by Otori Ozigi
Last week was characterized by a harvest of events that meant different strokes to different frontline political parties in our dear Kogi state. These were some of the political parties that tested their strengths in the last gubernatorial election in the state.
Recall that the keenly contested free and fair election according to INEC, the umpire, gave birth to the ruling party (APC) and other sore losers like the main opposition party (PDP) and other inconsequential parties that only wanted to enter INEC ballot papers as also “ran” parties in the said election.
After 100 days that the present executive governor of the state, Alhaji Yahaya Adoza Bello was inaugurated, the penultimate week was an auspicious one for the ruling party to clink glasses to mark his remarkable tenure in office.
While Alhaji Yahaya Bello and the good people of Kogi State were celebrating his highly eventful and impactful tenure in office on one hand, the highly depleted ranks and files of the main opposition party (PDP) led by the disgraced former governor, Capt. Idris Wada Choose to use this same period to mark the unending and unusual “fidau prayer” of their deceased political platform in the state.
That strange event that was stage-managed in Lokoja, the state capital, caught the attention of this journalist, and the sensitivity of the citizenry. I am talking of the gathering of some expired stakeholders of PDP at the party’s dilapidated secretariat, located at an obscure part of Lokoja, the state capital.
In that highly repugnant meeting led by the immediate past governor of the state, Capt. Idris Wada were former governor Alhaji Ibrahim Idris, Senator Tunde Ogbeha, Engr. Sam Uhuotu, the state chairman of the party, a representative of a former Deputy Governor, Chief Patrick Adaba, other party chieftains and a handful of their traumatized and disillusioned party faithful who could still make it to the venue of the meeting, despite their new found poverty status after the last election.
According to media reports, the chief convener of the meeting, Capt. Wada used the occasion to give false assurance that PDP was expecting a so called victory at the tribunal and pleaded for their patience. He was also reported to have urged PDP faithful to forget their collective mistakes that was manifest during the last gubernatorial election, just as he assured them that such acts of betrayal exhibited by some party members would not repeat itself in future elections.
For starters, I want to put it on record that some of the stakeholders present at that meeting are personalities that this journalist holds in very high esteem, given my long-standing professional rapport with them, especially my respected kingsman and Ihima-born chairman of the party, Engr. Sam Uhuotu, a man of great professional repute and impeccable integrity. I still continue to wonder why that eminent personality got himself involved in PDP politics to the extent that he allowed himself to be manipulated and hoodwinked by accepting to occupy that exalted position that had been desecrated by previous chairmen of the party in recent history. Anyway, I think he owes Ebira nation and my generation an apology for that politically unwise decision in my own considered opinion.
I will not forget too to mention Senator Tunde Ogbeha, who was reportedly in attendance in that shameful gathering as far as I am concerned. Here is one of Nigeria’s finest military top brass with remarkable pedigree, and a political icon as a two time senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I have had the honour and rare privilege to interact with him in the course of my professional duty as a former political/crime correspondent of the Graphic newspaper. Ever since I conducted an exclusive interview with him in his tastefully furnished Abuja residence in August, 2014, this perfect, highly cultured and refined gentleman took me in as his media friend.
Be that as it may, I would not allow that personal relationship with these two gentlemen to becloud my analysis of their continued involvement in the politics of bad leadership that had become the hallmark of PDP in the last 12years of their sojourn inside Lugard House that ended in January 27, when a new occupant was inaugurated. The point must be made that in my kind of Journalism, there is no room for sentiment. I have no friend or foe. I do my job to the best of my ability in tandem with the ethics of my sacred profession and clear conscience without fear or favour because as a born again Christian I walk in divine safety believing that those raging against me because of my job shall be damned in Jesus name. It was John Diefenbaker, a former Canadian Prime Minister who informed that “the reading of history proves that freedom always dies when criticism dies”
It was against this truism that this write up has become necessary to offer an objective overview of that last week gathering of PDP big wigs and its import on the polity, at a time like this.
If you ask me, that meeting was a complete misstep and a misadventure on the part of all those connected with it.
The question on my mind was that what exactly was going on in their minds too, for staging that meeting at a time our change mantra APC government was celebrating 100 days in office of Alhaji Yahaya Adoza Bello.
If the truth must be told and I am ready to tell it, the leadership of the disgraced PDP should face the reality on ground that the party had lost all its electoral values in Kogi politics. The party had outlived its usefulness in the polity given that it had become a leper in the political system, A pariah institution that had nothing to offer Kogi state again under this democratic dispensation. Recall that over 12 years, the leadership of the party took the good people of Kogi state for granted. The party squandered the goodwill it enjoyed for those unbroken years.
Its major legacies are cocktails of massive corruption, mismanaged economy of the state, squandering of the stupendous allocations, wind falls, ecological funds running into trillions of naira between 2003 and 2012, when the former governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris held sway for over 8years, before he handed over the baton of misrule to Capt. Idris Wada, his business friend and a non-politician, who he singlehandedly installed as his unworthy successor for reasons best known to the two of them.
It has come to pass that Capt. Idris Wada who was never prepared for leadership continued in the old tradition of his mentor and godfather.
For his 4years in office, every step he took betrayed his incompetence and lack of political will to govern a state that is steeped in mundane primordial sentiments that had held us down in the past 25years. Each time Capt. Idris Wada was confronted with overwhelming evidence of unbridled corruption that was a way of life in the state, he buckled under pressures from powerful elements in the state to allow corruption to thrive as business as usual.
It is on record that the former governor lacked the political will to deal decisively with Kogi criminals that he inherited from previous administrations in the state. He set up countless investigative committees that their reports were never implemented throughout his 4years in office, before he was rightly voted out of office to pave way for a new order under divine intervention.
Recall that during his tenure in office PDP continued to swim and regale us with its politics of brazen impunity, high handedness, disregard for court orders, lack of internal democracy and monstrous complacency among the top echelon of the party.
Little wonder therefore that its subsequent disastrous outing in the last gubernatorial election was an ill-fated disaster that was foretold by many political analysts and commentators in the country before and even on the eve of that election. The tainted stewardship of PDP’s past leaders was an open secret that even toddlers and all the blind men in the state were able to comprehend.
When the almighty PDP was booted out of Lugard House, its leadership and party faithful who were living in false paradise, were thrown into uncontrollable mourning and shock that have lasted in the last 100days
Even though, a lot of people sent their heart felt condolences, it appears they are yet to find the fortitude to bear their well deserved irreparable electoral loss
While PDP is at the tribunal, chasing shadows and reveling in grand delusion, some of its stalwarts’ last week took time out of their idle schedule to gather in Lokoja to continue their unending mourning that would definitely last some seasons to come. In our very eyes, they would continue to celebrate many anniversaries of the positive change that has come to our dear state through divine intervention under the able leadership of Alhaji Yahaya Adoza Bello.
It is instructive to note that most of the political parties that lost their bids in the last gubernatorial election have since put the episode behind them, while few others who for whatever reasons felt eternally aggrieved have joined the PDP in their pursuits of frivolous, baseless, and legally groundless cases that can not stand the test of time at the tribunal and any other court of competent jurisdiction.
Those who were at home to procuring judgments in the past should wake-up to the new reality in the country that such sad era has ended under the president Muhammadu Buhari led administration.
The judiciary as constituted today, is one of the best institutions in the whole world.
If Capt. Idris Wada is expecting a so called victory at the tribunal based on his cocktails of lies and hearsays, he would be in for a rude shock at the end of the day.
He should be prepared for the party’s new found role as a main opposition party in the state. Let them use their resources and time to re-organise the PDP in readiness for future elections. I have said my own and that is my friendly advice for the party because of the few people in that party that I still hold in high esteem.
– Otori Ozigi, a veteran journalist and social critic writes from Lokoja.
