In the spirit of giving honour to who is due, Secondus creators, particularly Rivers behemoth, Governor Nyesom Wike, deserve epaulettes for a bull eye precision in delivering on the project. You may want to see it as preserving their political colonies. But a good job deserves good kudos. Weeks to the party’s convention, I ran into a colleague and kinsman at top fixers’ base; Transcorp Hotel, in Abuja. We were having a chat when the one he said he was waiting for, sauntered into the expansive front door of the hotel, obviously emerging from a private room, and presumably for a private meeting. He beckoned at my brother to follow him and asked him to climb into another jeep car in the convoy prepared for him. From his carriage to swagger and all of him and his eye-popping convoy of wonders-on-wheels, it was too obvious that here was a prince waiting for his coronation day. He also possibly came for final rituals with kingmakers.
Secondus is fixed and all seemed well, at least going by the histories and stories of past conventions of the party and one can only wish that all will remain well. However, the problem with wishes is that realities always put a lie to dream desires. While one would sincerely want to wish that Secondus and his allies would live happily ever after, at least for the sake of having a robust opposition to put the bumbling ruling APC on the edge and with time, having the robust opposition as a government-in-waiting if the ruling party sunk deeper into the political reverie, it is factual that bromance, the kind that produced Secondus, hardly ends well.
The new chair is what the thieving fat-cats in the sleaze-ridden oil sector will call a joint venture. From funding to execution, nothing cheering has ever come out of such voyage in Nigeria. It also has a way of even getting tardier when foreign partners are involved. If in doubt, ask Minister of Petroleum Muhammadu Buhari, VP Yemi Osinbajo, Chief of Staff Abba Kyari, Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu, NNPC GMD Maikanti Baru and his backers like Professor Tam David West and Professor Itse Sagay. They will blow you plenty grammar without telling you where exactly is the missing money.
JV is bad business and Secondus is one. The dollar pictures from the convention, circulating on social media, is a better evidence than the so-called Unity List, that “resources” were truly polled to coronate the new Wadata landlord. The question is what is the cost of his reign? What did the kingmakers demand at the different igbale (deity altars)? Who are the principalities and powers that the new party leadership is covenanted to, in the name of Unity List? How reasonable was the first tranche of demands since certain give-and-take must precede the initial agreement of having a JV?
A careful threading through the list will show a kind of “donation bazaar.” At least for the “functional” offices, the new occupants are political leeches of the party’s Garrison managers. Guess, the offices were distributed to the heavyweights that could muscle out lesser weights and trusted “boys” were sent in. When you send a trusted subordinate for a task, such a task must be a serious one. There is one Yoruba call “ise igbonse” (meaning defecating) which you can’t even send your kids. While kids may not be the appropriate one to send in politics, such considered “dirty” job, can be sent a trusted political attaché, who MUST surely deliver or be delivered in the process.
I see Kola Ologbondiyan and I see David Mark. Who is he to outspend other contenders for PDP’s image-making if the former senate president had not donated him? Ayo Fayose was verbally bullying his protesting kith for the chairmanship position on AIT on convention night after his man had gone in as the National Treasurer and Secondus’s emergence looking good for his Aso Rock ambition. Add that to Ben Ayade’s aide, Miss Divine Amina Arong emerging as the national deputy auditor and you want to say, what a team.
But the real character test for the new leadership is the coming Ekiti and Osun gubernatorial poll. For a negotiated leadership, there is forlorn hope it will ever be objective and provide a level-playing field. I strongly suspect the much-abused impunity cliche is about taking a new form in the party. The way Fayose boasted that night, asking certain persons to go and sit at home and that he would never beg any aggrieved fellow, suggests a new kind of tyranny may headline Wadata, though his co-travellers are making an attempt at pretending to be different.
The reality of PDP today is that the true strength of the new leadership lies elsewhere, far away from Wadata Plaza. The biggest danger is that the puppeteers would be difficult to monitor since many are not in public face like Fayose. Pulling all the strings in the party’s secretariat is just a call away for them and those not in their good books, may be complete no-hopers as the party begins a new journey. This is the new phase in a journey many fervently wish would end in perdition for the party. Secondus and his team have a responsibility to make the wish come to pass so quickly. It will be a miracle if this equation throws up a different answer, because puppets always need a miracle to be free.
and then