it is going to be one man, one vote. We hope that our votes will count. If these happen, and I believe it will, then PDP is a goner in Nigeria. This change must come!
•Joe Igbokwe, publicity secretary ACN writes from Lagos
