Akwa Ibom PDP guber primaries- The media as agent of mass deception

BY DAN ETOKIDEM

Sometimes, it pays to compare politics with children at play. Yet when  children play, their innocence can tease them into the province of danger. The difference between child’s play and political fray, especially Nigerian style is that one understands his absence of innocence and the other knows nothing but the sweet naivety of action.

On Monday December 8th 2014 at the Akwa Ibom International Stadium, during the charade called PDP Governorship primaries, we witnessed once again the manipulation of a process and the undermining of the destiny of a people by a few selfish politicians. At the end of the exercise, Udom Gabriel Emmanuel was declared winner of the Akwa lbom PDP Governorship primaries.

The media on its part were on hand to show the world how free and very unfair the whole exercise was in a case of perception being more important than evidence. At the end of the whole episode, Udom, the beneficiary of the electoral impunity thanked the PDP for proving to the world that democracy is deepened in the state and commended delegates for the “peacefully” manner they conducted themselves. Udom seemed to have the attention span of an excited teenager as he gave his acceptance speech. I doubt if viewers or listeners were inspired.

But what really happened on December 8th? The true answer startles. Even Aristotle would chuckle. The danger in becoming too well- versed in the art of verbal fabrication is that the accomplished hypocrite becomes the last person to recognize his cover has been blown. Leadership is said to be better tested in times of crisis and most great leaders of history are forged in the furnaces of the most turbulent of crisis. But the leadership of the PDP in Akwa Ibom State has no proof of leadership.

They have failed to rise to the quality of introspection and tact that the occasion demands.

The media coverage of the event was nonchalant about the veracity of the process leading to the nomination because the media function was not to inform the public. Its role in the whole episode was to condition the publics mind so that the people will agree with subsequent decisions taken by the cabal and its foreign Igbo collaborators even before the decisions are made. One cannot therefore blame some people for believing the nomination was just what they watched on their TV set, forgetting that it was rigged before, during and after the D-day.

Any people in their position would reason the same way even if it amounts to reasoning against reason itself. But we must allow reason and facts to guide us and forbid propaganda-fuelled emotions from turning us into the instruments of other people’s designs. Truly, a dark chapter is unfolding in Akwa Ibom history. Against the electorate, the electorate have no choice. The kingmakers only voted after the king had been chosen for them in Government House, Uyo where accreditation was also done. Is there a more shocking absurdity? This turned to be a mere dress rehearsal for something more potent and destabilizing. Accreditation was not done by the electoral panel but by the Governor’s Chief Security Office, thus portraying the  current PDP State Leadership for being a precedent for all that is abominable in leadership.

Exhibiting obvious political immaturity and showing lack of experience to manage crisis situations, the state PDP leadership chose the wrong time to cause disaffection and division within the party. A careful consideration of the past, and a deep appreciation of the surface currents of national affairs, not  to talk of its salient but potentially more explosive undertones should have led the PDP into adopting a different approach to the primaries devoid of an avoidable crisis.

Akwa Ibom PDP is in desperate straits. The omens are not too good. The tumult and turbulence arising from the systematically rigged and flawed primaries is merely a sub-text for something far more threatening. These are mere symptoms of a deeper malaise, an organic crisis in which the main actor’s appears perplexed and disoriented, in which the very structure of state is in danger of being overwhelmed by forces of adversity. 

Often, what is not readily seen even by the media is the most important thing. When we rig elections, we alter the wishes and collective aspirations of the people. It is not only democracy and development that suffer collateral damage. The principal causality is the insight we deny ourselves into the intriguing and perplexing dynamics of a fraught post colonial society, the demographic shifts, the political turns and twist and the emergent sociology of contending nationalities in a multi-ethnic society like ours.

Once again, it is Akwa Ibom that is the target of this hostile take over bid against the people’s wish and the omens are dire indeed. The paradox is baffling and it speaks to the core contradiction of a baffling polarized party. In order to have elections, the entire state must be placed on war footing. But we must take due historical cognizance of the grave import and the collective danger this rampant militarization represents for the state as there is  a way in which the immediate past returns to haunt the present, a classic instance of political nemesis. Forcibly tampering with the destiny of a people has a way of returning the compliments in an even more devastating manner. Electoral irrational produces political irrationality which in turn leads to a completely irrational society.

        Akpabio and the PDP must realize that it owes the state the obligation not to turn it into a theatre of blood in the name of ambition. But let the corporate dreams of all dwarf the puny egotism of one man’s or one’s group’s design. The priests of war have gathered at their highest altars, preparing to sacrifice truth so that the clouds of war might once more gather over the state. This ground has seen too much war and blood over the years and it should be allowed to recover and see no more. Before we are led to the hasty conclusion that might march us to war, the facts should be carefully examined in line with internal democracy and democratic tenants and for those stoking the flame of disunity in the party that was struggling to survive in an air of artificial unity, Peace is in jeopardy. 

They should pray that is endures and  cherish it while it last, after all, PDP’s lose may be APC’s gain and this may be Godswill for Akwa Ibom State. Who knows after all, the ‘unseen hand” that intervened in the positive choice of who becomes Governor in 2007 also reserves the exclusive right to determine the negative choice of who will not be Governor in 2015.