By Alabi Williams / posted 13 November 2023
With 12 states to its credit, a very formidable presence in the South-south, one leg in Osun in South-west, another in Zamfara, North-west, plus Plateau in North-central, then Adamawa, Taraba and Bauchi in the North-east, not forgetting a lone state of Enugu in the South-east, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has receded from its fantasy days of self-acclaimed largest party in Africa. Yet, with these 11 states, the PDP can still remain a good opposition party to give the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), something to bother about.
The PDP had been an overweighted, overfed and undisciplined specimen that needed to trim down to remain physically healthy and mentally sound. Too much unearned victories had caused it to become pompous and self-conceited. So, the thrashing could as well amount to a good lesson for the remnant governors and leaders to quickly refurbish the party.
The journey in the next four years is going to be stormy for the party and in the absence of character and discipline, many would become hungry and faint-hearted, easily intimidated by the prowling APC. This APC is a hawk looking for unsheltered chicks to devour and it will do so without remorse. Don’t expect a President Bola Tinubu to be so charitable not to harvest more Nyesome Wikes. After all, he had been through as leader of the opposition for decades. It gets really disturbing as some characters in the PDP are in a hurry to ingratiate themselves with the current Presidency, instead of doing a housecleaning of the mess in their party.
A little reminder: The PDP ventured into the 2023 elections with a fractured house. The party took a risk only a mythical self-devouring beast could have contemplated. It was unheard of in recent political history, that a party would be so brazen, seeing disaster coming its way but clearly unable or unwilling to avert it. All the sides seemed programmed to enact doom.
The Nyesome Wike-led group of five dissident governors was unblinking and unyielding to any form of reproachment. Yet, only Wike knew where he was headed. The other four governors were content being led to the slaughter. The one in Oyo played the tribal card to save his neck. Three were politically guillotined but Wike survived and it was no mean plot. He deserves some applause.
For the mainstream PDP, it was pretty much like a gamble. With five governors feeding on its innards and willing to bury it, there seemed just two options, seek peace and steady the boat or call the bluff of the G-5 team and rock the boat.
The truth is that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is a war-tested politician, formidable and not one to easily yield to threats, especially when the motive is not collective but self-serving. Atiku had weathered some good bouts. Yet, there were accounts to the fact that he tried to call for reconciliation. Were the party chairman at that troubled season, Iyorcha Ayu, a little more sagacious, he could have saved the day. If he had stepped aside voluntarily, which he was later forced to do by a courtorder.
Erstwhile Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, could have found reason to soften. That could have slowed Wike and the others in their rampage. But all that did not happen and still, the party didn’t do too poorly. All the APC could do, with its federal forces was to lead by two million votes. Just imagine that the Labour Party (LP) had not appeared on the scene.
With that, it is likely that the PDP is not finished. But a lot now depends on how the governors of the party carry themselves. If they behave like some rudderless and orphaned gazelles in the wilderness, the APC will have them for breakfast, one after the other. But if they organise and refuse to be intimidated, they could sustain the tempo and recover well in the interest of multi-party democracy.
The APC was not rewarded in the 2023 elections because it governed well in the last eight years, far from it. It was rewarded because the opposition was disorganised and willing to self-immolate. In its eight years under Muhammadu Buhari, the party ruined the economy and has remained a disaster and pain in the neck of hapless Nigerians, months after Buhari left. If it continues on this ruinous pattern of Buhari Presidency – borrowing recklessly and unable to control its lust for appointments, resulting in the heaviest bureaucracy in history, there will be nothing left in the nation’s coffers in four years. And that should be the talking point for the opposition, the economy.
So, it’s up to the PDP to retool. A lot depends on the governors. Opposition governors should not consider themselves endangered species as the Constitution of the Federal Republic has provided sufficient safety nets for all to thrive. Tinubu thrived very well as an opposition governor in Lagos. He was not frightened by a menacing President Olusegun Obasanjo. Instead, he used constitutional means to engage the Federal Government for the purposes of deepening the federal system. He did not diminish himself as an opposition by constituting a lickspittle before the ruling party.
Many were shocked to see the Governor of Bayelsa State, Duoye Diri, among those celebrating APC leaders and governors in the Villa, shortly after the Supreme Court ruling that gave Tinubu final victory in the presidential election. How did Diri get there and how chivalric did he think that was, when his party had not reacted to the outcome of the ruling?
Reacting to opposition jabs at home, that he had gone on a fawning mission to curry favours, Diri pronounced that he did not owe anybody any apology on the visit. Really? He explained further that he had gone to the Villa for a different encounter and it just happened that he was there at that moment.
Indeed, a very inauspicious timing for someone who was a member of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, one in whom a lot of goodwill and respect is vested. For spectators, Diri owes a lot apology because that spectacle was demeaning, as even as his mien did not show one who felt at home in that scripted pantomiming.
The opposition doesn’t need to be at daggers-drawn with the ruling party, but when there is need to present a common front, the PDP has a well-run Secretariat that could reach out and engage. A governor who does well at home does not need to fret when elections are close because the people will defend their interests.
No governor needs to fawn and flatter at Aso Villa court because there is no room for jesting. The country is in a mess and there should be competition among political parties on how to fix things. States are not appendages of the Federal Government and must not allow themselves to be bullied by federal authorities. But they have to respect themselves.
Opposition politics is not for the lily-livered. The late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo showcased the beauty of constructive opposition. He was never intimidated by the antics of clueless federal powers. He suffered persecution at different stages, even imprisonment, but he was never distracted by conspiracies. He was focused on giving the best to the people. His mind remained fertile and he produced a variety of leadership literatures. Let opposition governors read his books and learn resilience, self-respect and compassion for the people.
Tinubu is not qualified to adjudicate between Wike and the Rivers State Governor, Timinalayi Fubara. After the faceoff between Wike and his godson, state matters took them to Abuja, where it was alleged that Tinubu intervened and calmed their rough nerves. Tinubu cannot intervene in the matter because he is an interested party. The matter is strictly a PDP affair and the party should stop being timid and deal with it. The National Secretariat should intervene and take control of its structures in Rivers State. No one man owns a party structure, it belongs to the party.
When Wike was troubling the party, towards the election, Tinubu did not hide his joy. He prayed night and day that the gods should not allow Wike to be appeased. And he benefitted from the woes of the party. Let PDP be smart and bring the Wike intransigence to a close.
The Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, who claims to be the Chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum should stop acting like an APC mole. That governor does not know his assignment as chair of the Forum. He should invite Wike and Fubara to the PDP Secretariat to deal with the matter, not to surrender a party matter to Mr. President who is not a PDP member.
He even showered praises on the President for a so-called resolution of the dispute. Doesn’t Bala Mohammed know that it’s not in Tinubu’s interest that PDP is reconciled? APC and PDP are two parallel competitors, like night and day, they shouldn’t be friends. That’s politics. Let them sell their ideas to Nigerians, who will decide the better.
Let smaller parties return home and reorganise as real opposition parties. Nigeria is large enough for them to survive. Salvation does not lie in any one party but in ideas and capacity to produce candidates with character and capacity.
Very soon, the era of money politics will give way to politics of ideas. This could very well be the last batch of highly monied and commercially minded political pursuits in Nigeria’s history. A new era beckons!
Note: This article was first published by The Guardian.
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