Nigeria’s Oppositions Are Hook-up Girls – By Funke Egbemode
Tortoise sets out on a journey. He is asked: ‘When will you return?’ He replies, ‘Not until I am disgraced.”
I am sure you’ve heard the Yoruba saying this many times. I am sure it is applicable to our politicians. Their journeying turtle knows neither shame nor when to say, “enough I am going back home.” Like hookup girls, they hop from one party to another in body or spirit or both. Wherever the wind of money, opportunity, and opportunism blows them, they go. And most times, when they hop onto alien loins, they get used for money and power rituals.
Every misfortune that befalls their party is caused by someone else. They always find a ‘Wiked’ person to blame.
Nigeria is about to become a one-party state.
Wike has destroyed the PDP.
Tinubu is fast becoming a dictator.
He is killing opposition.
Democracy is gradually dying in Nigeria.
How many times have you said or heard those lines in the last 30 days, even one week? Those lines assault our senses all day, everyday, these days. If a fast-talking political analyst and social commentator is not painting a dreary picture of our future, a human rights lawyer or activist is quoting laws that put all our leaders in jail. Maybe they are right. Maybe you believe everything they say and will say tomorrow morning on all our television morning shows.
One thing is constant, there is a thread and theme of greed, selfishness and short-sightedness holding our polity together. There is a trait all our leaders (except a minute few) share. And when things don’t work their way, they pull out a book of big grammar, terminologies and mix everything with their memorized supporting sections of the constitution to convince they are right and everyone else is wrong. They constantly remind me of Amunkun and Apapo Eleye analogies. Amunkun is the knock-kneed man who was accused of not knowing how to balance the load on his head. Everybody he met on the way asked him why his load was wobbly, bent, not sitting straight on his head. Tired of their ‘short-sightedness’, he implored them to stop focusing on what was on his head because the root of the wobbly load was his wobbly knees that was making him wobble instead of walking like everybody else. The ‘Apapo Eleye’ theme taken from the 90s Yoruba drama series by Yekini Ajileye Production, Koto-Orun, where the dark mothers joined hands and forces to deal with those declared guilty by the coven.
Our political coven is in turmoil because the actors of the nights are in that season when they cannot agree on anything. Indeed, they all are testing their great beaks on one another, and the floor is full of plucked feathers. The weak are rolling in pain, the strong are rolling in laughter, and the rest of us are naively attempting to analyse the cacophony. I don’t know why we bother or why we take sides.
Let us start with PDP, the once-upon-a-time largest, most influential political party in Africa (right)? It held sway for 16 years, four election cycles. It was the king that must and could not be questioned. Its big fat feet had bad toes splayed everywhere. You stepped on them and stepped into pains and teeth-gnashing. Not that the PDP years didn’t bring Nigerians’ blessings. It did landmark ones like the GSM and smart banking, but I won’t bore you with the details today. The problem now is how, in less than four years after its presidential election loss, everything fell apart.
Let us fast forward to the ‘Wike is the problem of PDP’ episode. Every time I hear that, I chuckle. How? Then I shake my head. How is one single man, a former governor bigger than a whole party that once hosted and housed the most powerful men in the country? Some of those powerful men who designed, devised, and supervised the strategies that won elections in Nigeria are still in PDP today. Former governors, former speakers, and Senate presidents, formidable politicians who pulled votes and voters in most difficult terrains.
PDP has, still in its fold, former presidents, former vice presidents, vibrant aspirants, and very rich members. PDP has what we call in the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) living ancestors. Pray then, how is one man who once served PDP with fanatical devotion a problem for all these men of uncommon timber and calibre?
Sure, Wike is not your regular guy, but there are many of him in PDP still. Oh, or are they the ones he (Wike) is using or cooperating with to hollow out PDP? Perhaps Wike has more loyalists in the PDP than the party itself. What kind of party or coven would that make PDP? If APC is destroying PDP or any party, can it do it alone? It’s just like the case of vote buying. There are vote sellers who defend their whoring ways with such big grammars as ‘poverty has been weaponised’. A whore is a whore. There are poor women who do not resort to selling their bodies for money. There are more political whores in our polity and that is the problem with Nigeria.
If Wike has money at his disposal to bribe and weaken PDP, who are the whores within accepting Zaddy Wike’s money? Who are the hook-up guys in PDP shaking their butts and singing ‘Owo l’owo o, eyin nle; Money for hand, back for ground’. That is the PDP problem, the whole problem. Hook-up politicians, buying and selling influences, trading political clout and whatever is left of their political integrity.
They are married to PDP with children, but sleeping steadily, clandestinely with APC. Mercenaries posing as businessmen. Gunmen posing as soldiers.
The other side of the story, however, is, don’t take my word for it but I think Wike’s problem is his head; his ‘chi’ does not agree with helping others. Think about it before you start protesting. From the candidates he has helped to the throne, to holding the Peoples Democratic Party together with both hands to the conspiracy that stopped him abruptly at the PDP Presidential primaries and the coven leaders who refused to make him a running mate, with what are you going to prove that Wike is destined to help aspirants become candidates and then governor or whatever? Call this a serious silent warning but Wike’s head does not agree with helping with other people’s achieving their ambition. Maybe he should just mind his business and focus on his own ‘hustle’ in case he’s still planning how to help another set of ‘godsons’.
The hook-up guys in the ‘opposition’, did you see the way they ‘fell in’ when it was time to vote for or against state of emergency in Rivers State. Save for a few men like Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, Senator Enyinaya Abaribe and Senator Seriake Dickson who couldn’t imagine saying ‘Yes’ when they meant to say ‘No’. With the speed they accepted their ‘tear-rubber’ official cars, the so-called ‘opposition’ said their ‘aye’ and moved on. Is it also Wike’s fault that Jandor chose to ‘return home’ to APC in Lagos? What’s left of PDP now in Lagos?
Let us now visit the rave of the moment, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. It’s either I missed the PDP support groups defending the beautiful Senator or their defense simply didn’t happen. At inauguration, 43 of the 109 Senators were of the PDP. Plus or minus a few that defected, did you hear 40 voices speaking up for Natasha? Did you see even a dozen of them at a caucus meeting or press conference defending one of their own? When Natasha finally dared every odd and helicoptered her way into Kogi to a beautiful reception, how many PDP Senators, Chieftains were there? Tomorrow, if Natasha decides that it is too lonely and cold in PDP, the president will be blamed for weakening opposition or it will be because Tinubu gave Wike money to lure Natasha to APC.
It’s the way of hookup girls, they dress to entice, if what they wear can be called dress. They tack hankerchief-size fabrics to cover the bare essentials, make their ways to where the buyers are and spread their goodies on display. They bat their lashes and shake whatever is shakable and worm ( yes, in every sense of the word) their ways into the pockets of whoever can pay. Note that today’s payer’s pay is valid until midnight, unless he pays for TDB (Till daybreak).
How is the call-girl service different from what we see in our polity? The Labour Party came and job-seeking fellows posing as politicians jumped on the poor party. They called themselves all kind of nice names, wore saintly-sounding tags like good people. I told those around me that it was only Peter Obi I knew and that most of those boarding his vehicle were hook-up guys. I was called an unbeliever. Now ask yourself, how many of the Obidients are still obedient? Like call girls, they found the mega party to ride into election victory, and as soon as they got what they wanted, they became what they really are, showed us their true colours. Some have openly decamped. Many are closet APC members, trust me. You still think it is APC that is turning Nigeria into a one-party state?
It was not the ruling party’s fault that the opposition is giving it up for the highest bidder. It is what whores do. They hook up with the party that works and pays them.
Share your story or advertise with us: Whatsapp: +2347087199444 Email: primenewsnig@gmail.com
