The defeat of PDP in last year’s presidential election has exposed the
\ndirty and hideous underbelly of the party that wrecked Nigeria after 16
\nyears of tortious cannibalism. The defeat still leaves the PDP in a state
\nof shock and has forced it and its members to embark on every desperate
\nmeasures to express the frustration\u00a0 of its members as well as sabotage
\nthe ensuing Buhari government policies. As an opposition party, PDP has
\nleveraged on the sole tactics of bandying or responsibility and deigning
\nsuch as opposition politics.\u00a0 But there must be an end to irresponsibility
\nof the hue that was displayed on Edo elections. PDP must arrest itself
\nthan continually display such crass irresponsibility as opposition.<\/p>\n
Since after its\u00a0 humbling last year by the APC, the party which is
\nwrithing on the pangs of death has striven desperately to explain away its
\nhumiliation and as usual has been looking far outside the real reasons why
\nNigerians dimpled it last year and these include; corruption, ineptitude,
\nimpunity and bad leadership. Put differently, PDP has been blaming every
\nother factor but its liabilities but Nigerians know better and are ever
\nglad to rid themselves of that huge burden the PDP constituted in their
\nlives.<\/p>\n
Since its electoral defeat, the fortunes of PDP has dipped abysmally low
\nand how to approach every election presents it with such a huge problem
\nthat it has resorted to very shameful and venal\u00a0 means to avoid electoral
\ndefeats in every election since it was thrown out of power. It has avoided
\nthe ball and gone for the legs in its belief that the best way to stave
\noff imminent atrophy is resorting to absurd banalism than reason.<\/p>\n
Knowing that its previous electoral fortunes were by fraudulent
\nmanipulation of electoral process and security agencies while it was in
\npower, the PDP, out if power has devised means tof staving off electoral
\ndefeats in each election and these include;
\n* Raising repetitive hoaxes of plans to rig every election by its
\nopponents especially its nemesis and much feared foe; the APC.
\n* Mounting an extensive media hype of plans to rig every election, use
\nsecurity agencies to rig,\u00a0 and repeat such even when it goes no further to
\nprovide credible roof of its wolf crying.
\n* Prepare the ground to reject every election result even in places it has
\nno foothold and go along to seek to make capital of such puerile gimmicks,
\n* Raise wild, specious and reckless allegations during every election to
\nprovide a landing for contesting such election results where it doesn’t
\nfavour it. If such election favour it, the PDP had been so shameless to
\nlaud the same process it farcically thumbed down as the best thing that
\never happened to Nigeria.
\n* Forge and manufacture its own election results where it gives itself an
\noverwhelming lead, even in the face of overwhelming evidences disproving
\nsuch absurdity.
\n* Instigate its members and supporters to protest further release of
\nresults\u00a0 and undermine the process (The Orubebe way) where it feels
\nelection results are not favoring it.
\n* Go along to dispute every election result that does not favour it and do
\neverything to discredit the results and the process even when they have no
\nshred of evidence to sustain their childish tactics.<\/p>\n
All these were in full display in Edo State during the just concluded
\ngovernorship election where PDP, sensing it was losing so badly, went to
\naddress a media conference while results were coming in to the effect that
\nthe APC was planning to substitute the ‘real’ election results where it
\nwas leading with a fabricated election result which favours the APC.<\/p>\n
PDP went along to call out its members to protest the results that were
\nbeing announced and called for the cancelation of the result because it
\nwas not favoring it. Still insisting that the results INEC was releasing
\nwere fabricated, PDP said it had the ‘authentic’ results and later
\npromised to release same to show that they won the election and not The
\nAPC. Having gradually gotten used to such pranks by the PDP, INEC didn’t
\nallow itself to be blackmailed into aborting a baby that was already going
\nthrough the birth process. It went ahead and announced the entire result,
\nwhich shows that the APC had an unassailable lead in 13 out of the 18
\nlocal governments in an Edo where it had worked so hard to leave indelible
\nfootprints to banish the sad memories of PDP’s debauchery.<\/p>\n
It is two days after election, and still counting, and the PDP is yet to
\nrelease its ‘authentic’ results from the Edo gubernatorial election. It is
\nrather sponsoring and marketing very assiduous indictment of an electoral
\nprocess that was hugely transparent and which it even thumbed up when the
\nprocess is going on.<\/p>\n
Even as the PDP itself has grown uncomfortable from its usual refrain of
\n‘go to court’ with which it ran down each of its brazen electoral sleazed
\nwhen it was in power, Nigerians would have loved to take a glimpse of
\nPDP’s ‘authentic’ results which it promised to release for all Nigerians
\nto see how it was robbed of victory. Why is the party demurring in doing
\nso? Why is it dilly dallying in marshaling what it promised Nigerians so
\nas to prove its outlandish claim of wining an election it very well knew
\nit lost?<\/p>\n
But then, many years of wielding irresponsible power has clearly weaned
\nPDP of the power of good reasoning and logical thinking for if the party
\nstill reasons well, it will know that the present electoral system is a
\nsystematic process that involves releasing results at each polling booth,
\neach electoral ward, each local council and eventually the state level,
\nwhich strangely the PDP is battling against. If they are not robbed of the
\npower of good thinking, it would have told itself the truth that it needs
\nnot 48 hours or perpetuity to get an accurate and verifiable result from
\nEdo. Saying that results were changed at the state collation level is a
\nsilly excuse for a party that knows its onions for election results could
\nbe known few hours after each election just by a capable situation room
\ncollating the results from all the polling units. Results here are not the
\nthoughtless forgeries the PDP bandied around at every election but the
\nresults vetted by INEC at each polling unit in a given electoral
\nconstituency. This was why the APC was able to track the results of the
\nMarch 28 2015 presidential election while the PDP was still fabricating
\nphantom results where it said it was leading by 25 states at a time the
\ngenie has already been let out of the bag.<\/p>\n
So it is silly to say that election results were change at the state
\ncollation center when they have been announce at the booth, ward and local
\ngovernment collation centers. Because PDP knows it was lying to itself, as
\nit is wont to do, it is not releasing any ‘authentic’ result on Edo
\nbecause there is no such result. There is no other result different from
\nwhat INEC released and that was merely an aggregate of the results from
\nthe polling units, wards and local council collation centers. The PDP
\nshould stop this irresponsible behavior because it is not a panacea for
\nits debilitating fortunes. Though it is too late in the day but the PDP
\nmust reform its battered ethical content and start repairing its image.
\nSuch acts of irresponsibility as it displays in Edo can never help it. If
\nit wants to adopt such short cuts to get back to power, there is every
\nneed to alert it that Nigerians are not dummies. Its present crush with
\nirresponsible conducts as opposition politics will only deepen its woes
\nand I can throw a bet on this.
\nPeter Claver Oparah<\/p>\n
Ikeja, Lagos.
\nE-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The defeat of PDP in last year’s presidential election has exposed the dirty and hideous underbelly of the party that wrecked Nigeria after 16 years of tortious cannibalism. The defeat…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n