Anthony Kila
Dear Readers
Today we turn our attention to the soon to come PDP presidential primary election and the contending aspirants vying to fly the flag of the party. The names getting the attention in that competition are known to all so I will not be mentioning them here. They are the former this and the former that with a well-known history of being part of where Nigeria is today; their claim to fame is politics and state power. There is however one candidate that stands out as someone with no background or baggage of political office or power. His name is Dele Momodu and he is a journalist, publisher and lifestyle influencer who has been able to turn himself into a brand in the whole of Nigeria and beyond.
It will be totally wrong to consider Dele Momodu an outsider in the political waters of Nigeria for he is not but it will be totally understandable for many to consider him a novice in the game.
Dele Momodu is not new to politics because he has been an activist and a politician since at least 1993 when he was a frontline operative in the 93 Hope Project and political campaign led by the late Bashorun MKO Abiola to whom he was an important assistant, close confidant and ambassador. After the well-known sad and very unfortunate June 12 annulment, Dele Momodu went on to be an active member of the sociopolitical resistance led by NADECO and other forces that many tend to forget. He was arrested, detained and eventually exiled due to his participation in the struggle for the democracy we practice and too many times abused in the Nigeria of today. In his days in exile, he bounced back and reinvented himself by creating a new life and persona for himself as publisher and editor of the popular lifestyle magazine Ovation. His role as the face and head of Ovation put him in contact and made him familiar with corporate and political Nigeria and many very important personalities across the globe. He celebrated their lifestyles and displayed their wealth. Some of us had some reservations about such kinds of publications but as an articulate and unrepentant fan of Dele Momodu once pointed out to me during a brief meeting during an international conference in west London: “we don’t all have to read the same thing, you stick to your FT”.
Those who think Dele Momodu is an outsider or inconsequential in the political battles going on in PDP can be forgiven: You know what you are told or what you see and what you are taught. Those charged with informing us about what is going and who is doing what and why they are doing them seem to have concluded that Dele Momodu does not matter in the scheme of things hence they have decided not to bother us with news about him or his journeys and activities in his bid to win the presidential ticket on the platform of the PDP. It matters not that he is a known entrepreneur in a country in dire need of job creation and wealth production, it does not seem to matter that he objectively seems to have a sway over young and cosmopolitan citizens in a country with a population of mostly young people. His agenda and proposals for governance have not made news or become topics of discussion. We are not even asking if they are feasible.
What matters seem to be that he has no money. It is important here to note that Dele Momodu is by no means an average middle class let alone a pauper. Notwithstanding his humility and mesmerizing predilection to be friendly to all and sundry, his size and style of living give him away. When people conclude he has no money, what they actually mean is that he has no money to give, bribe and buy delegates and cheerleaders. To make matter worse or more interesting, depending on who you are and where you stand, the man himself has declared he has no intention to give, bribe or buy delegates. Many say he is not serious and that may be so. I have a question though, are we serious as a people? Do we really believe in a democracy based on one man one vote influenced by ideas and delivered by persuasion?
Dele Momodu is testing his popularity in his party, but all he does and does not do in his bid to be a flagbearer is also a test for us. Do the middle-class in general and then his fellow journalist and other analysts and commentators, in particular, see nothing wrong in the kind of politics we are playing or that it is unfolding right before us? Do we think things should go on this way or do we think we should challenge and correct this way of electioneering? Dele Momodu’s project and his ambition constitute a test for him and those that believe in him but it is also a litmus test for the rest of us involved in this democratic system we all profess to believe in.
Like a paper, that in school we were taught, changes colour in response to the acidity of the solution it is dipped in and can therefore be used to measure acidity, Dele Momodu’s now been dipped into the solution called politics in front of all of us and our reaction to his adventure is a test of how we view our democracy. The reaction of delegates voting at the PDP presidential primary will the gauged by the numbers of voters they cast and for whom. Before these delegates cast their votes, the rest of us are being tested by how we react to the process leading to the primaries and what we demand to know, accept, change or even discuss at all.
Join me on Twitter to continue this conversation @anthonykila
Anthony Kila is Centre Director at CIAPS Lagos. (www.ciaps.org)
