And so they\u00a0gathered, like supercilious vultures, gathered around a rotting corpse. They
\nmade all the noise of that gathering. They hooted and fretted and hoisted the
\ntotem of that ritual like their lives depended on it. Yes, of course, their
\nlives, their much vaunted but empty political lives, rest on such empty and
\nhollow ritual as they did in Imo State on February22. Sure, the Imo State
\nPDP,\u00a0badly in need of relief from the shellacking of April and May 2011, which
\nfreed\u00a0the Imo treasury from their predatory grips, needed such ritual to hang on to
\nlife. For a party with the notorious pseudonym of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcshare the money\u00e2\u20ac\u2122,
\nit is\u00a0probable that tons of Ghana must go bags must have made rounds to purchase
\nthe\u00a0present migration and possibly satiate the burning hunger of the past three
\nyears. That is in consonance with the credo and belief and operating template
\nof the PDP, even as it holds nothing but fear of regression into the dreaded
\nyears of locusts for Imo people. The characters behind Imo PDP needed the
\nkind\u00a0of revelry they enacted in Imo State on February 22 when they said they were
\nwelcoming their straying members back to their fold, to assure themselves
\nthey\u00a0were not dead, to vest some spectre of life to their dying club. With
\npredictable enthusiasm, they gathered in their numbers to welcome their
\nleader,\u00a0who as President of Nigeria has been an underachieving one, with tales of
\nmassive plundering of state treasury, incompetent handling of statecraft
\nand a\u00a0dead infrastructural base to tell of his commission as president for the past
\nfour years. There was nothing innovative of that gathering, as Imo people had
\nthem aplenty as the PDP locust years lasted.<\/p>\n
Few days to\u00a0the event, Governor RochasOkorocha was to deliver a well-targeted jab on the
\nPDP when he mocked that they were congregating in Imo to commission people
\nwhile his government was commissioning projects. He further said the PDP
\nwould\u00a0have gladly commissioned federal projects if there was any but because the
\nPDP\u00a0do not believe in engaging in life enhancing projects, they were rather
\ncongregating to commission people. He laughed out against the art of making a
\nhuge but empty show of descending on Imo State to welcome past governors and
\npublic officers who cannot mend the roads to their villages while in power
\nbut\u00a0who are today savouringthe network of good rural and urban roads he had built
\nin the past three years. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if the members of PDP knew the
\nastuteness\u00a0of Okorocha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s delivery but chances are that they mist have pretended to be
\nignorant of the hefty message here. Imo people, who suffered the
\npestilence of\u00a0the twelve horrible years the PDP ran down Imo and swore to ensure that they
\nwould never have such terrible fate, knew. They knew because in the numerous
\nprojects the Okorocha government had embarked upon, they see the clear
\ndifference between the nearly three years he had been in power and the twelve
\nthe PDP wasted. In the numerous life enhancing projects the Okorocha
\ngovernment\u00a0had embarked on, Imo people see the barrenness of PDP politics of godfathers,
\nstakeholders, apex leaders, renters, share reapers, free loaders and all
\nwhich\u00a0ensured that state resources are free meals for all manners of rent
\ncollectors\u00a0for the twelve awful years of PDP governance in Imo State.<\/p>\n
The same\u00a0resources that were hitherto purloined by the congregating political
\ngodfathers\u00a0are the same that are being used to open all the rural areas through massive
\nroad construction. It is the same fund that is being used to build twenty
\nseven\u00a0model hospitals in the 27 local councils in the state. It is the same fund
\nthat\u00a0is being used to finance a historic free primary, secondary and tertiary
\neducation in such an educationally advanced state as Imo. It is the fund that
\nis used to finance the massive rejuvenation of the three urban cities of
\nOwerri, Orlu and Okigwe. It is the same fund that is being ingested in all
\nthe\u00a0communities in Imo State to run a grassroots, model community government.
\nIt is\u00a0the fund used to finance the construction of modern schools in each of the
\nelectoral wards in Imo State, purchase desks, uniforms, sandals, and books
\nfor\u00a0Imo pupils in secondary and primary schools. Yes, this is the fund the share
\nreapers hitherto shared out using the platform of amorphous groups and the
\nlack\u00a0of which for the past three years has sparked the kind of hunger behind the
\npresent movement of some politicians who have been on life support since the
\nresources of the state were deployed to serving the people and not their
\npristine needs.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, in\u00a0the days of yore when PDP was swimming in the aura of its overwhelming
\ninvincible strength in the murky Nigerian political waters, such grand act of
\nrevelry would have had some great meaning, as Imo politics used to be more
\nand\u00a0more of such empty shows and nothing more. Perhaps, such movement of
\nunproductive political mandarins would have had some political impact when
\nImo\u00a0people were still under the suzerain thumb of political phantoms, with their
\npenchant for flaunting power without responsibility and shackling the people
\nwith it. But thanks to the redemptive events of May 2011, Imo people have
\nseen\u00a0the light. Rather than con the people with such empty shows, the PDP is
\nliving\u00a0in the past, especially in Imo where it merely existed as a vote swerving
\ncabal\u00a0before its rustication. The Imo people have mastered the arts of
\ndisappointing\u00a0those that employ them as herds towards making their cut of the state
\nresources. Courtesy of the lofty achievements of the Okorocha government, Imo
\npeople now know that there are enough funds to attend to the multifarious
\ndeficits and decay the PDP sat on for twelve years while attending to the
\nfinancial needs of buccaneers and shibboleths who predicate their political
\nstrength on how deep they dig their fangs into the state treasury and
\nemploying\u00a0their respective shares to overwhelm and sheepishly herd the masses to
\napprove\u00a0of the cannibalistic vocations in politics.
\nWith the\u00a0benefits of the past three years of Rochas Okorocha government, an average
\nImo\u00a0man reads nothing about the congregation of February 22. To him, it was as
\nempty and unproductive as the various failed politicians for which that
\nparody\u00a0was set proved to Imo for the twelve years they were in overwhelming hold of
\nthe state. It was vacant, bland, empty, space-less and unproductive and is
\nmerely a rehash of the kind of political grandstanding that set Imo State
\nseveral years back. Sure, PDP today is a flailing ship that needs all such
\nempty and vacuous shows to keep the sagging faith of its members alive but
\nwho\u00a0knows what was on the mind of the congregating PDP warriors as they came to
\ntoday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Imo, in contrast with what it was when they came in 2011 to
\ncommandeer\u00a0state to the PDP? What could have struck them as they witnessed the new
\nroads and urban facilities that have been wrought in Owerri for the past
\nthree\u00a0years? Who knows what struck them as they reveled directly opposite the
\nOwerri\u00a0City Schools, which serves as the flagship of the new model schools that the
\nOkorocha government is building all over Imo State. Fact is that if President
\nJonathan ever visited the Imo government house, he certainly would have
\nmissed\u00a0his way, given the dingy cell house he visited last when he was
\ncampaigning for\u00a0the PDP in 2011. Perhaps, he would have been looking for the old, dilapidated
\ncolonial huts that formed the face of officialdom when he was last here and
\nwould certainly not believe the architectural wonders that are the face of
\npublic buildings in Owerri, not only in Douglas House. Sure, Jonathan would
\nhave missed his way in Owerri as he rode through the newly reconstructed
\nroads,\u00a0with no setbacks, broadened with beautiful silver street lightings that
\nnow don\u00a0the streets in Owerri.<\/p>\n
All said,\u00a0what is ensuing in Imo is a battle between the political slave masters and
\nthe\u00a0people. It promises to be a repeat of the epic April\/May 2011 titanic battle
\neven as PDP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s task is made more difficult by the superlative works of the
\nOkorocha government. It is a battle between power exercised with utmost
\nresponsibility and irresponsible power tailored towards attending to the
\nravenous\u00a0interests of the shylocks of power. It is a battle between the masses and the
\nslave masters who have done well to congregate under their ageless
\nmasthead as \u00a0a way of separating the sheep from the goats. It is a clear battle between
\nthe\u00a0pronounced twelve years\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rot and the landmark achievements of 2011 to the
\npresent. Trust Imo people, they are taking note and will act in due season.<\/p>\n