Where I come from, masquerades do not eat or sit with women. Masquerades do not even eat, do they? They are from another world and are treated like that. In Yorubaland, they arrive through the ‘Igbale’ forest and return to the land of the ancestors via the same route. Accompanied strictly by the initiated. There are things that the initiates must not do in the presence of the uninitiated.
I still remember vividly the visits of the family masquerade to my father. He is the eldest living male, and the representatives of the ancestors always accord him the respect of an ancestral visit once in three years.
Madigbol’esu (do not collide with Esu) is a fierce and feared masquerade. And when he came to the earth, everybody knew. Before he arrived in our compound, my father would have prepared the drinks of the elders. Once ‘Baba’ arrived, all of us children and my mother would relocate to another part of the house. Daddy, his brothers and Madigbol’esu would go into the sitting room, doors and windows securely locked. All of us knew the drill. Even the dancers who accompanied the masquerade were familiar with the drill.
For years, in the People’s Democratic Party, the elders, the initiates and the novices have been speaking at the same time. They have hurled sacred things at one another in the market square. Once again, the PDP masquerade is eating in the open. Like they used to and I am warning them, like I did many times in the past. “Awo ko gbodo t’oju ogberi da’fa nu.”
Why is it so difficult for elders of the PDP to go into a room, secure the doors and windows before sharing the drink of the elders? Why are they fighting in front of the uninitiated? Why are the PDP masquerades yanking each other’s masks in front of women and uninitiated men? Do they need an oracle to tell them that an unmasked masquerade is no longer a masquerade? He’s just like me or the next guy. Am I supposed to respect that man (yeah, that is what a disrobed masquerade is, an ordinary man) even if he still attempts to speak in a guttural voice?
These disrobed men and women had held many conventions in the 16 years they were in power. Each one had its own colourful drama. But I thought that meant these elders came away from each convention with a lesson. I thought the PDP would have learnt at least half a dozen lessons, from which the APC would have to borrow half a dozen leaves. But no, the lessons are still far away, unlearnt.
PDP and its colourful ways. The party never disappoints. Please, who started this idea of printing one, only one nomination form, for an elective position? I know that it was in PDP that I first heard of it years ago. Is this not supposed to be a democracy? PDP is the People’s Democratic Party. The party, I thought, had planned a peaceful convention. Then it decided to print just one form for the office or position of the chairman of the party! A party that is afflicted on all sides decided to court more affliction. If there is no consensus, how can there be a consensus candidate? Now, the single form has been obtained, filled and submitted. Alhaji Sule Lamido is asking for a form, or he will go to court. Won’t that muddy up the already troubled pond? What will PDP do now, call in deliverance pastors for prayers, reprint another form, or fish out a photocopy someone is hiding?
I remember a gubernatorial primaries for a South-East state that was held in another South-West state. The ‘wuruwuru’ event was held after one name had already been sent to INEC. The winner of the evening market ticket brandished his black market ticket and celebrated it like he would be sworn in the following morning. All kinds of drama followed without a happily ever after.
Who remembers the days when PDP gave one aspirant the ticket and another the flag? The occupiers of the party secretariat carried on like Lagos Omo Onile, who would sell one plot of land for 10 people and watch from afar as the ‘landlords’ tore one another’s agbada. Old men and women, they promised to feed the multitude with food they didn’t have.
For us in the newsroom, through those 16 years of PDP in power and in office, the stories were interesting. The game provided great headlines. But even as the media houses smiled to the bank, they knew PDP was dancing at the edge of a cliff. We all knew it would not end well. We just did not know when it would end. And when it did, it was thunderously deafening that fall.
So, why is PDP, which is supposed to be scrambling to its feet, doing this again in 2025? Why is the party claiming there was a consensus when all was not well? And why is this break in the ranks coming from an elder like the former governor of Jigawa State, a respected politician and leader? What does this mean, really? With so many governors and senators, representatives gone to APC, days to its much-awaited convention, can the PDP afford this new drama?
Years ago, I spoke with one of the elders of the PDP on the morning of the party’s convention. I asked if it was not possible to do the PDP convention magic and still elect their officers. When he sounded more unhappy than confident, I knew the masquerades were on their way to the market. And the trip was short. With windows open, doors ajar, the masquerades went for one another’s throats, the women and children watching in shocked silence. Each elder had to prove that he was a bigger elder. A community where there are no leaders is a community on its way to extinction.
The grey hairs on the heads of PDP elders must begin to count for something from here on. The old men must sit together and stop behaving like children. The way they are all dragging their umbrella, it won’t be long before what remains of the PDP covering finally peels away. And when the harmattan comes, the man who wears only his underwear will know the true meaning of cold.
So, will the much-awaited convention of the PDP be its end? Will the PDP masquerade find its way back into the sacred grove? Now that the uninitiated have seen the mouth of the ancestral being, can the masquerade still claim that he is not a mere man?
Are the APC masquerades learning anything?
Egbemode, a former President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, writes via egbemode3@gmail.com
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