CR, April 11 And Her ‘Shoki’ Politics

The wave making ‘Shoki’ dance is amazing because its main feature remains that uncanny ability in dancers to look like an imbecile while twisted legs, hands and body are thrust to one side. Basically, this
dance with roots in Nigeria’s compelling music industry, shows distinct variations tied primarily to individual “tastes and flexibility”, while the energy involved in the definitive step by step ‘Shoki’ dance, undoubtedly makes it not just the dance of the year but also a comic spectacle to behold.

On April 11, 2015, in several states across the Nigerian Federation, ordinary Nigerians will attempt to again show great capacity for endurance as they cast their votes, not for Jonathan or Buhari, but for state governors and House of Assembly members. In Cross River State, PDP’s Ben Ayade, LP’s Fidelis Ugbo and APC’s Odey Ochicha, are set to do ‘battle’ in an election that may have been won even before we have voted. I may have those who doubt it but PDP’s Ben Ayade will win the election because APC’s political reflexes in CR are slow while the affectionate lamentations of the LP cannot be heard from afar. Secondly, in the last couple of years, the PDP has ENSURED that she has remained the ‘computerised’ political default setting for the electorate in CR and that will not immediately change because the party’s inner stresses and demons appear successfully concealed, as you read this.

What the Labour Party in CR has come to represent is a party of convenience and anger, affording those who have gone there a short cut platform for political expression, which I believe still falls short of competition against the reach and soiled fingers of the PDP. On the other hand, APC’s crawling resurgence has hopes, fuelled by Buhari’s victory at the top, unfortunately too, it will be to no effect until after Ayade has done four gruelling years.

For Ayade, one of the things he will quickly discover is that his high-sounding grammar, delivered all through those campaigns, has no pragmatic place among the things Cross Riverians want to see. First,
he will be an opposition governor, catering to the inexhaustible demands of a legion of political returnees from Abuja; men and women who can no longer walk the corridors of power in Abuja because they are for now, not of the APC. They will twist Ayade’s hands to one side while the backlog of unpaid salaries and allowances Imoke will include in his handover notes, should effectively twist his legs to the other side, giving up a compulsive ‘Shoki’ pose and then the imbecilic dance begins.

Because we have had no free will at choosing Ayade, he will be under negligible compulsion to address our base needs. What may preoccupy him? Several trips to Abuja to consult….and then the final straw
that will see him move from being an opposition governor to an APC one, in sync with the government at the centre. That will happen before APC’s Odey Ochicha goes for the gubernatorial ticket of the party again; but this time, he may have an Ayade to contend with in his party’s primaries after the people have been given salt, rice and cooking oil. Doubt that indeed ‘Shoki’ isn’t twisted, thrust to one side and tied primarily to an individual’s imbecilic preferences and you will doubt anything. CRS is in dire straits and so much underhand games will play out but sincerely, Ayade will ‘win’ and the ‘shoki’ dance steps will play out the more.