Letter to Akwa Ibom APC
Dear APC in Akwa Ibom,
Wisdom should tell you that controlling the structure of your party is just one tiny part of winning elections to control government. It it a means to an end, not an end by itself. The ultimate reason for the existence of a political party is to win general election, not to produce candidates. You should have known that from your own experience in the 2019 outing.
If the other state chapters of your party were as selfish as you all are, the presidency that most of you run to for crumbs, would not have been won in 2015, and re-won in 2019.
You guys contribute nothing more than rancor to the party, even as your overlords who polarized the situation in 2019, drive around the FCT in noisy black SUVs, guarded by intemperate unknown gun-wielding policemen . How selfish?
I predicted your doom in the lead up to the 2019 elections. When I did, you all pounced on me with your local attack dogs and squirrels. As soon as that prophesy was fulfilled, all of you retreated into your rotten shells and scavenged for opportunities through all sorts of unholy channels in Abuja. Helped by a pliant band of fifth columnists, some of you secured different appointments, sat in those air-conditioned offices and forgot the need to build at home. Your members were left in the lurch to lick their wounds. The rest is history.
Now that 2023 is drawing near, you have floated all sorts of splinter camps within your party and are creating nuisance for all of us who have faithfully stood by PMBs service to this country all the past six years. You sowed division where there was none. You created amorphous platforms that pledged loyalty not to the party, but to your individual narrow interests. You carried on as if the party was an estate that needed to be inherited by underhand tactics. You were all prepared for the showdown you are witnessing today.
The current spectacle points to the failure of leadership. This is against the truism that there is enough room for everyone in a political party, to aspire to be whatever he/she wishes to be, on a levelled ground. But, in our state, none of you believes in levelling the field. Not in justice. Not in fairness. Not in fair play. In your rule book, might must be right all the time. The field must be skewed. It has to be. Those of you with circumstantial advantaged positions in the party’s national structure are maximally exerting yourselves to be sure that 100% of everything is yours. Those in the federal cabinet are also leveraging on their closeness to Aso Rock to fight back with every weapon available. None wants to shift ground or to see the bigger picture. All or nothing is the game.
While the war rages, civil society is perfecting plans to ensure that the electoral system is further automated with tools that would continue to constrict the possibility of wholesale rigging, which had been the treasure trove of all your political outings in the past. Similarly, the opposition PDP is waxing more cohesive in the state with little schisms, internal rumbles or disaffection. They have access to the state’s purse and control all the 31 LGAs. It is a no-brainer to foresee that the APC in Akwa Ibom would suffer more devastatingly this time, than they did in 2019, unless something huge and seismic happens to the other side, or the feuding major actors in your party divorce yourselves of the demons, clear your eyes to see the bigger picture and re-invent yourself.
I pity you all. I pray you get over this long-predicted quagmire. I also pray that your eyes open to knowing that power in whatever form, is a temporary trusteeship imposed by the people on their leaders, for service. Not a primary and permanent avenue for show and narcissism. But I am highly doubtful if any of you can see beyond yourselves.
Congratulations as you wade through your stubborn inability to listen. And learn.
I am Celestine Mel
A faithful defender of the PMB legacy.