A Tale Of Two Gangs Of Thieves: The PDP And The APC By Fredrick Nwabufo

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:fredricknwabufo@yahoo.com. 08167992075