Title and titling has always been my issue as a young writer and an advocate of good governance, however, the above title captures the chathuemenical behavioral actions and inactions of the Peoples Democratic pparty in Kogi state.
It explains its weakened, tired and reluctant pattern in the last seven years.
Like Deji Adeyanju said, it is so disheartening that the Peoples Democratic Party has given us the worst form of opposition in the history of African politics. While I agree with that – the party at the national level has done a little above average, unlike what we have in Kogi state where the party has become a dumping ground for people who are completely deaf and dumb to the day to day challenges of those who the claim they are aspiring to lead.
Not reacting to any thing and obviously not been aware of any thing is the best way describe the present PDP in Kogi state.
It is such a shame and such a pity that what should have been the first opposition party in Kogi state is only a gathering of men who collects and share party money, and then share mandate.
This is a state that workers have been sacked unjustly and remained unemployed for over six years, with the rest been paid 30% monthly salary in the last three years. we expected that the party will be in full swing insisting and agitating for the people.
This is a state where there are no motorable roads even at the state capital. We have been expecting that the Peoples Democratic Party, which is the major opposition, will heavily insist and if possible hold the state to a stand still and insist for a change, but nothing of such has ever happened.
This is a state where its masses are entrenched in abject poverty, people are starving to death. This is a state where health care and drinkable water has remain a forever problem. We have been expecting that the party will write out all the inks in the world, lead and call for all the protest in the world, but no, they will rather gather at the party secretariat to share money from aspirants.
This is a state where the EFCC has proven beyond doubt that its present leadership stole and lodge billions belonging to the state in a hidden account. We had expected that the party will not only let hell loose but will ensure that the investigation and probing is overseen to a conclusive end, but what did we get – the usual I don’t care attitude.
This is a state that did not attract any single foreign investor in the last three years, according to the last report, with a lot of small and big scale businesses folding up daily, still, the only opposition party in the state is silent and pretending that all is well.
A state where oil magnets, travellers, business men and women are killed everyday – yet the major opposition has forgotten what are the first call of an opposition, no wonder during the last PDP national congress Kogi state did not produce any member amongst its national leadership – that shows the level of failure the party has become in the state.
Not just me, but every well meaning Kogite and Nigerians at large are wondering if the PDP in Kogi state is really in existence, or if it has merged with the APC in the state. Or, like some one said, “Probably the PDP in kogi state has become a puppet in the hand of the leading party in the state.”
It is such a pity that the people of Kogi state have been left at the mercy of the leading party, abandoned by the federal government, abandoned by its elites and most of all abandoned by the opposition.
While we groan and savor this pain as a people, we will not refuse to remind the party faithfuls that these loose ends has not only diminished the party’s chance of winning elections in the forthcoming polls but has re-echoed the clear fact that the PDP in Kogi East has over the years grown into an extension of the APC.
This has equally gone a long way to show that the PDP in Kogi state is actually not ready to change the narrative of the Kogi people.
It has also made it obvious that the party and it’s flag bearers are only worried about their personal gains and as long as those gains are not strangled by the present dispensation, then all is well even at the detriment of the common people of our state.
This is not only disappointing, this is a complete shame. A complete bastardizing of every thing that defines political opposition, voices of reasoning, partisanship and true statesmanship.
With the kind of opposition the Kogi PDP has put up in the last seven years, it has become clearer to us that our liberation won’t come from PDP, rather it will come from the mountains where we shall fix our eyes in the forth coming elections.
Kogi will prevail, if not now, soon. If not by us, then by those who are coming behind us.
– Jacob Unekwu Agada, the author of EBULEJONU, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
