Chidi Obineche

Uche Secondus, National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP last Monday hit rock- bottom when in a testy moment of sobriety and atonement he asked Nigerians to forgive his party over its mistakes while in power.

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It came like a bolt, a flick from a dream. His party had trudged in the shadows of its past donning the garb of innocence over its sins which have loomed over like a stalking monster casting long shadows.
To butt, and in all earnestness, it has never admitted any wrong doing. It prefers to die on the gallows convulsing on a fresh chart to create diamonds and a second chance. It is an apology soaked in humility after the grains and gains are run.
It beams with a contrite heart seeking forgiveness after a wild savage rove with the broad prairies cast in hope. He hit the raw nerve by accepting what is, letting go of what was, and having faith in what will be. Perhaps, 2019. Humbled, he is asking for a new robe, asking for rings and perfume while still in the pigsty.
Deep down, he knows the song and thrill of remorse, the flair and lush of repentance, and the discernible aroma and inebriation of a grand return. This is the virulence of his apology. This is the stamp of a yearning for homecoming. This is the story of a mixed grill of amnesia and nostalgia and even human pity. But beneath the surface of the face- seeking, lies a bubble of candour, unaffected. He lit a flame of omnicidal servility.
He spoke with the naïve candour of a child caught like a floozy in the wrong bed. He spoke with Isaac D’isreali’s epigram in mind: Candour is the brightest gem of criticism. “ Candour and accountability in a democracy are very important. Hypocrisy has no place,” according to Alan Dershowitz. But he forgot the cautionary words of Paul Theroux which says that “You go away for a long time and return a different person – you never come all the way back”.
Secondus has come in full bloom and glow to imbibe and put out the expressions from a former British prime minister, James Callaghan to the impetuous effect that “ A leader must have the courage to act against an expert’s advice”. Perhaps. And he rolls on the 2019 caravan. A goal gilded in purpose and adventure.
A dream coated in Zig Ziglar’s admonition of “A goal properly set is halfway reached”. He intones that there is no stronger mortar than self- truth in new eyes. Sometimes, saying sorry is not enough. Sometimes, being clingy and broken can deepen a lost cause. Conversely, “Sorry” is just a word without meaning. The true meaning is on what you do and how you act when you say it.
And not every sorry deserves an “it’s okay” in return. The past cannot be changed, forgotten, edited or erased; it can only be accepted. Here, then is the apocryphal atonement, a resolve of honour to overcome the party’s transgressions and mistakes. A banner to return and rule without shame. But will the people forgive? As they say in our times, it takes a strong person to say sorry, and an even stronger person to forgive.
Can the people let go and take refuge in the words of Isaac Friedmann that “forgiveness is the sweetest revenge?”. Some people argue that you can’t reach for anything new if your hands are still full of yesterday’s junk. When memory controls us, we are then the puppets of the past. This is the pithy in Secondus’ atonement.
He was born on March 22,1955 in Andoni, Rivers state. He completed his primary and secondary education there and further went to the London Chambers of Commerce Institute where he obtained a certificate in Commerce. He joined politics in 1978 and became the youth leader of the National Party of Nigeria, NPN. He was the pioneer chairman of the Governing Board of the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC. He became the national chairman of the PDP on December 10, 2017. He is married to Ene Belema with children.