I had ignored Yahoogroups' internet brigade's circulation of former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke's coming to Los Angeles to propose to Nigeria Diaspora his quest to run for president of "Federal Republic of Nigeria" on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party -- PDP -- until my colleague and good friend, Austen Oghuma, tried to persuade me it's time for change in a fabricated Nigerian national state.
As it happened, on Saturday evening, March 14, 2010, we drove to LAX Marriot Hotel, 5855 West Century Blvd., for "An Evening with Governor Donald Duke," and walking into the lobby of the hotel, we asked the doormen where Duke's event was unfolding and being a little bit late we were directed to the basement where Duke, at the podium, was selling his program for the presidency. We secured a seat in a packed forum of Nigerians in Greater Los Angeles and watched Duke speak of how to effect change in a troubled Nigeria, "convincing" a gullible and vulnerable Nigeria Diaspora audience that he's the right man to take the country -- based on its enormous human capital and abundant natural resources -- to where it should belong in the global scene.
Neverminding Duke's rhetorics and all that blah, blah, blah, I had to take pictures which to me was normal of such events. I took a lot of pictures of Duke at the podium, took more of a gullible Diaspora audience who had no clue how to influence decisions back home, and who had lost every sense of purpose in getting things done. And taking those pictures with the concept of a strong press and strong democracy, the organizers, Ebube Wadibia, Uzo Diribe, Acho Emeruwa and their cohorts confronted me and asked me to leave, that if I don't leave they will call security on me; that I cannot take pictures of the presidential candidate; that I was not invited to an event that was open to all 'Nigerians' in the Greater Los Angeles; that taking such pictures "is" not allowed; that I was not the right person to be taking pictures of a misleading Duke campaign for the presidency; that I have been warned; that it was a special event for the Nigeria Diaspora elite, and that I am not politically affiliated. That's my ordeal at Duke's presidential campaign.
Duke had arrived to the shores of this land in the company of his campaign manager, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi whose closing remarks had nothing to do with Duke's address to run an efficient and thorough democratic fabric. The question and answers to the governor was prearranged by the moderators and organizers of an event that lacked substance from the perspective of Duke having no business, in the first place, to launch his campaign in Diaspora. It is only in Nigeria that a presidential aspirant kickstarts his campaign from abroad. It is senseless in many ways and why would an opportunist, confused, Diaspora bunch welcome Duke to launch his campaign for the presidency when he is suppose to begin that ambition from his nativeland of Calabar? And why would the Los Angeles-based organizers in the likes of Ebube Wadibia, Uzo Diribe and Acho Emeruwa be so concerned it would take Duke, a South Southerner to change the course of the nation's history when Vice President Goodluck Jonathan who also hails from the South-South is now presiding on the affairs of state? What message is Duke sending to the South-South whose history in Nigeria has been of violence and political impotence? What need is the double-cross in a situation the country now lives on a borrowed time?
I'm not sure how it really works, but with Duke's campaign staff urging every Nigerian Diaspora to commit $25 monthly contribution for the presidential candidate's war chests in order to raise $500,000 is indeed troubling.
