Daily Trust

“Yes, I said to BBC and I repeat to you again that zoning in PDP has been jettisoned. There is no zoning on ground right now. Absolutely, there is no zoning”
-- Okwesilieze Nwodo, PDP Chairman

The last time Okwesileze Nwodo made an appearance in political society, it ended in disgrace; he collected a hefty bribe along with a host of other officials of the government of the old despot, Olusegun Obasanjo. He made mincemeat of the bribe takers, disgracing them out of political society and Okwesilieze, with his tail between his legs, “ran fi cover”, in the words of Reggae musician, Ras Kimono, having been exposed as just another brigand, by Obasanjo. Nobody heard of the man from Enugu State on matters political again; well, until the disgraceful termination of the tenure of Ogbulafor, the Prince, as the chairman of the vote-rigging, nation-ruining contraption, called the PDP.

In pursuit of “Project 2011”, Goodluck Jonathan entered the museum of the politically-disgraced to pluck out Okwesilieze Nwodo and issued a marching order: “Go Ye, kill the policy of Zoning! Spread the word from the BBC to the local media! With success, we will open access of lucre’”! So it came to pass that the only vision Okwesilieze sees; the thought he nurses, 24-7; the scheme he perfects and the political semen he ejaculates (pardon the analogy dear reader!), is: “Away with zoning”! “Down with zoning”! “I will kill zoning”! “I will bark at zoning”! “Who dares want zoning?”! “No zoning”! “Die zoning”! “Exterminate zoning”! “Quarantine Zoning”!! “In the toilet, no zoning”! “When I collect bribes, no zoning”!  Almost like Pavlov’s dog in the experiment about conditioned reflex, Okwesilieze repeatedly flogs the “dead zoning horse”. And with professorial air, he revises the history of the PDP; Jonathan’s Man-Friday re-iterated the point: “Why zoning now?” Okwesilieze Nwodo asks. “Why? We have jettisoned it….If we think that we need to revisit zoning today, let us revisit zoning. But the one we did in 1999, no, no, no, no, it has been jettisoned by the PDP itself. So those who are talking about that agreement are not following the history of the party”.

The kinds of things people do or say, just to keep a disreputable job! Okwesileze Nwodo became the PDP chairman only because it was zoned to the South-East of the country. The man forgot (until IBB and Iyorchia Ayu reminded him that he is a “SELECTED” chairman-by-zoning), that was why he could audaciously froth in the mouth, like freshly-tapped palm wine in a gourd; he divides his party instead of uniting it, because his assignment is to be undertaker of zoning in the PDP. The coast must be cleared, by all means necessary, to give Jonathan a smooth sail as the PDP’s candidate, in 2010. But if the zoning idea is that ‘dead’ as Okwesilieze and the old Niger Delta clown, Edwin K. Clark want us to believe, why are they spending so much time killing it? And why is an inordinate amount of energy being expended to decimate PDP circles in Northern Nigeria, using religion and exhuming political corpses like Jerry Gana for the dirty job?

Many years ago, the late Mobolaji Bank-Anthony popularized the undertaker business, in old Lagos. On Igbosere Road, his premises carried the sign post “The Sympathetic Undertakers”; that was before the profession was invaded by dilettantes. In view of Okwesilieze’s fastidious commitment to the asphyxiation, elimination and burial of the concept of zoning within the haloed entrails of the PDP, it will be befitting for Nwodo to open an undertaker’s venture at the Wadata Plaza Headquarters of the PDP-if the ID Card Bribery money remains, that is! The venture already has an appropriate name: OKWESILIEZE NWODO, THE UNSYMPATHETIC UNDERTAKERS (of Zoning!). The chairman of “the great PDP” will secure a generous waiver from Jonathan Goodluck to import gold-plated caskets, befitting of the corpse of zoning. As a turnkey project, to be undertaken with chiefly efficiency, Okwesilieze Nwodo, may hire the Mkpokiti Dancers to accompany the corpse of zoning to the great political beyond, with Tony Anenih and E.K. Clark getting the sub-contract to supply the best quality ogogoro (Sapele water!), that will be used to “wash mouth” at the wake keeping ceremony. Okwesilieze Nwodo is doing the job he was hired for, as a politico-bribery hostage! National ID-Card bribery notwithstanding, Nwodo is committed to his master Goodluck Jonathan: flexing puny muscles to deliver the corpse of zoning. So in the next couple of weeks, look out at the facades of Wadata Plaza, the HQ of the largest (for nothing!) political party in Africa, the PDP. It will carry a brightly-lit, neon signpost: “NOW OPEN FOR BUSINESS: OKWESILEZE NWODO, THE UNSYMPTHETIC (TO ZONING) UNDERTAKERS”!
Footnote:
A day after his anti-zoning tirade, PDP Chairman, Okwesilieze Nwodo made a volte-face, swallowed his vomit, just as he swallowed the ID-Card bribe, saying zoning was after all, not dead. Wonderful!

When Niger Delta thugs invaded Abuja Last week, it was reported that 65 buses brought PDP-thugs-turn-militants into the FCT. They “peacefully” demonstrated to become entitled to get money earmarked for the amnesty program. So special were these lumpen scums that presidential Chief of Staff and minister of police affairs rushed to address them; and it was a “fruitful” visit as they returned to the creeks with Ghana-Must-Go bags of money. They tasted “Abuja Money” and promised to return, given the presidential treatment they received. Fancy how a group of people in turbans, out of Yobe or Borno, would have been received, if they entered Abuja in, say, a convoy of ten buses. They would be labelled as “Boko Haram terrorists” and shot in cold blood on the streets! It is a sign of the times; governments without legitimacy like Jonathan’s, around the neo-colonial world bought into the American “War on Terror”, and have massacred their citizens under its guise. There is a reactionary media which swallows imperialist slogans line, hook and sinker, ready to justify those killings, as they take place, and then report indignations by international human rights organizations, weeks and months after. The pattern has been established in Nigeria for a long time: Muslims are demonized and profiled in enemy terms; thereby justifying their massacre by security agencies of the state. But thugs from the Niger Delta are called “militants” while OPC cut-throats are sympathetically presented in media frames. It is such an ambience which facilitated the sweetheart treatment given the invading thugs in 65 buses, in Abuja! They are signs of the times in our country and our world!
Goodluck Jonathan and his four new toys
Once upon a time, a boy named Jonathan
Was born in the swamps.
All he knew were canoes balancing against waves.
Jonathan had Goodluck and moved to the savannah
To reside in a villa located by a rock.
One fine day he took our money to buy four toy planes.
The boy from the swamps wants to fly like a bird.
Postscript
South Africa’s World Cup spending= $5 billion dollars. Outcomes: 30 hotels; 10 stadia; power stations; housing estates; cutting edge railways; 160 thousand jobs and new roads. “Obasanjo spent $18billion on just electricity and here we are”- text message.