CHANGE is everywhere and now, everyone and everything are changing. It is now a major part of the mantra of new hope in President Muhammadu Buhari. GEJ has changed to PMB. Hopelessness has become hope. Dollar to Naira has changed from 150 to N200. Suddenly, we are beginning to question quality. Even the massive umbrella has been replaced with a common broom.
But, that is the problem or rather the real situation. The umbrella has been put away in the store where things of no immediate need are kept. Meanwhile, the broom is everywhere sweeping, and even dirt swept under the carpet is being swept into the open. In the words of Chief Zebrudaya, the sweeping is now very “opendential”.
The broom has only swept Nigeria for 100 days and even though, there is still much rubbish to be swept, the zeal and determination of the sweeper ignites confidence that the country can be clean again. People are perplexed about how the umbrella people swept so much dirt under the carpet. Was this the reason why the Peoples Democratic Party, owners of the umbrella, had wanted to re- main in power forever; to keep its heap of rubbish away from public view?
Thank heavens for the God of change. The project to rule forever was suddenly truncated after only 16 years. Then entered change, from the Umbrella to the broom and since May 29, the broom has been sweeping day and night.
Nigerians are now wondering how we could have survived those 16 years with so much rubbish under
our carpets. The rubbish is huge, embarrassing and so recklessly accumulated with impunity that the nation’s face of change, The Sweeper, has invited key owners of the Umbrella to find out why so much dirt accumulated everywhere. Strangely, the umbrella owners are crying out, that The Sweeper is giving the dog a bad name to hang it. That he intends to poison them with the toxic emissions from the heaps of rubbish. They also accuse the sweeper of hunting them down like a witch and that the mails they have been receiving from him are black.
Sadly, no one believes them. People think they are mimicking Ali Baba, AY, Basket Mouth and their fellow tradesmen. Everyone knows that The Sweeper is not a killer and neither a “witch-hunter” nor a blackmailer. So, after 16 years of running Nigeria, who do they expect to supply the answers? This comedy is not for nothing. It is a rehearsed strategy to distract attention, cause confusion and hide 16 years of waste.
In Anambra, it is worse. By 2003, the Umbrella in the state had been torn to shreds and the attempt to patch it up collapsed in 2006, when its No 1 man was chased out of the Government House by the Supreme Court. Ever since, the umbrella could not be repaired. Its owners had resorted to stealing other people’s umbrellas and re-painting them. Even this strategy is not working. The Courts and Tribunals have been catching them and returning stolen umbrellas to their rightful owners.
Neither The Peoples Democratic Party in the state nor its umbrella has any form or occupies any identifiable space. The umbrella has since been shredded and different people with the different shreds have been claiming to be the authentic Party. Can there sincerely be a PDP without an umbrella? A party with five different Excos and working at crossroads cannot really be a party. It has become a band of jesters, entertaining people with continuous episodes of comedy.
In 2014, it premiered a comedy entitled “The Audacity of Mediocrity” (apologies) in which it presented a West African School Certificate holder as its governorship candidate to contest against Dr. Willie Obiano, who has multiple university degrees and certificates. PDP lost the election be- fore it started because it was a no-contest. It would amount to an eternal desecration of the memories of dead and living legends like Dr. Nnamdi Aziki- we, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Dr. Chukwuebuka Ezeife and Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju for a school certificate holder to be- come governor of the state.
As if enough wasn’t enough; the Party in 2015 released, “The Show of Shame,” another comedy in which another school certificate holder, masquerading as a Ph. D holder, ran again for Nigeria’s highest law-making body, the Senate. This is after the same zone had been represented by a medical doctor, a lawyer and a political scientist, all of them Ph. D holders.
Just last month, the party released another shocker that has so soon been inducted into the hall of infamy. In this new flick entitled that could be entitled “Voices from A Mad House,” a factional chairman of the party wrote an open letter to the Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, demanding financial accounting of state funds and details of how much would be spent on state projects. Is this bravado, foolishness or comedy? Obiano’s government is accountable to the people and not to an opposition party without fixed address. The open letter was at best a comic relief and the kind of tomfoolery the governor actually needs to unwind after a hard day’s job.
Just last week, a sequel to that film, was released. In this, the same factional chairman alleged a threat to his life by agents of the Anambra State government and the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). The reason he gave for this threat was the open letter he wrote to the governor. This is quite hilarious. So, Obiano became governor in order to direct the execution of deluded persons who write foolish letters that are full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing?. Is that how cheap life is to the PDP?
This is evidence of deep frustration and lack of purpose and direction. I am aware that the Inspector-General of Police has ordered the withdrawal of policemen attached to unnecessary persons like the factional chairman and this false alarm is a mere gimmick to hoodwink the Commissioner of Police in the state to continue to attach policemen to him. The COP must see through this smoke- screen. Meanwhile, I advise PDP in the state to stop these comedies and concentrate on efforts at piecing the shredded parts of its umbrella together again .
• Ogbonna writes from Awka
