He just rechristened himself Olufemi Olu-Kayode, from Femi Fani-Kayode. But the distinctive Fani lament, of pathos and bathos, against Ali Modu Sheriff (SAS), as Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national chairman, shows the Fani public persona is intact.
Just take this sampler: “This is what a party that was founded and was once led by giants like President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Tony Anenih, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Gen. Aliyu Gusau, Alhaji Adamu Ciroma, Gen. T. Y. Danjuma, Vice President Abubakar Atiku, President Umaru Yar’ Adua, President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Bode George, Col. Ahmadu Alli, Chief E. K. Clark, Prof. Jerry Gana, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, Chief Ken Nnamani, and so many others, has degenerated to? What a pity! What a monumental tragedy!”
If there ever was a near-perfect verbal stacking of cards, this was it!
But what’s stellar about these names, some of whose crass obduracy pushed PDP into the pit in which it is buried?
O sure, they harbour some wonderful patriots and gentlemen. Alhaji Adamu Ciroma is one. Hardball has never liked his conservative politics. But, in all seasons, he remains a man of honour. Indeed, when PDP were playing yo-yo with their zoning formula, Ciroma warned there would be serious consequences. Here we are today, in the words of the keeper of a peculiar “freely given” mandate of Rivers.
Gen. Danjuma too, with Senator Ken Nnamani who, as Senate president, oversaw the defeat of Obasanjo’s third term attempt, would make Ciroma’s list.
Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar — was he ever a PDP member? Was he a closet PDP member? Well, Fani just blurted in his lament.
Almost all of the other names, sans a few, can’t mount a higher moral pedestal than SAS, in a serious and conscientious country. Meaning? They all piled up the PDP bomb that blew up in Goodluck Jonathan’s face.
Obasanjo? Had he taken saner steps, the Fourth Republic would have been richer; and PDP better for it. He laid the wrong foundation, though he carefully plays the saint now. Don’t forget: his manipulation delivered the poor Yar’Adua (Allah bless his soul) and Jonathan.
Jonathan? His fecklessness was the final nail in the PDP coffin. So, how could he, in “Fani-speak”, have been one of the great leaders “that founded and led PDP”?
IBB? Ah! Hardball won’t say more than that!
Anenih? Since allegedly trading off MKO’s mandate in 1993, what else has he been known for, except “Mr. Fix it”, of elections that for too long gave PDP false life?
Ahmadu Alli? Wasn’t he the chairman-GOC that implemented his C-in-C’s Ibadan garrison commander battle order, that told Rashidi Ladoja, an elected governor, to chuck it or surrender to Lamidi Adedibu, Obasanjo’s Oyo garrison commander, in his do-or-die 2007 election? Wasn’t that, for PDP, the beginning of the end?
Fani himself? Whose vulgar abuse, reckless statements and empty bluffs were to blame for Jonathan’s eventual crash, so much so that even when the man had lost, Fani was still bragging he was leading by some millions of phoney votes, and that “PDP would not be robbed”?
SAS, PDP, et al deserve themselves. So, it would take more than pathetic and bathetic lamentation from Fani for the party to escape from its self-dug hole.
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