FEATURE ARTICLE

Olanrewaju AjiboyeTuesday, August 8, 2006
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PDP IS SICK


he Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), like its other two siblings, the Alliance for Democracy and All Peoples Party (now ANPP), was conceptualized by an upright and spartan Patriarch (Chief Bola Ige), but it was the most pampered and most favoured of the three at their early childhood. The Triumvirate started a healthy life at birth, but the PDP was the luckiest of them all at that time. The then outgoing military power loved it, retired military cabal became its godfather, the wealthy took special interest in it, the conservative king makers cherished it and above all, the foreign influential powers loved it. If cash could be quantified as nutrients and vitamins, then the PDP had it more than enough, no wonder it became a spoilt brat.


The PDP did not learn how to leap before it started to run. It also became a prodigal child when its patriarch was murdered in cold blood and it could not do much to find the killers till now. Tongues began to wad around town that, it was probably an accomplice in the act of murder of the Patriarch. Perhaps this sacrilege led to its curse.

Not quite long after the demise of this Patriarch, the PDP contracted the human equivalent of HIV but it was not diagnosed immediately. It took a careful observation of an elder (Chief Audu Ogbeh) to observe its hard drab skin and he made efforts to rub it with a pumice, but it still would not improve its dull skin. This prompted him to demand for a test on its state of health, which unfortunately confirmed its HIV status.

When human victims of HIV are informed of their status, they usually undergo the following stages: disbelief, denial, anger, frustration and acceptance. But unlike most human victims of HIV, the PDP did not accept it was infected and has not been receiving anti- retroviral drugs. Lack of treatment therapy had allowed opportunistic infections to continue to ravage it as exemplified in the unsolved high profile and continuous murders of its members, and regular acts of hooliganism amongst its various cells. Parts of its whole are also dropping off every day and thereby making it more vulnerable.

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The stubborn refusal of this dying party to allow anti- retroviral doses has transformed the illness from intractable to terminal. Alas! The PDP now has AIDS. So far, AIDS has no cure and sufferers do eventually die of complications arising from this illness. At its HIV stage, it bruised its other two siblings; the AD and the ANPP and both are now in a quandary. The former had been undergoing anti- retroviral therapy but it seems the latter is an occasional user of anti-retroviral medications. Both are hanging to life as the sands in their hourglass continue to dissipate.

Unfortunately, this PDP "won" a big contract, which is the Nigeria Project. And what is the Nigeria Project? It is simply the legitimate domination or exercise of authority by an individual or a group over a larger group on the assumption that the former has the right to do so. Concisely, the Nigeria Project is synonymous with Political Power.

Due to this ill health, the PDP has been shirking in its assigned role as a party that brought a government in Power. More terrifying is its refusal to want to let go, the contract (Nigeria Project) it apparently lacks the capacity to carry on with when its contract lapses in less than a year (May 29, 2007). The Nigeria Project is such a huge one that cannot be entrusted to a sick contractor like the PDP, hence the need for other vibrant contractors who were born after 2003 to be allowed a level playing ground in their bidding competition for the contract.

If we may go down memory lane, in 1983, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which like the PDP, was a favoured child in those days, was awarded the Nigerian contract between 1979 and 1983. Half way into its 4-year contract, the NPN had contracted cancer and lost steam but would not accept this reality. At the juncture to renew the contract, the NPN would brook no other bidders even though there were healthier than the dying NPN. At the end of it all, the NPN had a forced renewal but because of its feeble health situation, it fell into further abyss and things began to happen in quick successions. However, due to its dubious process, the Nigeria Project collapsed three months after the purported renewal. For that stubborn fixation by the NPN, the Nigeria Project suffered more than a 20-year set back.

History has always repeated itself because people fail to learn from history. The time has come for the real casualties in Power Mechanism-the Nigerian people- to act. They must not truckle and must obviate this dying giant in 2007 through a resounding voting voice of NO to PDP this time around. We do have a choice and we definitely do have a say. And we are saying the destiny of the Nigeria Project is too critical to be left in the hands of an organization that has a terminal illness.