Dear All
I stayed up all night to watch the convention and this is my view of the show.
I stayed up all night to watch the convention and this is my view of the show.
PDP 's NIGHT OF BROKEN DREAMS
It was billed as a great event and the two gladiators fuelled the propaganda by breathing fire and brimstone unbefitting of even Mike Tyson at the nadir of his career. The both of them talked from their secure base of wealth and power. They boasted humorlessly, and verbally reduced the opposition to an errant and brainless Don Quixote without a cause. The night came and passed away uneventful at Eagle Square leaving behind broken dreams for many and a nasty taste in the mouth of the wise who watched the charade of those that claim divine right to rule the 150 million or more people of this country.
Look at that pitiable woman called Sarah who should be enjoying the laughter of her grandchildren and reading stories to them before nightfall, sitting statuette like and joyless in the cold January night of a new year, being humiliated by a party of men in whose veins run Brent crude, liquid dollars and untold precious but killing stones! Look at a woman led on to the slaughter house just to be able to claim that they had fulfilled all righteousness in putting forward a woman who obviously did not have any support from the thieving wolves of a party with more gangsters than Scarface Chicago had! What a shattered woman who had to wait till the Kwara count to garner a single vote!
Did it not occur to those who supported that hapless woman that the thing that makes the PDP tick at the level of picking up a Presidential ticket is money – real filthy money the like of which will take ten lifetimes of honest hard work and a little bit of luck for ten men to acquire! Didn't anyone tell her that elections are won in the PDP by the Corporation of corrupt army, navy, and air force generals, customs comptrollers, police commissioners, entrenched interests, and god-sons of past and present PDP chieftains? It is a pity she had to learn the hard way.
The party that could not even organize a decent primary and reveled in how well it performed should not rule a market place not to talk of a country. How do I mean? Imagine the incompetence of the planners which resulted in arguments as to the number of delegates voting in each state! Or is it the puerile quarrel that cropped up as to where or how a line should have been ruled to ensure clarity that one should overlook? Perhaps the total absence of a single computer/laptop in view was an accident but the moronic double count of ballot papers was uncalled for.
Surely some of the event planners watch football matches weekends and should know that there is something called an electronic scoreboard on which goals are automatically recorded as they are scored. A party of dollar billionaires (mainly stolen of course) should be able to afford one to avoid what happened when the tally of votes I followed on the internet differed from that which as a live eyewitness on television I recorded and which did not tally with what the party eventually arrived at. The trouble would seem that government money could be released generously to make purchases whereas party funds cannot be used for such vital equipment because there will not be enough to corner from a transaction of a mere million Naira.
At last the lofty dream of an arrogant and greedy man to rule Nigeria seems to have hit the rocks. The utterances of Atiku were so self assured as if it was Atiku and Atiku alone that would decide who the President of Nigeria would be, come 2011. He forgot that Naira can be matched with Dollars to raise the stake 150-fold and tilt the scale as acutely as was done. Goodluck may not have had access to any appreciable funds that he can call his own but incumbency has patronage that can lure men to unbelievable acts of loyalty and sacrifice. So was it with Jonathan.
Atiku is suffering from the truth denial syndrome that Nigerian politicians like Ibori are suffering from. The most ruthless and powerful nation in the world is after you for money laundering, rightly or wrongly, and you stroll about fighting your way to the Presidency in Nigeria as if nothing is happening. How arrogant and conceited can a man be? A good and morally upright party will ask him to first clear himself before coming to contest the primaries. Not so the PDP. Not so Atiku. Now however and ironically, the Dollar of the US has put paid to his dreams and perhaps he will find time to think soberly that honor and a good name are more important than the mansion in America that he may never have a chance of living in ever again.
Atiku should accept that he is a greedy man. As vice president he was maltreated and humiliated by the Otta farmer himself. He had popular support including my weightless one; he went all the way to fight for his rights and the world applauded his courage and stand. He spoilt it all when he started zigzagging from party to party like a male prostitute selling himself from one woman to another or a lorry out of control on an oil soaked road. Now the man with a great potential to be king-maker has been humiliated publicly at the Abuja Eagle Square with his head bloodied and bowed in defeat. He may not see himself as a broken man but he is a damaged good that no worth-while political party will be in a hurry to put on board for now. And I ask myself: what does it profit a man if he loses ….
When the PDP stormed the country 12 years ago the euphoria was that Abiola's victory at the polls with another Muslim as vice-president had seen Nigeria across the ethnic and religious divide and that true democracy had been installed in the country. That exhilaration has been demolished by the corruption of the leaders of the country and the failure to touch the lives of the people for the better. The goodwill has evaporated and the divine installation of a Goodluck cannot make people forget the monumental failings of that party in power for twelve years.
The charade that pitched the 'united' north that anointed Atiku against the south last Friday was the healing hand of God. The northern oligarchy might still regroup to fight a losing battle that will help break up Nigeria but the writing on the wall is that we may be returning to the halcyon days when two Hausas, if they are deemed the best, will be given the mandate to rule. Adamawa proved this beyond reasonable doubt when it gave Goodluck 71 % of its votes and states like Benue, Katsina, Nasarawa. Platue, Taraba, Jigawa, and the FTC went over the 80% mark for him.
The hope is that the woeful showing of Atiku in the south is the work of the Dollar and not of southernicity. The probability is that more than the Dollar was at work against him except perhaps in Anambra where he scored 14.5% of the votes. Personally, I wouldn't vote for Atiku in exchange for payment in any currency after his waywardness in the political wilderness and because of the rash of allegations of corruption that pursue him. There must be a few who know him better and still believe in him; their votes should show. The balanced votes from Bauchi, Borno, Yobe, and Kebbi, if they do not reflect Dollar insufficiency, give hope for the future of a united Nigeria.
This is just the beginning of a saga. Goodluck with the dirty and heavy baggage of his predecessors has much to shed to become president, but 'deliverance', round-about-turn, repentance, and a well thought out program to move Nigeria forward and rid it of corruption, coupled with the power of incumbency might still do the trick to get him there, but not the trust in good luck, Dollars, or anything else.
Amiel M. Fagbulu Saturday, January 15, 2011
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