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By Babajide Balogun
Femi Fani-Kayode’s recent article, “PDP’s Great Betrayal and the Choice Before the APC,” is a classic example of hate speech. In the above-named article, he literally called for an ethnic and religious action. I’ve read the article an umpteenth time.
In his ill-advised publication, Fani-Kayode described politics as a “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! He has severally been accused of biting the fingers that fed him. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan are living victims.
It is on record that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has hitherto favoured the supposed “South” of the country in the choice of its presidential standard-bearer. 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 14 years and three months. This was via Obasanjo (eight years) and Jonathan (five years and three months). Under the PDP, the North held presidential power for less than two years and nine month (via the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua).
Since the 2003 presidential election, those Fani-Kayode now supports 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, Fani-Kayode should have directed his vituperations to them in the All Progressives Congress (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. The election in 2023 will be the seventh. 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 refuting a similar write-up contained in another publication. In its repudiation, the revered umbrella body of Ndigbo worldwide described them as “mischief-makers, impostors, charlatans and unscrupulous social climbers who have shamelessly leeched on the invaluable footprints of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to issue press releases for narrow, perverse and illicit pecuniary interests. It is the unwholesome activities of such maladjusted, impish scaremongers that have been the bane of Igbo cohesion.”
It is hoped that Mr. Fani-Kayode takes heed of this principled pronouncement.
In his myopic assessment of the PDP oresidential primary (an event monitored by 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 “organise” 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.”
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 goalpost in the middle of the game was ill-advised.”
In his prose, 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 the error who truly fits it.
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. He accused them all of wining and dining with murderers and terrorists! Just 18 months ago! Obviously, FFK is a man with a short memory. 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 President Muhammadu 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 Fani-Kayode denouncing the PDP for holding a convention and presidential primary 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 arrowhead of the party’s thrust, the PDP is positioned to rescue Nigeria and re-unite its diverse peoples. With Atiku as standard-bearer, PDP will end the APC’s years of the locusts!
•Balogun, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Ibadan
