THE LACRIMAL LETTERS (2) To Iyorchia Ayu. With Tears. POSTERITY WATCHES!

Forgive my indisposition to niceties. I already know that you are as in much good health as a man of your age is expected to be, and probably, better. I also know that, even though, a multimillionaire, or billionaire, you are feeling the pangs of the excruciating economic and social cancer that have become our fate, as a result of the failures of your Party in sixteen years, and complicated by the lack of imagination and empathy of my own Party, in the last seven years. What I do not know is if you are ready to use the strategic position that fate has thrust on you, at this time in our history, to attempt healing our nation or you wish to look away and allow a complete relapse of the fibres that hold us together as a nation . I wish the former is the case.

You are one of those whom Nigeria, upon all the toughness we can attribute to her, has been very kind to. From a university lecturer in Plateau, teaching Marxism to students, most of whom turned out to be mercantilists, you have become a very powerful individual. One of the most powerful of your generation, who didn’t have their backgrounds in the baracks. A former Senate President, four times Minister and currently the Chairman of what could be described as the largest opposition Party in Africa. Surely, you wouldn’t have attained these heights, if there wasn’t a Nigeria, or if Nigeria wasn’t as composed as it is.

Remember Sir, that your becoming a Senate President was as a result of zoning and Federal Character, it wasn’t because you bamboozled anyone with your Marxist theorizing, but because at the time, a minority from your section of the country needed to lead the National Assembly, to maintain a balance, because our nation is peculiarly heterogeneous. If we only had a country that was nearly homogeneous, maybe, you would have rather spent all your life in the classroom, and if you had come to the Senate, you would have just sat alongside others and the opportunities that came your way to head one ministry after the other.

You became the National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party at this time in obedience to the zoning arrangement as enshrined in your Party’s Constitution. Without the zoning arrangement, maybe, you would have resigned to following political events from the sidelines or forced to rejoin your Comrades in the defunct AC who are now in the ruling All Progressives Congress. The Chairmanship wasn’t just zoned to the North, but it was microzoned to the North central, hence, your ascension to the office.

Mr. Chairman, you are a founding member of the PDP. You do not need to be told or reminded anything about the history of that Party, especially, the role played by the Igbo of the Southeast in putting that Party together and making it the most formidable political Party at the time. Do you imagine what would have become of your Party if Chief Alex Ekwueme had angrily pulled out from the Party and possibly enjoined us to team up with APP. Most likely, Chief Ogbonnaya Onu would have been President and the PDP would have become history today, just like the APP and AD have gone into the trashcan of history.

Sir, Ndigbo made your Party survive. We made this Party formidable. With our votes, with our money, even with our blood. Do you remember that the single biggest donor to this Party as at 1998 is an Igbo man? Do you forget that many of our sons and daughters were massacred in the North because we voted for Goodluck Jonathan of your Party? Do you forget how we abandoned our hero, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in 2003 when he ran for the presidency under a different political Party? Even your North voted for Buhari, but we stuck with your Party.

In 2011, following the death of President Umoru Yaradua, the North were determined to rebel against the PDP for giving Jonathan its Presidential ticket. We brought the votes that made the difference. Before then, in 2007, with Yaradua running head to head against his Katsina brother, Buhari, we brought our votes in trailer loads, bringing even the APGA to adopt your candidate. In that 2007, we had many of our leaders who purchased your Party’s Presidential nomination forms, but you sat down and declared that the presidency had been zoned to the North, and they all surrendered without even asking what is in it for them. In 2015, with the PDP’s defeat staring everyone who knew politics, to the face. We refused to play smart politics. We continued to follow you blindly. In 2019, even the Ohanaeze Ndigbo took a decision to back your Party against the incumbent APC. We voted for you.

Ayu Sir, would you feign ignorance that it was because of our blind loyalty to your Party that the current administration headed by my Party has relegated the Southeast in the scheme of things? We have been literally extirpated, politically, from Nigeria, as punishment for our loyalty to your Party. For the first time in the history of this country, there is no Southeast man on the ‘Table of State’ in this country. The indisputably indispensable leg in the tripod upon which Nigeria stands! We are not holding any position in the National Assembly, in the ruling Party NWC, in the security set-up, in the judiciary. The current administration has dislocated us from Nigeria, yet, won’t give us Biafra. Sir, we don’t want Biafra. We are joint owners of Nigeria, and no one will push us out of here.

Mr. Chairman, your Party has always zoned your positions. Even now, across the States of the Federation, your Party is zoning its governorship ticket to different zones, across Senatorial Districts, your Party is zoning its ticket, across Federal Constituencies, the same is happening, even up to councillorship. But, it has got to our turn, it has got to the moment when no logic, no politics, no morality, no calculation, should deny the Southeast your presidential ticket, you ditched zoning. Mr. Chairman is it fair?

You are telling us, that we can’t do anything. You are telling us that our loyalty doesn’t matter. You have joined my President to tell us that “We can go and Die.” You think we have no option, you think we are powerless. Somebody once told me that the PDP considers the Southeast mere canon fodders. Is that what you think, too? You are free to think whatever you want to, but we will shock you. Mr. Chairman, we will shock you. We will shock you.

You assembled 37 people of your Party, to achieve a predetermined end. Why did you start the sale of nomination forms before inaugurating the socalled zoning committee? You don’t believe that the Southeast people are intelligent enough to see through the treachery? Why didn’t you suspend sale of forms to presidential candidates until the “kangaroo” committee submitted their report?

Your lackeys here are arguing that the PDP is interested in winning election and not on respecting any zoning arrangement. Why didn’t you consider that when you gave a Bayelsa man your ticket? Why didn’t you consider that when you gave your ticket to a man who hailed from the same State with a very popular opposition candidate? Why didn’t you consider when in 2019, you still turned in your ticket to another Northerner?

You are interested in winning the presidency without considering if there will be a country to preside over? You think we will continue to smile and ‘foolishly’ dissuade our brothers from taking laws into their hands when you continue to treat us with disdain? You can’t be too sure.

At the end of the day, posterity will record that under your watch as the National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, you considered your personal interest over the unity of Nigeria. Posterity has taken note that under your watch, you considered political expediency above national interest. Posterity records that it was under your watch that an age long tradition of your Party was discarded because it got to the turn of the Southeast.

May the Truth Set You Free.

I am,
Onwuasoanya FCC Jones