“Yes, I said to BBC and I repeat to you again that zoning in PDP has been jettisoned. There is no zoning on ground right now. Absolutely, there is no zoning”- Okwesileze Nwodo, PDP Chairman
The last time Okwesileze Nwodo made an appearance in political society, it ended in disgrace; he collected a hefty bribe along with a host of other officials of the government of the old despot, Olusegun Obasanjo. He made mincemeat of the bribe takers, disgracing them out of political society and Okwesileze, with his tail between his legs, “ran fi cover”, in the words of Reggae musician, Ras Kimono, having been exposed as just another brigand, by Obasanjo. Nobody heard of the man from Enugu State on matters political again; well, until the disgraceful termination of the tenure of Ogbulafor, the Prince, as the chairman of the vote-rigging, nation-ruining contraption, called the PDP.
Pursuit to “Project 2011”, Jonathan Goodluck entered the museum of the politically-disgraced to pluck out Okwesileze Nwodo and issued a marching order: “Go Ye kill the policy of Zoning! Spread the word from the BBC to the local media! With success, we will open access of lucre’”! So it came to pass that the only vision Okwesileze sees; the thought he nurses, 24-7; the scheme he perfects and the political semen he ejaculates (pardon the analogy dear reader!), is: “Away with zoning”! “Down with zoning”! “I will kill zoning”! “I will bark at zoning”! “Who dares want zoning?”! “No zoning”! “Die zoning”! “Exterminate zoning”! “Quarantine Zoning”!! “In the toilet, no zoning”! “When I collect bribes, no zoning”! Almost like Pavlov’s dog in the experiment about conditioned reflex, Okwesileze repeatedly flogs the “dead zoning horse”. And with professorial air, he revises the history of the PDP; Jonathan’s Man-Friday re-iterated the point: “Why zoning now?” Okwesileze Nwodo asks. “Why? We have jettisoned it….If we think that we need to revisit zoning today, let us revisit zoning. But the one we did in 1999, no, no, no, no, it has been jettisoned by the PDP itself. So those who are talking about that agreement are not following the history of the party”.
The kinds of things people do or say, just to keep a disreputable job! Okwesileze Nwodo became the PDP chairman only because it was zoned to the South-East of the country. The man forgot (until IBB and Iyorchia Ayu reminded him that he is a “SELECTED” chairman-by-zoning), that was why he could audaciously froth in the mouth, like freshly-tapped palm wine in a gourd; he divides his party instead of uniting it, because his assignment is to be undertaker of zoning in the PDP. The coast must be cleared, by all means necessary, to give Jonathan a smooth sail as the PDP’s candidate, in 2010. But if the zoning idea is that ‘dead’ as Okwesileze and the old Niger Delta clown, Edwin K. Clark want us to believe, why are they spending so much time killing it? And why is an inordinate amount of energy being expended to decimate PDP circles in Northern Nigeria, using religion and exhuming political corpses like Jerry Gana for the dirty job?
Many years ago, the late Mobolaji Bank-Anthony popularized the undertaker business, in old Lagos. On Igbosere Road, his premises carried the sign post “The Sympathetic Undertakers”; that was before the profession was invaded by dilettantes. In view of Okwesileze’s fastidious commitment to the asphyxiation, elimination and burial of the concept of zoning within the haloed entrails of the PDP, it will be befitting for Nwodo to open an undertaker’s venture at the Wadata Plaza Headquarters of the PDP-if the ID Card Bribery money remains, that is! The venture already has an appropriate name: OKWESILEZE NWODO, THE UNSYMPATHETIC UNDERTAKERS (of Zoning!). The chairman of “the great PDP” will secure a generous waiver from Jonathan Goodluck to import gold-plated caskets, befitting of the corpse of zoning. As a turnkey project, to be undertaken with chiefly efficiency, Okwesileze Nwodo, may hire the Mpokiti Dancers to accompany the corpse of zoning to the great political beyond, with Tony Anenih and E.K. Clark getting the sub-contract to supply the best quality Ogogoro (Sapele water!), that will be used to “wash mouth” at the wake keeping ceremony. Okwesileze Nwodo is doing the job he was hired for, as a politico-bribery hostage! National ID-Card bribery notwithstanding, Nwodo is committed to his master Jonathan Goodluck: flexing puny muscles to deliver the corpse of zoning. So in the next couple of weeks, look out at the facades of Wadata Plaza, the HQ of the largest (for nothing!) political party in Africa, the PDP. It will carry a brightly-lit, neon signpost: “NOW OPEN FOR BUSINESS: OKWESILEZE NWODO, THE UNSYMPTHETIC (TO ZONING) UNDERTAKERS”!
FOOTNOTE:
A day after his anti-zoning tirade, PDP Chairman, Okwesileze Nwodo made a volte-face, swallowed his vomit, just as he swallowed the ID-Card bribe, saying zoning was afterall, not dead. Wonderful!