RE: PDP’S GREAT BETRAYAL AND THE CHOICE BEFORE THE APC

 Babajide Balogun argues that the PDP is positioned to rescue Nigeria and re-unite her diverse peoples

Femi Fani Kayode’s recent article “PDP’S GREAT BETRAYAL AND THE CHOICE BEFORE THE APC” is a classic example of hate speech. I’ve read the article an umpteenth time. And each time I read, I ask myself: “How does FFK sleep at night?”

In his ill-advised publication, Fani Kayode described politics as “difficult game filled with intrigue, betrayal and treachery. It is murky, it is foggy, it is dark, it is treacherous, it is full of intrigue and mystery and nothing is as it seems or appears.” True as this may look, considering the peculiar politics of Nigeria, Fani Kayode was actually describing himself! FFK is full of intrigue. FFK is a man with the unenviable penchant to bite the hands that feed him.

It is on record that the PDP as a party has hitherto favoured the supposed “South” of the country in the choice of its presidential flagbearer. This is an incontrovertible fact. In the 16 years of the PDP in power at the federal Level, two zones from the South held sway for 13 years and three months. This was via Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (eight years) and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan (five years and three months). Under the PDP, the North held presidential power for less than two years and nine months (via the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua).  

Since the 2003 presidential elections, Femi Fani Kayode’s newfound friends have not only fielded Northern candidates, but they have persistently fielded One single candidate, Muhammadu Buhari. They did so in five consecutive elections – 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. Thus, Mr. Fani-Kayode should have directed his vituperations to his new found friends in the APC. Instead, he vilifies the PDP, a party that has thus far fielded candidates from the South Four times in the six rounds of Presidential Elections since 1999. 2023 will be the seventh round of Presidential Elections. By next year, therefore, PDP would have fielded Southern candidates on four occasions, as against three times for North. If this does not reflect equity, fairness, and fair-play, I wonder what does!

Fani Kayode mentioned Ohanaeze Ndigbo in his diatribe. It was uplifting to read a rejoinder refute a similar write-up contained in another rogue publication. In its repudiation, the revered umbrella body of Ndigbo worldwide described them as “mischief-makers, impostors, charlatans and unscrupulous social climbers….”

In his myopic assessment of the PDP Presidential Primaries (an event monitored by both local and foreign media, and beamed via live telecast to a global audience), he failed to mention the underhand, last minute extension of the deadline of the Presidential Primaries! A development that was obviously designed to favour the ruling APC who still appear rudderless and clueless as to how to simply “organize” a credible convention. As noted by ace-writer, scholar and journalist, Dr. Reuben Abati, “The extension was announced on the eve of the PDP Presidential Convention after the party was no longer in a position to shift its own programme”. 

Dr. Abati continued thus: “This was at a point when the main opposition party could no longer benefit from the extension, and its rival, the ruling APC would have the opportunity of spying on the outcome of the neighbour’s primary. To the extent that INEC is expected to be completely neutral and independent, its decision to shift the goal-post in the middle of the game was ill-advised.”  

In his piece, Fani Kayode described his own people of the South West as “hewers of wood and drawers of water”. He accused the PDP of giving its ticket to “a man who is the best of friends with Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, the defender-in-chief of the terrorists of the north-west”. I began to wonder if he was referring to President Buhari. 

Ahmad Gumi is an avowed loyalist of Mr. President. He’s been tagged a celebrity go-between for the APC-led federal government. Just 18 months ago, Fani Kayode described Gumi, the APC and the Buhari-led government as being tied together with an umbilical cord. But I guess the APC sees through his thinly veiled hypocrisy.

In the same article, and in what I believe was an unintended intellectual somersault, Fani Kayode revealed the dictatorial undersides of Buhari and the APC! He insists that in choosing its Presidential candidate, Buhari holds the “Yam and the Knife” that he could do that with “Just one phone call”.

In his exact words, Fani Kayode tells us to “make no mistake about it, this decision is Buhari’s and his alone. He alone will most likely determine who APC will field and where that person comes from. If he chooses to stop any presidential aspirant from emerging even at this late stage he can do so, no matter how popular, rich and powerful that aspirant may be.” 

It is laughable to read Femi Fani Kayode denouncing the PDP for holding a convention and Presidential primaries in the full glare of the world, while descending to hail the APC for planning a voodoo-convention that will be determined by just One Man! Fani-Kayode’s duplicity cannot be more glaring.

In his final submission, Fani Kayode prescribed where Nigeria’s political parties should pick their presidential candidates from. In his words: “I am on record as saying that the three zones that ought to be considered for the nomination before others are the SOUTH-EAST, NORTH-CENTRAL and NORTH-EAST and I stand by that.”

 Well, Atiku is North-East!

Furthermore, he asserted that “Compared to the south-west, north-west and south-south, none of them has had a fair crack of the whip when it comes to democratically-elected presidents and they all deserve to have their chance.” 

Well, PDP via Atiku just gave the North-East a chance! 

The PDP’s objective is very clear: to win the 2023 Presidential election and save Nigeria from the brink. With Atiku at the arrow-head of the party’s thrust, the PDP is positioned to rescue Nigeria and re-unite her diverse peoples. With Atiku as flagbearer, PDP will end the APC’s Years of the Locusts! And despite detractors such as Fani Kayode, we keep our eyes on the ball. 

Any time I read the words of Femi Fani Kayode, Ayi Kwei Armah’s proverbial Chichidodo bird jumps to mind. The Chichidodo bird Is a deadly political animal. A Machiavellian animal; a fallen angel. Chichidodo is a bird that hates human excrement with all its soul, yet it feeds on the maggot from the same excrement!

In spewing his characteristic tirades which he always laces with his customary sophistry, Mr. Fani Kayode abandons facts. He’d rather nestle his false arguments in his pseudo-reality: his own version of home-grown satanic prose. 

But let’s pause a moment and ask: Who is Mr. Femi Fani Kayode? …He is a man who junkets from one party to another. A rolling stone. An ideologically deficient loud-mouth…

 Balogun, a public affairs analyst, writes from Ibadan