Down in The Valley

Akeem Soboyede argues the PDP should not make imaginary enemies because of its present predicament

This cannot be the happiest of times for the National Publicity Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh. Just a few months ago the PDP was the ruling party that bestrode Nigeria’s political and other landscapes like a colossus. It was the party to beat and to be. It was styled the “largest political party in Africa” and its members had ruled Africa’s most populous country for close to two decades. Then it all came crashing down last March 28, the day Nigerians told the PDP in one collective voice that the party was over. In the presidential polls that held that day Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP got kicked out of office by an electorate apparently fed up with years of the party’s misrule and ineptitude, especially during the previous five that Jonathan held sway.

It’s been a torrent of bad news for the PDP since then. Information has emerged that public officials who served under Jonathan willfully helped themselves to the public exchequer, to the tune of billions of dollars. Former Minister of Petroleum under Jonathan, Diezani Alison-Maduekwe, was recently arrested in the United Kingdom on charges bordering on corruption and abuse of the office she held with such pomp. Many erstwhile PDP public office holders are now being hauled before courts and tribunals that dot the land, accused of acts of corruption and financial malfeasance that truly boggle the mind.

It is therefore not surprising that against this very frustrating and gloomy backdrop, certain functionaries of the PDP have chosen to lash out at imaginary foes. This is particularly the case with the PDP’s salesman of choice, Olisa Metuh. His recurring proclamations on the PDP’s “glorious” days and the party’s promised renaissance fail to get traction with any Nigerian with a semblance of rationality and circumspection. This perhaps explains Metuh’s recent decision to lash out in frustration at the person he obviously believes is somehow responsible for his “sales pitch” not getting across to Nigerians: Femi Adesina, spokesman for incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.

Even though appointed to his post just this past June, Adesina has had several runs-in with Metuh. But none of the back-and forth during those encounters justify the savage act Metuh directed at Adesina this past week. For instance, after President Buhari appointed Amina Zakari acting chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) soon after his assumption of office, Adesina had accused Metuh of spreading “fallacies”; that came after the PDP’s spokesman charged Buhari with “nepotism” in appointing Zakari to that office.

Adesina’s description of his boss’ critics as “wailing wailers”, itself a term of art apparently borrowed from the legendary Bob Marley, must also have rankled Metuh and his PDP cohorts to no end.

The full level of Metuh’s pent-up anger was finally on full display last week, in a statement he issued through one of his aides. Beyond that subtle condescension and disdain for Adesina’s person and office, Metuh proceeded to lob asinine verbal missiles at the presidential spokesman, an act certainly unbecoming of the office of the spokesperson for Nigeria’s major opposition party.

Metuh’s statement employed the word “embarrassment” in reference to Adesina and the way the latter has performed his job. Clearly, this was a fallacy and an act of misinformation. Prior to his appointment as presidential spokesman Adesina was the very competent head (not just a newsroom reporter, as Metuh’s statement implied!) of an equally very successful newspaper chain. He neither “embarrassed” his employer in that and previous stints nor can he plausibly be an “embarrassment” to his present boss, the President of Nigeria. To the contrary Adesina has performed the tasks of his office with much grace and competence, to the apparent discomfort and frustration of detractors like Metuh.

What Metuh should, instead, acknowledge as an embarrassment is the fact he recently had to fend off persisting allegations of misuse of funds meant to mobilise members of the party for the recently-concluded presidential polls.

The PDP’s scribe must also have felt hurt – and frustrated - after Adesina recently described certain of his comments as coming across as a “broken record”. This was in reaction to Metuh claiming PDP members were being hauled in over corruption allegations, with members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) being left unscathed by government. Perhaps this explains Metuh’s further claim in his statement that Adesina “lacks depth” in his current assignment and was not “conversant and knowledgeable in politics and intricate issues of governance.”

Sixteen years was enough for most Nigerians to decide the PDP, as a party and as a collection of individuals who lacked depth, direction and competence in all aspects and issues of governance. How much depth or capacity could a PDP-led government have or muster, when its head (Jonathan) hardly realised his petroleum minister could not account for the princely sum of $20 billion in oil receipts? Despite this glaring fact of incompetence, non-capacity and ineptitude at the highest levels of government while the PDP held sway, Metuh has continued to assail Nigerians’ ears, like a broken record, with many tall tales of the PDP’s “achievements” while it held the reins of government. One should then wonder why Metuh’s role and knowledge of politics then as the PDP’s national scribe was not enough to save the day for the PDP at the polls on March 28. Maybe what Metuh really meant to say was that the “intricate issues” associated with governance in Nigeria simply proved too much for himself, Jonathan and the PDP to handle!