A Requiem for APC

By John Ewah

In the early morning hours of April 15 1912, the ‘unsinkable’ RMS Titanic, operated by the White Star Line, measuring 883 feet long, 92 feet wide, 104 feet high, and weighing 46,328 tons, hit an iceberg and sank in the icy waters of the North Atlantic Ocean on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City, claiming a total of over 1500 lives which makes the incident one of modern history’s deadliest peacetime commercial
marine disasters.

The captain of the Ocean Liner was noted to have boasted a day before, that the Titanic was so solid that not even God could sink it. It did not take God to sink the Titanic, after all, it took just an iceberg.

Sometimes politicians, just like the captain of the Ocean Liner, easily forget how feeble and weak they are, as mere mortals. Taking a brief look at the history of Nigeria as a nation, we could inquire of the whereabouts of the political giants that laid the foundation of modern-day Nigeria! Where is Nnamdi Azikiwe? Where is Ahmadu Bello? Where is Obafemi Awolowo?  Where is the first and only prime minister in the history of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa? Where are Chief Tony Anenih and Chuba Okadigbo?

Where is the great tyrant and dictator, Gen Sani Abacha and all those who took upon themselves the role of God in the life of the nation? Today I am sure some of these characters would turn in their grave should they have a splash of their golden lives before their eyes, considering the role they had to play in their lifetime in shaping the political direction of this nation and setting her on the path of destruction.

No man is God and no man can be God. A situation where a microscopic few and oligarchs take it upon themselves to circumvent the collective will of the people, deprive them the opportunity of making their own leadership choices as a people, and impose on them a character of their own choosing, represents the low pedestal on which the people are placed.

From time immemorial, man has always recognized the hand of a greater power that rules over the affairs of men. When a man tries to take the place of God, he offsets the natural balance and the universe itself plots a conspiracy to pull him down.

The show of shame that emanated from the disqualification of a sitting Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki, from the Edo State 2020 guber’ race, by the National Working Committee of the APC, spearheaded by its chairman Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, is a testament of the godhood being perpetrated by some power holding politicians in the party. The singular event shows our level of development as a nation; a nation that would sacrifice meritocracy for mediocrity.

It is even more shameful that the actors in this Game of Thrones, season 9, like the renowned Lanisters, have refused to recognize that in the midst of their impunity and political recklessness, there exist a dragon queen that could lay waste to all their years of politicking, and every single achievement or legacy still bearing their name would form a union with the dust of the ground.

This is the end of APC as we know it unless a deus ex machina somehow manages to reorient the minds of its actors in reversing their conspiratorial decision against the Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki; only a quick and timely retrace of steps may perhaps help in this regard (if it is not too late already), otherwise APC is dead in Edo State.

Most men in their dying breath would want their remains to be laid to the earth amidst the strumming of the harps and the blast of trumpets, but not the APC. This singular act against a performing Governor may be the last straw that would break the camel’s back. The party has displayed a gross sense of disrespect and contempt for both king and country, for the judge and the jury, for the clergy and laity, for the people of Edo State.

APC may be buried amidst jubilation. Nobody will be there to sing her the “Libera me” or hold her a Requiem mass. They could as well consider this treatise their requiem as it may attract the last mass gathering for the party as we know it; there shall be no gun salutes, no elegy recited and no song sung. It will fade out like darkness at the sight of the dawn. APC may not rest in peace.

Such impunity was first planned and executed against Lagosians in the case of Ambode, who we could say decided to leave quietly, and because Lagosians tolerated it, they decided to take on Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, but he would not go down so easy. He gave them a run for their money. APC or its sole proprietors may have won a battle but eventually, will lose the war.

It is certain that should the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) continue to keep mute at such draconian actions by the leaders of the APC, soon every Governor under the platform of the APC will become a puppet in the hands of Sauron and Saruman. A Gandalf must rise from the party to break the staff of Saruman and a Frodo Baggins should be ready to travel down the slippery slope of Mount Doom in order to destroy the one ring of Sauron with which he plans to cover the APC in a land of second darkness. I am sure the Governors Forum understands the import of the poem by Martin Niemoller titled, “First They Came”.

Any person or group of persons who feel they have the sole will to determine the lives and living of the people will certainly be shipwrecked in the laughter of God himself. I would, therefore, end this piece with a poetic quatrain which reads;

“Politicians don’t you know,
With the masses power lies?
Soon the poor will show,
All the redness in their eyes.”