By Afam Ilounoh
The APGA designated liar, Mr. Valentine Obieyem, has posted the falsehood from hell about what transpired at the major roundabout in Nnewi on Thursday afternoon.
First, it was not a clash of two political parties. It was mid-afternoon and the APGA campaign train was coming in from the Bank Road, going at snail speed as hired urchins on foot and motorcycles terrorized those going about their businesses and causing unprecedented traffic fiasco.
At the same time, the Labour Party’s campaign train was on the move to another town for its own last-minute campaign. Unfortunately for APGA, the Labour Party candidate, Dr. Ifeanyi Ubah, was being followed by a long motorcade in which were some long converted trailers bearing singers and dancers and which blared loud music. It was a show of force as the messages they emitted drowned out those of APGA. To add insult to APGA’s injury, the Nnewi crowd loved Dr. Ubah’s campaign jingles more than APGA’s- and they joined the carnival in singing “Ebe ka anyi ga ebinye aka? Ebe a setie madu” (Igbo for “where do we tumb-print? Where there is a drawing depicting human being”).
The traffic hold up caused by the APGA team, which had erected canopies in the middle of the expansive triangle (called Nnewi roundabout) did not allow the Labour Party train to move quickly. The campaign train actually got stuck as AGPA’s vehicles, now parked, had not just constricted the roads, but had totally blocked the road beside the motor park, forcing others to start using only one of the two roads that formed the lengthy Vs of that triangle which meet at Nkwo market entrance. The Ubah campaign train, now stuck in traffic, began to entertain the crowd that was becoming thicker by the minute. People abandoned the APGA campaign site and flocked towards the motorcade – and began to dance with joyous abandon, saying that Ubah will win and APGA has already fallen (“o dago”).
Nothing was shared to anybody because that place was not Labour Party’s destination or designated city for that day’s campaign.
It was a terrible experience for APGA as the people that had gathered, dispersed and flocked towards the son of the soil, Ubah, and formed escorts for his campaign motorcade.
Even when Ubah’s campaign team had passed, APGA still faced problems; the music stores that abound all around that Nnewi triangular central square continued with their normal business of sound blaring – their own way of attracting customers –and drowned out whatever message APGA may have had for the people even as the noise of motorcycles whizzing around the central square –added to the cacophony of noise that contended against APGA’s message.
