Icheoku says this is certainly an exception to the age-long trite aphorism that truth can sometimes come from an imbecile as a politically, foundationally damaged Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida cannot and should not be heard to preach the gospel of fair play in democratic party politics. This is a man who have participated in virtually every military coups in Nigeria since her independence from then Great Britain in 1960, playing major roles in about three of them, one of which he personally hugely benefited and enormously profited from as the junta's military head of state. Needless to add that many of these coups were against democratically elected governments and hear who is now reading the riot act to PDP for imposing Bamagar Tukur on the party as its chairman. This is a man who also annulled a duly conducted free and fair election of MKO Abiola just to satiate his personal ego and suddenly is now preaching the gospel of democracy against the consensus by fiat of Jonathan's imposition of Bamagar Tukur on the PDP as its party chairman? Icheoku queries when has this anti-democracy Saul turned into a pro-democracy-Paul or is Babangida merely sully because he has been effectively checkmated out of power in the PDP hierarchy through the deft machination of the Otta deity, Baba Iyabo and his protege Anthony Anenih?
Anyway what Babangida said concerning the consensus manner by which Bamagar Tukur was imposed on the PDP as party chairman is truthful except that Babangida lacks the democracy-credentials to teach or preach any democratic process whatsoever or did he suddenly have an epiphany or amnesia of his own not too distant past and records of seeing red whenever the word democracy rears its wholesome head? Were Ibrahim Babangida any other more credible source, may be Nigerians will pay attention to his genuine observation that the consensus which threw up Bamagar Tukur is a travesty and totally undemocratic; but this evil genius of Minna Hills is not the right and proper person to mouth off such concerns. Simply put, Babangida is now crying foul because he is no longer welding much influence in the party echelons of the Peoples Democratic Party and is just striving for relevance; so Nigerians please don't mind the Evil genius jaare!
Icheoku while agreeing with the toothy fairy prince of Minna that “a situation where some people would sit and select someone by consensus is undemocratic;" says that Babangida of all persons should not be the one sanctimoniously preaching this gospel, his anti-democracy tendencies considered. By the same breathe, Bamagar Tukur should not in any way try to justify his imposition on the PDP as its chairman because he “believes the worst consensus in any democratic arrangement is far better and more honourable than a military coup." Admitted that Babangida was "an architect of several military coups and a topmost beneficiary of one of them as military head of state; the rule that truth sometimes can come from imbeciles would have ordinarily exonerated him and confer on him the right to complain when none democratic process is used to select a party's chairman, but he is simply too damaged politically as an anti-democracy mean spirited military man to offer Nigerians his useless two cents thoughts on the consensus that imposed Bamanga Tukur on the PDP. Icheoku reiterates that Babangida's opinions are indeed worthless these days; more so when it has anything to do with the democratic process.
However, the most damaged from the Bamagar Tukur anti-democracy consensus charade is the uninspiring president of Nigeria, Good(BAD)luck Jonathan; who is now synonymous with preaching one thing and doing an entirely different thing. Call him a Pharisee for crying out loud; but Icheoku concludes that the Nigerian president while preaching the merits of democracy goes about un-democratically imposing candidates of his choice, whether it is on his home state of Bayelsa as his preferred governor or now on the PDP as his preferred party chairman. It also did not matter to President Jonathan that Bamagar Tukur lost the primaries in his own Northeastern Nigeria. But with an Obasanjo precedent, where he lost in his local government presidential primaries in 1979 but was imposed on the party as the presidential candidate and served two terms respectively; history repeating itself with Bamagar Tukur's lackluster imposition was a no brainier for President Jonathan. The president himself being a beneficiary of the PDP's lack of internal democracy, it is a little surprise that people are even expressing surprise that he is towing the steps of his own benefactor - Olusegun Obasanjo. But hey, what does Icheoku know anyway on the workings of the "biggest and largest party in Africa" that will be in power until thy kingdom come? What a joke the PDP brand of democracy in Nigeria really is
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