In the mythical land of Anything Goes where citizen docility, “lackadaisicality” and tepidity was beyond the crescendo of reason, and where for every abysmal, gut-wrenching and harrowing happening the people quickly gestured with a fait accompli expression, it is well! There arose a giant problem, an evil tintinnabulation that stole the peace of the people. This was a recrudescent spate of armed robberies in their vilest forms! Armed robberies so brutal that the timorous of the people of Anything Goes was pierced; they were jarred to life, to sordid reality. They could no longer afford to nestle under the cumulus of indifference. They had to act!
The Power gang and the Progressive gang were the two dare-devil armed robbery gangs terrorizing the hapless people of Anything Goes. While the Power gang plied their illicit trade in the daytime, pillaging, killing and raping the people viciously in broad daylight, the Progressive gang under the cover of darkness did the same things with more sinister oomph and aspect. In true assessment, both gangs were Siamese sibs from hell! Nefarious in an unthinkable dimension; turpitude was there trade. However, while the Power gang were brazen, intrepid and far removed from the people for fear of being identified and apprehended as their faces were never hidden in any of their operations, the Progressive gang were surreptitious and devious. They fraternized with the people in the day and robbed them in the night. In fact, they would take the leading role in making decisions on how to combat the menace of armed robbery in the land. In every issue concerning the people, they always came up with an agenda to show that they were progressive. Such was the fate of the people of Anything Goes.
Now that the spate of armed robbery had reached the abominable acme, and the people at their wits’ end, a solution had to be forged. It was in the process of finding a lasting solution to the incubus that the citizens of Anything Goes plunged into the vortex of an insoluble dilemma. In a citizens’ meeting, they summoned the Chief of Police basically for him to render an account of his efforts at fighting the evil plague that had befallen them. The Chief of Police, in a somber and resigned note informed them that a lack of needed resources was rendering his efforts futile. And that to successfully counter the scourge of armed robbery in the state, the citizens had to decide on which of the gang of thieves to be tackled first and annihilated. Should it be the Power gang or the Progressive gang? With a clear mandate to concentrate resources on pulverizing one of the gangs much would be achieved.
After the peroration of the Chief of Police, the citizens were left to agree on which of the gangs to deal with first. The centre was broken and the human discrepancies revealed! While some spoke kindly about the Power gang forgetting the torture and rape they had endured, others spoke unkindly about them recounting their ugly experiences at the hands of the gang. The same was the case with the Progressive gang, while some citizens spoke subtly about their ordeals with the gang making light of their seamy encounters; others spoke conversely about their misadventures at the hands of the gang. They all forgot that the two gangs were one and the same thing-armed robbers! In the light of the immanent challenge, the citizens could not come to an agreement as there were divergent opinions of which gang to extirpate first. The result was that the armed robbery gangs were left to operate unchecked with impunity and brazen derring-do. The citizens of Anything Goes were by that unfortunate kismet forced to endure the rape, torture and pillage galore.
This is an anecdotal representation of the Nigerian situation as regards the PDP and the APC, and this depiction is not far from the orbit of verisimilitude.
Fredrick Nwabufo is a writer and a poet. Email:[email protected]. 08167992075