A Circus in Karachi, A Crisis in Peshawar

I’ve been in the game of Pakistani politics long enough to spot the difference between a real movement and a delusion. And let me tell you, watching Chief Minister Sohail Afridi parade through Karachi this week, I saw a delusion in full swing. It was billed as a massive show of force — proof that PTI still commands the national stage. But standing there on the hot, crowded pavement of a gridlocked Karachi, all I saw was a desperate politician trying to peddle something that simply isn’t selling anymore.

Let’s be real about what actually went down in Sindh. Afridi didn’t bring the city to a halt because of his overwhelming popularity; he ground it to a halt with his VIP protocol. I watched ambulances struggling to snake through roadblocks set up for his cavalcade while everyday commuters, sweating in the traffic, shouted in frustration. The shopkeepers, the traders, the stockbrokers — the people who keep Pakistan’s economic heart beating — didn’t raise their hands in solidarity. They raised their eyebrows in sheer annoyance. The indifference was loud and clear. If Afridi came here looking for a fresh wave of support, the only thing he took back with him was the dust on his shoes from Karachi’s torn-up roads.

But to be honest, his flop in Karachi isn’t what keeps me up at night. It’s his absence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

We need to have a serious reckoning here. Every hour this Chief Minister spends playing revolutionary in Sindh or Punjab is an hour he is abandoning the Pashtun people he swore to protect. Does he have any clue what’s happening in his own backyard? While he was busy waving to empty streets down south, the security reports coming out of Tirah and Bannu were flashing red. Terrorism in KP isn’t just a talking point; it’s a terrifying reality. I see our soldiers and police fighting gun battles every single day just to hold the line, yet the civilian head of the province is nowhere to be found — too busy racking up frequent flyer miles on chartered flights to notice the fire burning at home.

This misuse of funds is obscene. The KP treasury isn’t a piggy bank for “Prisoner Number 804.” That is public trust money. Every rupee burned on these pointless rallies is a rupee stolen from a crumbling school in Kohat or a hospital in Swat running out of medicine. I look at Punjab, and despite the political noise, you can see cranes in the sky and roads being paved. Even Sindh manages to keep its machinery moving. But KP? KP has been turned into a stage for political theatre while the roof caves in on the audience.

This obsession with his jailed leader has paralyzed the entire administration. It feels like Afridi thinks his job title is “Proxy Jail Superintendent” instead of “Chief Minister.” He is fighting tooth and nail for the political survival of one man, while the people who voted for him are fighting for their actual lives against a resurgence of terror.

The people of KP deserve so much better than this ghost government. They voted for peace, for jobs, for a future. They didn’t vote to fund a traveling circus. Real leadership isn’t counted in TikTok likes from a rally in Karachi; it’s counted in whether a mother in Peshawar feels safe walking her child to the bus stop. Right now, she doesn’t.

So, here is my unsolicited advice to Chief Minister Afridi: Go home. Get off the private jet, drive past your own party banners, and walk into a police station in Bannu. Sit down with the families living under the shadow of gunfights. Listen to them. That is your job. Karachi has enough problems of its own; it doesn’t need yours. Stop trying to conquer Sindh when you are actively losing KP. Stop serving the prisoner, and start serving the people.