LOST ELECTION 2015, PDP NEEDS TO MAN UP AND QUIT WHINING.

Icheoku has listened to the so many cry-baby tantrums being thrown around by the PDP over their loss of the presidency, in particular, in the last election. Some of them even pointed accusing fingers at the First Lady Dame Patience as well as Ekiti State's Governor Fayose and campaign spokesman Femi Fani Kayode as the reason why the North voted for Buhari instead of their candidate Jonathan? Some of them are also blaming their party Chairman Adamu Mu'azu as the culprit, who allegedly sold the party's chances to the APC; while many others are blaming the overall lackluster manner the campaign of the president was prosecuted. Icheoku says regardless, none of these by themselves, individually or even collectively, would have saved the day and thwarted the change that took place. 

Whatever Dame Patience said or did not say about Muhammadu Buhari being brain-dead or that the North are not taking care of their children like the South do, resulting to the plague that is almajiris infestation in their region, did not cost her husband, President Jonathan, a single vote; and neither did Governor Fayose and Femi Fani Kayode feistiness and energetic campaign took any votes away from the president. Similarly too, PDP Chairman Mu'Azu could not have sold a whole political party or their voting public to the APC as this is not only impossible but practically untenable. Icheoku demurs that whatever any of these people did or said was not enough nor sufficient to and did not change any voter's mind in the election. It is Nigeria, and voting patterns as well as political alignments are very peculiar and not easily persuaded otherwise by campaign talks. Icheoku maintains that practically every voter in Nigeria had his or her mind made up long time ago and before the election campaigns fully started. The reelection bid was therefore lost a very long time ago, as Icheoku will soon publish; so whatever excuses or blame game being played now is but the proverbial drowning man catching straws or rather drowned man with clutched straws sill in his rigor-mortised fingers.

The fact of the matter is that Nigerians bought into the thundering campaign for change and went for change and voted for change. As Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II succinctly encapsulated, the mood in the country was for change and change took place, period. Change was in the air and it saturated the air; and every discerning observer, especially those without a dog in the fight, saw it coming - an inevitable and it came to pass as expected. Admitted that certain things that could have been done to starve it off were not done or the party failed to recognize them as necessary until it was already too late. 

Few days ago, Icheoku read the take of Abubakar Tsav on the last election vAccording to Mr Abubakar Tsav, Nigerians did not vote particularly for the APC but voted for Muhammadu Buhari. Continuing, he said that the APC would have not won but would have been resoundingly defeated by the PDP had they fielded another candidate other than Muhammadu Buhari. Icheoku agrees that it was a special kind of symbiotic relationship victory where the monk somehow made the hood and the hood also helped to identify the monk. It was a case where all the good winds came together to help the sail. But overall, as Tsav posited, it is arguable that without Muhammadu Buhari flying the APC presidential flag, the APC might not have been successful at the polls. But then, if that were the case, why did the same Muhammadu Buhari not successful in his other three previous presidential runs one might equally argue? So the more plausible argument seem to be that all the constellation came together in agreement that Muhammadu Buhari will be the symbol of the change Nigerians craved for and got and now waiting fervently for its abundant promises to become fulfilled. The tenacity of Ashiwaju Bola Tinubu as well as other conspiracies that came together to achieve their purpose, including the uncommon sacrifice of the God-fearing President Jonathan, who did not want to shed the blood of any Nigerian over an election, all played their respective roles in ushering in a President-elect Muhammadu Buhari. But for this lining up of the ducks, there would have been no President-elect Muhammadu Buhari waiting to be sworn in on May 29 or worse still, no Nigeria still standing as a country? 

Icheoku agrees that while the Buhari factor played a pivotal role in the election outcome, but the sacrifice of President Jonathan was most important and soars above all or any other contributing factor. The president, for the good of greater Nigeria, willingly ponied up his second term presidency as no other president, including the Ota deity, would have readily done. Baba Iyabo for instance would  have rather the country went down in flames than give up such a chance at his second term. Ditto Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha who summarily executed people for allegedly planning coup to subvert and remove them from power? Icheoku is emphatic that never in the history of Nigeria has JFK's plea to Americans, " think not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" resonated as a great truism than in the sacrificed second term presidency by President Jonathan. Icheoku strongly believes that someday, may be in no distant future, Nigerians will come around to show their gratitude and be thankful as well as appreciative of the magnanimity of President Jonathan that saw to Nigeria being more peaceful today than it was in the months leading up to the election. It is called sacrifice and it is a selfless act, akin to Jesus Christ's laying down his life on the cross that mankind might be saved from eternal damnation. President Jonathan saved Nigeria.

So, aligning self with Abubakar Tsav, Icheoku calls on the PDP to not despair so much or plunge themselves into a comatose shock as David Mark observed, but to see the shift in power as necessitated by series of events beyond anyone's single control. Their loss of the presidency will not be the first time ever in recorded history where a political party lost the presidency. America's Democratic Party's Jimmy Carter did in 1980 and so also was Republican Party's Bush Snr in 1992 and closer home in Ghana in 2008 when New Patriotic Party's Nana Akuffor-Addo lost to National Democratic Congress's Attah Mills. Even in Mexico in 2000 where the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) achieved and surpassed the PDP's dream of ruling for sixty years, with their seventy one year reign, a time once also came for them to be out of power and they were voted out. It all goes to show that every dynasty has a life span and never lasts forever; and so is now the PDP of Nigeria voted out of power in 2015 after a sixteen years uninterrupted hold unto power. 

What happened was meant to happen and it happened as was destined. The PDP members must now accept their fate of being the new opposition party and then move on along that line. The good news however is that because  Muhammadu Buhari was the "it-factor" in this election, without whom the APC would not have "won' the election, the chances of the PDP rebounding back shortly is very bright. So once Muhammadu Buhari is no longer in the picture, either by completing his term/s in office or is called back home by his maker, which ever one comes first, a well repositioned PDP can easily bounce back to power, bigger, better and even badder. So Icheoku says to PDP to please stop all these whining and lamentations of Gomorrah and blame game going around. The PDP members should stop this frantic running around like a headless chicken and as if the world has come to an end, in their vain effort to explain away what happened. It was nobody's fault and rather everybody's fault. Instead, the PDP should start reorganizing and strategizing for their future and that future could be as so near as 2019. Salute!