NOW ENTERS NWODO, THE REVOLUTIONARY

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If, after 40 days in the office he so wrongly assumed, even as he so merited it, considering his pedigree, Dr. Okwselieze (Okwy) Nwodo is still hot on the heels of the values of sanity as he preached on assumption of office, then it looks like he may actually have something to offer.

Remember that Nwodo, not on the pretenses of imperial panoply and repeat of presence in the corridors of power - as would be readily boasted of by siblings - had said that his mission was to get it right, again. And those who know him personally attest to his uprightness, clear sight, circumspection and humility.

Those who sold him to the powers-that-be believed that if somebody had to stand up to the damaging cabal resident in the PDP, it would be Okwy Nwodo. They had reckoned with a man who was not moved by the fury and rampage of an OBJ, who wanted everything to come on his prompting. He had even bided, without success, to have Nwodo abandon Dr. Alex Ekwueme in the thick of the 1998/99 presidential primaries. Nwodo's new promoters had reckoned that if a man could refuse the lure of the pre-decided supremacy of OBJ against Ekwueme, and still held his head high, insisting on things being done the right way, then such a person should be invited to rescue PDP from itself.

Well, Nwodo has come and he is about town preaching that the hurtful arrangement of personal possession of the party as practised in the era of OBJ would be a thing of the past. In other words, what prevailed in the era, 1999 - 2007, in which getting nomination in the PDP was reduced to a matter of having access to a sponsor - call him godfather - who had access to the generalissimo himself, would be shunted aside.

Hm! The question is, can Nwodo do it?
The hope is that Nwodo should be able to do it so that democracy begins to grow. Perhaps, because Nwodo had, in the days of his wandering in the wilderness - from the era of being shortchanged, through docile participation in PDP, through decamping to another party - and now returning to PDP, he has realised that the style of the biggest party in Africa, a.k.a Nigeria Nazi, offered no hope - at all - for the growth and development of democracy in Nigeria.

Having taken thuggery and rigging to heights unprecedented, those who ever tried their political luck in other parties know that they never had any chances.

Of course, who would have chances in a PDP controlled state in LG elections? Never! The governors, 'all knowing, most civilised and enlightened,' will have to choose the peoples' council bosses and councillors. There has never been a case of another party winning, even by default; Never!

And even as PDP is working hard at strangulating other parties, paving the way for a dreamed one-party state, election is still an ordeal for the ordinary citizen. People live in fear and pray that election, which must come, should quickly go, for them to resume their normal lives.

Much, if not more of the violence attending primaries elections in parties, were always unleashed on the voter at each polling booth on days of elections.

For simple villages accustomed to easy, mechanical living, riding the bed of tranquility of the rural areas, elections had come to mean days of torture when broad-chest men, wearing torn shirts on broad battered backs, rode intransigently across their virgin village squares, causing some to wonder if they had angered their gods to unleash this invasion of men without conscience.

Of course, as such is now seen as the instrument of the PDP in many of its victories in many parts of Nigeria, other parties had to adopt it.

Yet, this is an era we claim is democratic and in which people ought to be relaxed about elections: opportunity of funs, especially in evaluating the worth and relevance of fellow compatriots, who seek elective positions.

Nwodo should indeed, be a revolutionary to achieve a reversal of the now prevailing attitude of the bully, which has taken roots in the PDP. But that has become the political practice in Nigeria, especially the southern parts.

If Nwodo has elected to challenge the order, he is welcome. He should actually be encouraged. Or could it have been only shakara.

Only Nwodo can tell.