The Unseemly Contest and the Professor’s Partisanship
1 And it came to pass, that the land of Anambra was called to a new reckoning, for a by-election was proclaimed, to fill the vacant seats in the council and the assembly. And the air was filled with the murmurings of the people, who watched to see if the Professor would indeed govern with the righteousness of a sage.
2 For in the eyes of many, a man of such great learning, who had stood at the helm of the nation’s currency, should be above the dust and din of common politics, and his hands should remain clean from the dirt of the marketplace.
3 Yet, the word of the Lord, as it were, did not prevail, for behold, in the midst of the contest, a great and grievous sin was committed. And it was whispered from polling unit to polling unit, that the party of Soludo, which was the All Progressives Grand Alliance, did engage in the unclean act of vote buying.
4 For bags of money, yea, even bundles of crisp notes, were said to have been exchanged for the sacred trust of the ballot, and the people did sell their birthright for a pottage of immediate gain.
5 And the shame of it was manifold, for the very one who had vowed to lead the people to a new and prosperous dawn, did not rise up to chide and castigate this foul practice within his own camp.
6 Nay, but he did turn his tongue and his voice, which should have been a trumpet of justice, into a tool of mockery. For when his party had won, having spent much silver and gold in the process, Soludo did mock the opposition, saying their parties were “dead” and “non-existent” in the land.
7 He did declare that the political force of Peter, the son of Obi, and his new alliance, was but a “concoction” that had failed in its test. And his words were as a javelin, cast into the camp of the humbled, not with the grace of a victor, but with the glee of a partisan.
8 The people did wonder, saying, “Is this not the Professor who doth lecture the world on economics and good governance? Doth he not know that the lifeblood of a true democracy is the free will of the people, and not the heavy purse of the powerful?”
9 For it was a great contradiction, that a man who had been cast in the mold of an intellectual titan, would descend into the very mud of political chicanery, celebrating a victory that was tainted by the buying and selling of the people’s conscience.
10 And so, the chronicles of Soludo were marked not only by his fiery pen and his battles with past rulers, but also by his unseemly immersion in the dirty tactics of the political arena, a stark contrast to the lofty ideals he once proclaimed.
11 The land did groan, for the Professor, in his quest to secure power for his party, had shown that the ways of old, the ways of the strongman and the patron, had not truly been vanquished, but had merely changed their raiment to suit the times.