Poor Peoples Democratic Party [PDP]. The wicked have truly done their worst.
The once pre-eminent and sought-after political party in Nigeria, has not only tumbled off, badly, from the height of political reckoning in the country, it has sadly lost its bearing, groping in the wilderness, with little sign of redemption in the near future.
It is increasingly reading like history, but PDP had it all, just yesterday. It once accounted for 70 of the 109 senators at the National Assembly, few years ago and had control of 28 of the 36 states in the country.
The party emerged from Dr. Alex Ekwueme-led political coalition of titans of Nigerian politics. Among these were Solomon Lar, Adamu Ciroma, Sunday Awoniyi, Olusola Saraki, Jerry Gana, Abubakar Rimi, Jim Nwobodo and Sule Lamido etc. The party was built on a foundation of courage and purpose, as well as a deliberate effort to forge a pan-Nigerian political front.
The group confronted military strongman, General Sani Abacha, when he moved to transform from military dictatorship to a civilian version, in the guise of a democratically chosen leader. Taking on Abacha, when his scheme to transform into an unopposed “democratically” chosen leader of the country was in motion,was fraught with danger. Abacha, the would-be democratic leader brooked no opposition from anyone. Indeed, he had gone far with a scheme to have the five political parties he set up, adopt him as their sole candidate.Even without Abacha showing up at any of the party conventions,he was already being returned as sole presidential candidate by the parties.
The Ekwueme-led coalition that soon became the PDP, wrote Abacha, expressing opposition to the macabre game he was playing. It was a very risky venture, but the patriots involved did not seem to mind. Abacha wasted no time in turning the heat on the politicians.There was no doubt that many of those individuals involved in what came to be known as G34 were headed for a very uncertain future, courtesy of their effrontery. Then the strongman dropped dead. Just like that.
PDP was to come into 7existence as a political party thereafter, in the political process that was set in motion by the military, to usher back democracy in the country. Soon after, having been saved by the bell, as it were, from an impending guillotine that Abacha had condemned him to, General Olusegun Obasanjo joined the PDP, alongside a tribe of influential retired generals, who ominously operated in the shadows of things. It was not long after, that Obasanjo trumped Ekwueme, to emerge the party’s presidential candidate at its historic PDP convention in Jos in February 1999.Obasanjo proceeded to win the presidency.
From 1999 to 2015, PDP had Nigeria to itself, as it were. The founding fathers of the party had not only built a pan-Nigerian party, they also established mechanisms for inclusiveness in the party’s apex leadership scheme. That was what the zoning and rotation provisions were all about. It is not accidental therefore, that at the height of its dominance of Nigeria’s political landscape, PDP existed in all nooks and crannies of the country.That was how the party’s founders structured it. Subscription to the PDP membership was more, or less, national. Zoning and rotation of offices and power were a fundamental strength of PDP. Ironically,they were the Achilles heel of the party,too.
The essence of this background is not only to refresh the memory on where PDP is coming from, but to show the lofty height from which the party fell, courtesy of its wayward offspring, who have neither sense of history, nor obligation to any legacy beyond immediate gratification.
In 2015, All Progressives Congress (APC) toppled PDP as the ruling party at the centre and across the country.That brought to an end 16 years of PDP’s reign. But for Bola Tinubu, Muhammadu Buhari and Dr. Ogonnaya Onu, who passed recently – the three main anchors in the formation of the APC,with few others – almost all others who are presently identified as APC stalwarts, are offspring of PDP. Name them; Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, Senators Orji Kau, Danjuma Goje, Ali Ndume, Solomon Lalong, Aliyu Wamakko, former governor and Minister Dave Umahi, former deputy senate president, Ovie Omo Agege, Governor Hope Uzodinma, former senate presidents, Ahmed Lawan, Ken Nnamani and recently Pius Anyim Pius…all. Any time any of these utter a snide remark, as they are wont to, intermittently, about PDP and indiscretion in past governments, there is always a flash of memory, a reflection of yesterday. As it turns out, politicians hardly keep mirrors. For obvious reasons.
PDP has become a veritable wayward father, whose offspring are scattered across the land, not only servicing whoever fends for them, but also expressing contempt for their progenitor. So sad.
Nothing speaks clearer of the hard fall of the PDP than the inability of the party to even hold its statutory national meetings, to chart a way forward. The party cannot hold its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting. It cannot hold its National Working Committee (NWC) meeting, either. If a dozen members of any of these prime committees gather in a room, for a meeting, four are for the party, five are for the opposition party and two or three remaining ones are confused, wondering what exactly is going on. Interestingly, between the ones accused of being Judas in the fold and those who naking the accusation, there is ample blame and guilt to go round.
When a political party arrives at a sorry juncture,as is now the case if PDP, where its apex leadership, represented by its national chairman or national secretary and indeed, a number of members of the executive, are being held in contempt by many other members, for working against the interest of the party, then it is finished. Who,now, defends the interest of the party ?
But it did not start with Illya Umar Damagun,the acting national chairman of the party. Heading to the 2015 election that PDP lost to APC, Adamu Muazu, former governor of Bauchi State, was national chairman of PDP. The spectre was stark, of a national chairman showing non commitment to efforts by his party’s presidential candidate to win a crucial election. It was surreal.That was the era when the North, almost as one, wanted President Jonathan out of office,for breaking the understanding of power rotation. Jonathan eventually lost, along with PDP.
Ten years down the road, with PDP incapable of even holding its NEC meeting, or confirming who its national chairman really is, the party is reported to be reaching out to Goodluck Jonathan, the same Jonathan, to come be its presidential candidate for the 2027 election. How so pathetic can a party be?
The first pertinent question here is, is Jonatan still Is in PDP? If he is, what has been the impact of his presence as a former president, in the intractable problems of the party? If he could not bring any weight, or influence to bear, in strengthening the party and containing discordant tendencies that have almost dismantled the party, is it as a presidential candidate that he will wave a magic wand? Jonathan as an option, for PDP, to resuscitate itself in 2027, if the move is true, is a confirmation that the party has lost it.
The seed of destruction was sown in PDP very early, but in Nigeria, politicians and indeed, the society as a whole, live for the moment.
In a fit of anger against the PDP, as led by Jonathan, Obasanjo, tore his party card and literally stormed off. That was after serving out two-terms as president under PDP. That symbolic action says few things about his entry into the party,his DNA in the party and the lot of the party, subsequently. None of the founding fathers of the civilian founding fathers of PDP, would have torn their party membership publicly,or turn their back on a party they founded.
So now, the two former presidents of PDP are not with PDP. The ship is sailing as through wind tosses it.Why will the party’s acting national chairman not be moonlighting somewhere else?
Against the backdrop of what the experience has been with the APC in the last almost ten years, the PDP as the ruling party at the centre, for all its sins, was, frankly, nothing more than a wayward boy scout who missed his bearing. The APC, on the other hand, is a deliberate expedition, a nightmare of unimaginable proportion. Unfortunately, PDP seems too far gone to offer any hope.Whether the crisis that has engulfed it is contrived or not, is immaterial. The party is paying the price for unfaithfulness to its core values. Curiously, it is not even showing sign of appreciating where it missed its bearing.
