By Alabi Williams / Posted September 03, 2024
After the 2023 presidential election, which the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) blundered and had its ego bruised, it was thought the sobering effects of that loss would evoke deep reflections for a comprehensive reset. More than one year after, the party appears stuck in deeper quagmire, with feckless members deeply divided between enduring the deprivations of opposition lifestyle and jumping the troubled ship for fleeting morsels dangled by adversary corsairs.
The party is up in arms against itself, tearing at the last fabric of stamina it needs to revamp and be strong to confront the merciless headwinds. The battlefronts are many and there is no captain in the house with good character and selfless drive to make the sacrifice. Welcome to PDP house of commotion.
Yet, a formidable opposition is a necessity for the Fourth Republic to survive. For liberal democracy to thrive, voters need alternative platforms and candidates to pick from. Voters in the United Kingdom waited patiently for the Conservative Party to exhaust itself in all of 14 years. When the opportunity came, the decision was massive, a rejection of the Tories, for the Labour Party (LP). That’s the beauty of democracy.
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It also happened here. After 14 years of complacency, and for refusing to re-invent and provide voters with something refreshing, opposition politicians closed ranks and pushed out the PDP in 2015. Since then, the All Progressives Congress (APC,) has done nine uninspiring years in government, with Nigerians earnestly yearning for rescue.
As the most dominant opposition party, the PDP has to make itself relevant for the task ahead. But the signs from Wadata House, headquarters of the party do not inspire hope. If care is not taken, more damage will be done to the party before 2027 and whatever will be left could be worse than what it experienced in 2023.
This column had course to observe after the Supreme Court put the presidential contest to a final rest in October last year, that things didn’t appear totally hopeless for the PDP and the other two opposition parties – the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and the Labour Party (LP). With 15 states in the kitty, these three parties have prospects for a better electoral outing if they deliver quality governance and do things differently, like Alex Otti is doing in Abia State.
The major challenge as it appeared then, was for the PDP that had tasted governance at the Federal and now beaten to the flank with 13 states, to stand firm and not to buckle under the Federal might. After all, in the last presidential election, the difference between the winning votes of APC and those of the two leading opposition parties, PDP and LP, was two million. That was much, but observers did note that a more coordinated and strategic opposition could have yielded a different tally.
This column noted back in November 2023 that: “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…”
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At that time, the PDP had not shared a post mortem on the elections with a view to confronting the hard facts. Even though a lot of the issues had been in the public space since its presidential primary election of May 28, 2023, the party leadership didn’t seem in a hurry to confront its electoral misadventures. But the trouble between former Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike and Governor Siminalayi Fubara stuck out like a sore thumb. The party’s leadership skirted around it because Wike was too hot to handle. Since he had been appointed minister in Tinubu’s cabinet, the President felt it was his prerogative to meddle in the matter. The interventions by President Tinubu were self-serving and of little consequence.
Even the PDP Governors’ Forum seemed helpless. It was the chairman of the Forum and Governor of Bauch State, Bala Mohammed, who announced the initial peace deal brokered by the President to reconcile the FCT minister and Fubara. He praised the deal to high heavens but that exercise did not last, because essentially, it was a PDP affair to deal with.
The governors didn’t have the sincerity to deal with it. Some of them were on Wike’s side, when he instigated insurrection on the PDP because he lost in the primary. The incumbent Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, former governors of Benue, Abia and Enugu states, Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, were together with Wike in the conspiracy to frustrate their party.
Their grouse: According to them, they wanted their party to present a southern presidential candidate for 2023. They were unable to push through that argument constitutionally, because the PDP Constitution does not spell it out in black and white. Even if it did, others could push the argument that the Constitution of the Federal Republic does not bar anybody from running or restrict the contest for the presidency to zones. However, it is commonsensical that given Nigeria’s peculiarities, all sides deserve a shot at the number one office.
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What the founding fathers of PDP decided was to rotate the prime offices in the land among the zones to project equity. That arrangement went well from 1999 to 2007, until the demise of President Umaru Yar’Adua, which posed a challenge. Yet, that glitch was still manageable because the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan did not deviate too far from the PDP quest for equity.
The South-south was yet to have the opportunity to have a president from that zone, so the north was willing to let go, even in 2011. After 16 years of fielding presidents from the South, some party members reasoned that, that was enough. When Jonathan pushed his luck beyond his capacities, even his party members conspired against him.
It could be inferred that was the template the party used to arrive at its 2019 presidential gambit. Even in 2023, nothing had changed to warrant canceling the bid for the presidency to return to the North as far as the PDP was concerned.
Whatever APC did with the Buhari years should ordinarily be the headache of APC. But as observed, Nigeria is too complex for two plus two to amount to four. Other variables must be dragged in to get the process moving.
Back to the PDP rebel governors. The party, before the 2023 primaries attempted to resolve the zoning debate. It was handed to committees to sort out and feelers were that the contest was thrown open to all the candidates from all the zones. That was settled before the primary and contestants agreed to abide by the result of the mini election.
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After Wike lost the primary, coming second after Atiku Abubakar, the story changed. He became unconsolable, especially when he was sidelined in the choice of vice-presidential candidate. The writer said “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”, maybe. But if William Shakespeare were to witness politics in Nigeria, chances are that he might consider replacing woman with Wike in that verse. Atiku robbed salt in the injury when he presented his nominee, former governor Ifeanyi Okowa, in a saintly garb, leaving the people to make their deductions.
Anyway, that was how the PDP walked itself into defeat, with APC taking good advantage of the situation. The aperture to operate more clandestinely, even overtly in the PDP, has widened for the ruling party, with the minister for FCT well positioned to act the role of a tormentor, having a number of aces to his credit.
His camp within the PDP has armed itself with court orders making it difficult for the party to eject him. In his present office, he could decide to make life difficult for many residents of FCT, including PDP members who disrespect him. In his lucrative office, he could also make life comfortable for party members who flock around him. Truth is that, the man perches precariously on PDP’s most treasured resource. They have to bring him down gently or you hurt the party gravely, if they do it forcefully.
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When Professor Iyorcha Ayu was eased out as party chairman, the party’s Constitution allowed his deputy from the North to step in as interim chair. Umar Damagun has apparently realised that the office is too comfortable to vacate in a hurry. He too has armed himself with a court order barring the PDP from sacking him. The National Secretary of the party, Samuel Anyawu, also has a court order to protect his seat after he left office to run for Imo State governorship election. He is said to be an ally of Wike.
The last time PDP found itself in similar shallow waters was when Wike, Ayo Fayose and other young Turks in the party hired former Governor of Borno State, a staunch member of APC, Modu Sheriff, to manage their party for what was supposed to be a three-month stint, whereas the man saw the task as that of an undertaker to prepare the party for slow death. Between February 2016 and July 2017, when the Supreme Court rescued PDP from Sheriffs’ choke-hold, the party saw hell.
PDP has been unfortunate in the hands of politicians who made good gains from it. Former President Obasanjo tore his membership card. Goodluck Jonathan doesn’t relate with PDP. Atiku abandoned the party at a time. Senate presidents made by the party have wandered away like homeless chicks. The last of them was taken to see President Tinubu like a lost school boy, panting heavily, stripped of honour.
Even the Labour Party and the NNPP do not fair better in the hands of political tricksters who misuse them as merchandise for morsel.
There’s serious work to do if opposition politics must survive.
Note: This article was first published by The Guardian Newspaper.
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