I always recall a popular Hausa adage I learned from my colleague and friend, Sukuji Bakoji. It says: “Duk mai tone ramin mugunta, ya tone shi gajere, watakila ya fadi a ciki” (“Whoever that digs pit of wickedness should make it shorter, lest he falls in it”). It speaks on nemesis and the need for one to be careful of his actions and utterances because they may come back to him.
A fuller story of what prompted my friend to render the proverb will be for another day. But in summary, it was about a certain boss, who derived joy in seeing younger ones at pains. He fell in his scheme on one occasion, when, out of mere brainwave and for no convincing reasons, he sacked some colleagues. The entire staff rose against him. In the ensuing crisis, the owners of the organisation stepped in and asked him to step aside. That particular incident has remained a big lesson to all of us that witnessed it.
If you had listened to the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 Kogi election, Dino Melaye, the other day on the uncertain state of affairs in the party, it was obvious that he was in severe pains. He has found himself in same pit of wickedness which he and other hawks dug in the party.
PDP is paying for its betrayal to those who had laboured for it when it mattered most. In an obvious fit of anger, Melaye said the party is finished, irredeemable and fully commercialized. He accused the acting national chairman, Iliyasu Damagun, the national secretary, Sam Anyanwu and another chieftain, Umar Bature of destroying it.
Melaye made the allegation on his X handle. He wrote “End of the road for PDP as Damagun, Bature and Anyanwu irredeemably destroyed the party. We will talk about the commercialisation and privatisation of PDP. PDP is now once upon a time.” There could not have been a better way of expressing his frustration.
If you see that as the last kick of a dying hyena, you may not be wrong. But one thing is certain; the man is destabilized, just as his party, the PDP is in the wilderness. Dino, is a strong ally of Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate in the last election. His fate and progression in politics are closely tied to Atiku and the PDP. When Atiku manoeuvred the PDP ticket in the last election, at the expense of the South East that was supposed to have produced the flag bearer, Melaye and other members of his inner caucus, did not see anything wrong in the unprincipled action. Melaye, in particular, pranced about, mocking the South East members of the party that were outsmarted by Atiku and his dubious gang. But as it is, things do no longer appear to work in their way, hence the Kogi ex-Senator is shedding crocodile tears.
Melaye does not ordinarily deserve attention but for his regular nuisance role in PDP politics. We had once situated him for what he is – the flipside of Mmanwu (masquerade) in Igbo cosmogony. Metaphorically, Nnukwu Mmanwu (the big masquerade), connotes a person of note and authority. It is an honour. But, Mmanwu or Ulaga (the ordinary masquerade), indicates one without substance and repute. It is a symbolic way of describing one as lacking in shame. For the Igbo, one without shame is the worst form of creation. There is no limit to what the person can do, including the most immoral.
Such a character defies predictions and can undertake any mission that fetches him anything for the day. Melaye’s trajectory in politics either as students’ union leader, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s attack dog, his urchin disposition to successive leadership of the National Assembly and serial movements from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and back to the PDP, situates him for Mmanwu of the Ulaga class. In politics, he is a vagabond of sort!
This is somebody who courts and hugs attention, mostly on the wrong notes. At odious outings for which he has constantly featured, he derives joy in being the topic of discussion. He loves being the issue, even without content. Unfortunately for him, the game is drawing to an end.
The PDP from which Melaye had reaped abundantly, is losing grounds and in fact, on the verge of closing shop. That is a lesson on nemesis and its vengeful hand of retribution. Last year, we drew an analogy between the PDP and the South East, on one hand and the lead character in Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”, Okonkwo and his houseboy, Ikemefuna, on the other hand.
Ikemefuna grew up in Okonkwo’s household. He was so much attached to Okonkwo that he began to see himself as a member of the family. As fate would have it, the gods in Umuofia, Okonkwo’s village, demanded a human sacrifice to purify the land and Ikemefuna was to be the victim. Unfortunately, it was his ‘father’ that drew the sword that killed him. Okonkwo never recovered from the psychology of that misadventure.
Loyalty and betrayal are the threads in the relationship between the South East and the PDP as in Ikemefuna and Okonkwo. For Okonkwo, Ikemefuna went the extra mile in rendering service. For the PDP, the South East gave it all. But just as Okonkwo drew the sword against Ikemefuna, PDP practically threw the South East under the bus, in callous manifestation of perfidy. The party may never recover from that pit of wickedness.
So, Melaye crying over the rot in PDP, is akin to coming to the market too late. Former Jigawa state governor and one-time foreign affairs minister, Sule Lamido, had earlier captured the hopelessness in the party. At the time, Lamido raised salient questions that ought to prick the conscience of the leaders and members of the party. He had asked; “Pray do we still have the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP? Or better still, do we have a party called PDP? If we have one of the two, how come their total absence in the saga playing out in the PDP Family in Rivers?”
That is the extent the PDP has degenerated, to the point of the national chairman being fingered in the crisis rocking it. Dino Melaye is not the only one accusing Damagun and other officials of killing the party. A House of Representatives member, Ikenga Ugochinyere, had made similar allegation.
It shows how low party politics has fallen in the country. I cannot imagine the lords of Second Republic politics – Obafemi Awolowo of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Adisa Akinloye of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Adeniran Ogunsanya of the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), Ibrahim Waziri of the Great Nigerian Peoples Party (GNPP) or Aminu Kano of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) being accused of orchestrating crisis in their political parties.
Things have changed drastically. Erstwhile Senate President, late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, was right that what Nigerians had were not political parties but mere rallies. That of PDP, is more piteous, that even fleeting characters like Dino Melaye are fronting as the faces of the party. That is the result of digging a wider hole of wickedness.
