Lagos — The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national chairman, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, was quoted in The Punch of Wednesday, February 20, 2008, as saying he would "cut down to size" the Adamu Ciroma-led Election Panel for the forthcoming convention of the party. Apparently, from the report, the Ciroma panel has set up sub-committees to facilitate its work, which the Ali leadership, said to be "seriously angry", views as a duplication of the sub-committees already created within the Convention Organising Committee headed by Chief Olabode George.

What one finds fascinating in the phrase attributed to Ali of cutting "down to size" the Ciroma panel is how, viewed analytically, it suggests that Ali, reputedly self-conceited, is a kind of master artist, armed with the vital tools of chisel and hammer. With these, in political terms, he will in the days and weeks ahead proceed to reduce to appropriate size Mallam Ciroma and his 39-member team. This is quite interesting, given that, soon after accepting to serve, Mallam Ciroma had warned that nobody could use him for any dirty work. So, how can Ali, as artist, achieve his aim if the object of the art, whether of wooden, steel, plastic or clay material, refuses to yield to the chisel and hammer? An interesting scenario is therefore building up toward the national convention.

Chief Lamidi Adedibu has already given his assurance from Ibadan, as "political father" of the PDP, to borrow Chief Olusegun Obasanjo's own words, that Baba Obasanjo has already finalised plans on how to ensure that Dr. Sam Egwu is confirmed on March 8 as "consensus candidate". Adedibu, one of the grandfathers of Nigerian political violence, referred to by Obasanjo only recently as his (OBJ's) mentor ("I am his disciple", said the former president of Nigeria) averred that Baba would produce a candidate by "affirmation," even though he did not know how. Nonetheless, he trusted firmly in Obasanjo's political "wizardry". Perhaps it was this wizardry that prompted the selection of Chief George, an OBJ fanatic, to head the Convention Organizing Committee.

Many may want to ask if Obasanjo, Ali, Adedibu, George and others with whom, in recent years, they maneuvered and manipulated the PDP (and indeed Nigeria), including Chief Tony Anenih, who has since abandoned them, are really political wizards? Are they not, instead, merely an evil lot in whose hands Nigerians have been treated as a contemptuous horde of imbeciles? Consider what happened at the Eagle Square, Abuja, last year (the same venue for the farce they are plotting for March 8) when, after months of rigorous campaigning and wastage of financial and human resources, Obasanjo and his evil gang reduced the party's convention called to produce a presidential candidate to a laughable charade. Why was it necessary to allow fellow party men and women to tour the federation when this cult-like and wicked lot knew from the outset that there would be proper nomination contest for the presidential flag bearer?

Now, Ahmadu Ali is about to perform his last dirty assignment for the Nigerian emperor at Ota before going abroad to occupy an undeserved seat as ambassador. Many party men, such as former Senate president, Ken Nnamani, have already expressed their fear that there would be no national convention in the proper sense of the word and that there is no vacancy for the post of national chairman. Rather, as now confirmed by Adedibu and others, the entire plot is to frustrate other candidates, especially the powerful ones, at the last minute, so that a fait accompli would be accomplished in having Dr. Sam Egwu coast easily to the national chair. There is no wizardry about this. Chief Obasanjo has been on tour playing the role of party leader which he ceased to be (or is supposed to have ceded) when the baton of power was handed over to Mallam Umaru Yar'Adua on 29th May, 2007. But rather than take a more humble position, Obasanjo is now dictating to state governors, as he recently did to Prof. Osunbor in Edo State, how they should conduct their role as state leaders of the party and the need to cooperate with him in enthroning Egwu and in achieving his other political objectives. This is a direct defiance of the actual party leader at Aso Rock and what is worse, as Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu, a contender for the PDP chair, has rightly complained, Obasanjo is not supposed to go on campaign tour to enthrone a particular candidate, if the BOT chairman has any sense of justice, fair play and decency. The BOT chairman, ideally, is supposed to be a father within the party and, if all necessary, should silently promote the candidate he prefers.

In all this, Dr. Ahmadu Ali is nothing but Obasanjo's chief servant or chief artist. Brought in and imposed on the party by Obasanjo, acting all by himself, after Chief Audu Ogbeh was frustrated out and luckily escaped being murdered, Ali came with barrack-style leadership. Only recently, in the very presence of an incumbent president of the country and the actual PDP party leader, Ali had the arrogant guts to walk out two highly placed and respectable Nigerians, Speaker Dimeji Bankole and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, out of a caucus meeting of the PDP. Many have been hurt deeply by this both within and outside the PDP. Until the moment of writing this article, Ali was threatening PDP's G-21 with expulsion. His style of leadership stinks. The man lacks totally in graceful and diplomatic behaviour. How can he then become an ambassador?

A word of counsel may help Ali. He ought to realise that Adamu Ciroma may not own many houses in Abuja or have a fat bank account but, in the national scale, he weighs much more as a man of far greater honour and integrity, a presidential material, than the Alis of Nigeria. He is not in the same class of servile and groveling tools of evil as Ali. If the fear of the Ali-led PDP leadership is that Ciroma and his men may wedge their plot to frustrate and bar candidates at the convention who may threaten the emergence of Dr. Egwu by affirmation as OBJ's anointed, let these people get ready also for the explosion that will come if there is any monkey business. It will mark the birthday of another party, taking the democrats and progressives along, while the Obasanjo-Ali camp may retire to Ota and please themselves from there. This is Obasanjo's game plan, a party in his own image or a scattering of the PDP.

Fidel Odum writes from Lagos