The disqualified Prime Minister’s trial in the accountability court has now entered the final stages. The defendant Mr. Nawaz Sharif has addressed the court in response to a questionnaire issued to him, while his daughter and son in law will be doing the same in the days that follow. In his statements Mr. Sharif has denied knowledge or connections with any business and transaction, in much contradiction of his earlier pronouncements on media and floor of the Parliament. He circumvented the question regarding money trail saying that such queries should be put to his sons. It will be recalled that Hassan and Hussain Nawaz live in London and have been proclaimed as absconders by the Pakistani Court. The former PM’s vendetta with the Armed Forces became more than evident, when he slammed the composition of the JIT formed by the Supreme Court, saying that representatives of the military should not have been made members of the team.

Mr. Nawaz Sharif was never the intelligent one in comparison to his younger sibling. He displayed a very small attention span and was impetuously short sighted (on the wisdom scale). Psychologists say that such deficiencies often spawn a complex, wherein the individual resorts to arrogance, self-aggrandizement and duplicity to appear bigger than he really is. Much of these traits appear to have rubbed off on his offspring. The latest manifestation of the ex PM’s twisted personality is by far the most alarming as it compromises national security, putting in doubt the former Head of Executive’s patriotism and rendering him liable to be prosecuted under Article 6 of the Constitution.

The study of why the former PM cannot get along with the military is a fascinating subject, with its roots lying in the fact that he was the prodigy of a military dictator, whose legacy continues to haunt this country. It is indeed ironic that someone ‘raised’ (in the metaphorical sense) by General M. Zia ul Haq and mentored by Lieutenant Ghulam Jilani Khan, should harbor so much animosity towards men in uniform.

Enough has been said about someone, who is down and out as a consequence of his own misdeeds and onto the wider political canvas. With its legislators fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, the PML N appears to have lost all reason in its desperate bid to woo the national electorate. Obsessed with the idea that they must aggregate points by showcasing their term of office, the Party leadership has begun taking irrational decisions. The premature inauguration of the new Islamabad Airport is a case in point.

My recent experiences at the huge airport complex, were to say the least disappointing. I saw foreigners losing their cool with staff that was not only inefficient, but callous in dealing with people, who could become our image makers, if handled properly. I witnessed total chaos at the baggage collection points and filthy washrooms inundated with water. I could not understand the sense in having one immigration counter for arriving Pakistanis and eight or nine times that number for foreigners with the result that there was a long queue at one desk while the others were handling only sporadic traffic. I was told by a responsible official on the spot that a number of facilities were out of order and long delays were occurring because of a serious staff deficiency in as far as handling of both arriving and departing passengers were concerned. Perhaps the puppet PM failed to visualize in his indecent haste to inaugurate the facility that instead of getting rewarded with praise, he (and his Party) would be bombarded with curses. It was the same with the ‘Orange Train’ in Lahore. In a desperate hurry to show performance, only eleven kilometer of the track was inaugurated by the Punjab CM, ignoring the fact that the project was incomplete.

In one of my earlier pieces, I had stated that the Sharif Family and their Party is undergoing, what can only be divine retribution. My belief in the fact that this is indeed happening gains strength by the manner in which the Party and its leadership is continuously putting a ‘foot in their mouth’. With its ranks speedily emptying as electable members desert Party Ranks and head to Bani Gala, one wonders at the possibility that a change is really around the corner.

The writer is a freelance columnist.

It is indeed ironic that someone ‘raised’ by General M. Zia ul Haq and mentored by Lieutenant Ghulam Jilani Khan, should harbor so much animosity towards men in uniform.