THE FURY OF THE PRESIDENT'S CRITICS

The race for the 2015 presidency has already commenced. With merely one year into the life of this administration and, with majority of those at the hallways of power still unable to comprehend the essence of their mission, Nigeria's political fortune has already gravitated towards a narrative that naturally defines her greatness The puff up in political alignments; the struggle for relevance along socio-political and ethno-religious cleavages; the hurtful intrigues of the 'Abacha-after-Abacha' succession theatrics and allied illogicalities characteristic of electioneering in an unpredictable entity like Nigeria; all are threatening revelations into the shape and size of things to expect, come the Year 2015 when, hopefully, the next General Elections will hold.

From the brazen 'shon of the shoil' and 'I am of Cephas; I am of Christ'  mindset of the pharaohs and the commanders of 'Project Nigeria'; to the 'to-your-tents, O Israel' and 'it-is-our-turn' dispositions that now confront us like an appealing promise, the battle has become so obviously vicious that, should we fail to stitch in time, what may be rightly termed as the final battle for the soul of the Nigerian state has already begun.

As we speak, rough roads are rife, with the country acutely overawed by infrastructural and energy challenges, in addition to a hostile environment. The leadership is not being futuristic and potentials are not being realized. Priorities are being rashly misplaced and responsibilities are being shifted with no recourse to conscience. The masses weep and wail even as our political Methuselahs continue to sleep and snore over our misfortunes. They wine and dine even as we gnash and pant over our distress and disillusionment.

Each passing day now treats us to tales of depletion in our External Reserves with no accompaniment of any concrete socio-economic emancipation on the part of the citizenry. Servile wolves and cake-sharing camp followers are being generously rewarded for wallowing in the shambles of fatal paradoxes while statesmen are being labeled alarmists and secessionists for daring to denounce cluelessness in governance. Terrorism currently defines our nationhood and, with the scourge of corruption and a dysfunctional justice system advancing warningly upon us, it is as if we are on a journey to nowhere.

While the South South is unwilling to let go of the presidency, come 2015, the South East is scheming a curtsy shot at the overseership of the national cake. In the North, guns and more dangerous munitions have become commonplace; and it is as if Nigerians are at war with Nigerians. In the Southwest, the People's Democratic Party, PDP, is sinisterly scheming Machiavellian plots and conspiracy theories to recapture power and this it has been pursuing with unrivaled orotundity. Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Olusegun Oni, two fallen heroes of that humiliating onslaught on the region, are now principal participants in the recently-inaugurated Bamanga Tukur-led executive which primary assignment is to unleash on the region the odious duty for which the party has won laurels.

PDP's focus on Osun State is particularly worrisome as it seems as if the party's survival is tied to its victory in the state. Still unable to come to terms with its deserved loss of Osun State, more than one year after, the party, under the National Leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan, has been empowering its field officers with reckless abandon, all in preparation, essentially, for the next governorship election, slated, ceteris paribus, for 2014. Olusola Obada, Oyinlola's deputy during his seven years reign as the state governor, has been rewarded with a 'juicy' portfolio while Iyiola Omisore, Isiaka 'Serubawon' Adeleke and fellow characters in a party notorious for rationalizing otiose reasons to justify latent leadership, are also threatening fire and brimstone as if Osun State is now a theatre of war.

The latest in 'this act of desperation by the PDP' was the phony allegation of plotting a secessionist agenda, leveled against Governor Rauf Aregbesola by the State Security Service, SSS, an organ which now operates more like an appendage of PDP. But the this 'Wilkinson's innocence and Burr's guilt' accusation is just a tip of the iceberg. More may still be on the way and Osun State may be in for another rough road, especially, if bad dreams like this are allowed to die uninterpreted.

Frivolities. Distractions. Deceits. Ineffectiveness. Inverted values. Indeed, only the likes of Mwai Kibaki, William Jefferson, Doug Lynch, Robert Dewey and, of course, the Kabilas have managed to challenge our 'only-in-Nigeria' credentials. Unfortunately, the Jonathanians are not helping matters as they have constituted themselves into political vultures whose core charge is devouring what remains of our national pride. And this they have been doing with irrational malady. In their fury, they shamelessly flounder in the solemn meditations of undomesticated dirges and accentual humanistic schemes that conspicuously evidence cadences of incompetence. While Archbishop John Onaiyekan refers to the kind of leadership they offer as one 'weak' and 'divided' government that is 'obviously lacking in political will', in Femi Falana's views, they are deliberate promoters of 'crisis in a peaceful environment.' Robert Obioha, on his own part, refers to them as mudslingers whose 'lives depend on playing politics with everything, even with life and death.'

Komolafe writes in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State.