By Chuks Ododo
There is a silent rot eating the flesh of the Ndokwa Nation. It does not wear a mask. It does not carry a gun. It carries a bottle of drink and a calabash of kola nut.
We have spent years pointing accusing fingers at elected officials, senators, governors, local government chairmen, blaming them for failed roads, abandoned hospitals, and dying markets. And rightly so. But we have ignored the architects of the mediocrity: the political leaders who sit in shadows, sip the very drinks bought by desperate aspirants, and then, in a quiet inner meeting, kill the soul of democracy.
This is not an opinion. This is the testimony of what is happening today across every ward in Ndokwa.
The Ritual of Deception
Here is how the game works. Party leaders invite every interested candidate for the House of Assembly and other positions to go and consult. Widely. They say it with gravity, as if they are speaking the language of tradition and wisdom. So the aspirants go. They borrow money. They are empty savings. They bring refundable deposits, huge sums as kola money, and they buy drinks upon drinks, kola upon kola, for the same set of leaders.
And then comes the inner meeting. The one the public never sees. The one where these same leaders, who smiled and collected every bottle, now turn around and pressurize every other aspirant to step down for one name with the deepest pocket that the leader’s preferred candidate.
Not through persuasion. Not through a vote. Not through a delegate election. But through pressure, intimidation, and the unspoken threat of political exile.
After silencing the others behind closed doors, they walk into the open field and ask party members to queue behind a single person. Just one. No debate. No choice. No ballot.
And they call this a primary election.
No, This Is Not a Primary. This Is a Selection.
Let us be clear: a real primary means the people get to choose between options. It is messy, loud, competitive, and beautiful because it gives birth to accountability. When you remove every other aspirant and present only one name, you are not conducting an election. You are staging an endorsement.
What Ndokwa is witnessing today is not a party primary. It is a people’s mandate robbery disguised as consultation.
And the most painful part? The victims the very aspirants who spent fortunes sometimes go along with it, because they fear being labelled rebellious or disloyal. So they smile in public and bleed in private.
The Cancer We Refuse to Name
It is easy to blame the elected politician who performs poorly in office. But who brought that politician? Who eliminated the competition? Who starved the people of alternatives? The political leaders.
These are not strangers. They are highly respected individuals in our communities. Chiefs. Elders. Party chieftains. Men and women, we greet prostrate. They sit in our town halls, marry our daughters, and bury our fathers. And they have become the biggest threat to Ndokwa’s development, not because they hate Ndokwa, but because they love their pockets, their control, and their next contract more.
Every time they impose a weak candidate who cannot defend a budget or attract a project, they are not just failing the party. They are suffocating the community. They are cutting off the oxygen of growth.
An Appeal to Ndokwa Political Leaders
Let me speak directly to you now, respected leaders.
You have power. Great power. But power that silences choice is not leadership, it is tyranny with a smiling face.
Allow fair competition. Allow transparency. Let aspirants test their popularity. Let the people see them debate, campaign, and earn the mandate. The best candidate may not be your cousin, your business partner, or the one who bought the most drinks. The best candidate may be the quiet one you pushed aside to favour your interest.
Look around Ndokwa today. Look at the roads that have become graves. Look at the primary healthcare centres without paracetamol. Look at the youths migrating through the desert because no leadership that dreams beyond personal gain.
Ask yourself: Did your imposed candidate bring this development? Or did they bring more poverty and silence?
Do not use your political position to starve this community of the oxygen of growth.
Do not trade our collective future for a bag of rice, a bottle of whiskey, or a preferred son-in-law.
The Way Forward
We are not calling for violence. We are not calling for destruction. We are calling for conscience.
To the aspirants who were pressurised to step down: your silence is not loyalty. Your withdrawal in the face of manipulation is not wisdom. Speak. Write. Resist. The people of Ndokwa are watching, and history will not remember you as peaceful it will remember you as accomplices.
To the party members: do not queue behind one name just because you were told to. Ask questions. Demand a vote. If they refuse, walk away. A mandate without choice is a curse.
And to the political leaders: there is still time. Open up the process. Let the best candidate emerge. Because if you continue to kill competition, you will also kill the party. And eventually, even your preferred candidate will fail, and the people will remember who put them there.
Conclusion
What is happening in Ndokwa today is not politics. It is a quiet genocide of choice. It is the theft of a people’s voice.
And until we name the cancer until we look respected political leaders in the eye and say, “You are the problem” no governor, no senator, no president will save us.
The battle for Ndokwa’s development begins not at the government house, but at the ward meeting. It begins when we refuse to let a handful of leaders turn our primary into a selection, and our democracy into a funeral.
Let the people choose. Let fairness breathe. Or let history record that Ndokwa’s leaders were the ones who locked the door to progress and threw away the key.
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