The scenario that is playing out now in the erstwhile largest political party in Africa, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is similar to the one that played out in1999 when this Republic commenced. That was when the then military President, Ibrahim Babangida, otherwise known as IBB went fishing for a candidate that would fit his Maradonic thinking, to contest the 1999 Presidential election: the candidate who, after winning the election, he would be able to control by remote device. He settled for a man whose outward appearance showed that he was “moomoo.” That man happened to be Olusegun Obasanjo, also popularly called OBJ.
When election was over and he and his like minds in the PDP were able to hang OBJ on the nation as President, he (IBB) settled down for the exploits. But before anybody would know what was happening, OBJ had woken up from his moomoo posture to show his peppery side with the famous declaration: ‘those who invested in my electoral victory to become President should consider their investment a loss.’
It got so hot for IBB that at certain times, he was just trying to hide from entering OBJ’s trap. Instead of his intended maneuvering of the nation’s affairs through his puppy, the OBJ, IBB was then praying to God not to allow the puppet cross with him.
And just recently, as an average Igbo man would say, ‘nyanga de sleep jejeje on its own, trouble go wake am.’ This much Ali Modu Sheriff confirmed, when he said that he was just sitting on his own when the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came to invite him to be the national chairman of the party. He told news men after taken over the secretariat that he did not campaign to be the PDP chairman but that he was persuaded by the PDP national caucus to step in for the job.
As a matter of fact, in the forefront courting Modu Sheriff then was the garrulous, motor park tout and confused Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state, the cultist Rivers state governor, Nyeson Wike and their likes. Even when elders of the party such as Jerry Gana and leader, Doyin Okupe (who refused to die after Buhari won and became President of Nigeria against the background of his vow that Buhari would only be President over his DEAD BODY or that he would change his name from Doyin Okupe), cried out against such sacrilege, of making Modu Sheriff the national chairman, the shortsighted governors would not listen. They were even sweating, defending Modu Sheriff over a wide allegation of his being the originator of Boko Haram.
Not quite six months later, the same people now teamed up with the foresighted PDP leaders to want to remove the seat (of chairmanship) from the same Modu Sheriff. They thought it was easy to play around with a person who had wangled his way into the governorship seat of Borno state and remained there for eight years; the man who wangled his way into the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigerian and the man who can deploy his enormous wealth to even unseat any ‘quee-quee‘ President!
Indeed, Modu Sheriff played true to type when he virtually bulldozed himself, with retinue of his supporters and fellow new leaders of the party into the National Secretariat of the party at Wadata House, Wuse in Abuja, the nation’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Monday. He had proved that he is no push over: that no one could use him for whatever purpose and dump him, just like that.
Modu Sheriff is at best, a morsel that seems to have hung on the throat of the dying PDP and at worse, a stubborn scorpion that is ready to sting anybody that dares him. Or simply, he seems set to help bury the remains of the party whose leadership thinks that changing the chairmanship is as easy as taking a sip of La-casera. E easy!!! [myad]