Who Will Resolve PDP’s Crisis? By Emmanuel Oladesu

The crisis assailing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) does not appear ready to disappear. Like other opposition platforms, internal disharmony within the main opposition party has continued to worsen. But the injuries are self-inflicted.

Having fallen from power some 10 years ago, the PDP has failed to display the prospects of a united front that can bounce back to power. Its political muscles, which it flexed for 16 years in power, have become feeble, like those of an ageing bully. Even the voices of its leading lights of yore have become faint against those who have turned the party into a battlefield.

The failure to groom duteous politicians to succeed the blusterous first generation of the party gave birth to the current babel within. The “party of generals” that got to power in the wake of the current dispensation obviously forgot that nothing lasts forever. Today, neither its barracks mentality of “obey the last order” or democratic norms prevail.

From the outset, the PDP never appeared like a party that was based on democratic pillars. Many of its chairmen were ousted unceremoniously. Imagine the national chairman of a party being asked to tender his resignation letter directly to the President after a meal of pounded yams and bush meat in his house.

In the past two decades, the PDP has changed it chairman than any other party has. The same happened to its Senate presidents when the party was in power. They were not removed on health grounds but to satisfy the yearnings of some overbearing individuals. The party did not respect democratic principles. It was a matter of time for its internal transgressions to blow open.

Now that the chicken has come home to roost, who, will salvage the once acclaimed largest party in Africa from self-ruin?

The fate of the PDP should be a lesson, even to the ruling party. No political party is infallible. Pride could herald a fatal fall. That electoral disaster has been the lot of the party that once nursed the bogus ambition of ruling the country for 60 years.

Its tenancy in Aso Villa, Abuja, was terminated few years after the bragging. The prolonged setback jolted the founding fathers from their delusion, making them to embrace, very late, that in the final analysis, power is transient.

As the PDP prepares for its so-called elective National Convention scheduled for Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, this month, it writhes in the pains of division and disharmony. Its warring leaders are unable to put their house in order. A section of the party, led by the few governors stuck in the old circle, is insisting on the convention, despite the unresolved logjam.

Another camp opposed to what it calls improper preparations for the convention is kicking. Led by Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike, this group has continued to draw attention to some unresolved abnormalities known to the two antagonistic camps. When the convention would hold or not is not as important as what would happen after the event.

That chairmen of four state chapters went to court to challenge the validity of the convention means that something is amiss. The multiple crises have festered for three reasons.

The first is that there is no uniting idea, a philosophy or ideology to which members subscribe beyond the goal of hijacking power. Thus, outside power, the party is like a fish out of water.

The second is the lack of effective crisis resolution mechanism. No one among the warring lot is prepared to make a sacrifice for the platform to survive. Once there is a conflict, it is ‘fight to the finish.’ Reconciliation committees are set up to chase shadows. Once the chord of power that bound them was severed, things fell apart.

The third is a lack of good leadership, one that commands respect. The PDP is deserted by its products; the presidents, vice presidents, senate presidents, and House of Representatives speakers it created in its own image. It is a special case of ‘use and dump’.

It may also be that those former leaders it produced lack what it takes to lead a heterogeneous organisation, a blend of diverse interests and an abused organisation that was knocked down by their undemocratic tendencies.

Latter-day party undertakers lack institutional memory. They forget the labours of their founding fathers, their condescending styles of self-abnegation and willingness to subject personal interest to collective agenda.

But the founding fathers committed a fatal error, which has continued to haunt them. It was a great mistake that after the party had taken shape, its presidential ticket landed on the palm of a wrong person; a dictator and manipulator who later tore his party’s membership card.

The PDP suffered internal instability arising from the crisis of leadership. In 27 years, it has produced 17 national chairmen, many of who left office unceremoniously.

After the bruises, they took refuge in the opposition party that rallied Nigerians to drive PDP out of power.

A crisis is an infection. It is highly contagious. This is the heritage of a party founded by sane leaders without future builders to build on the virile foundation. When the party was in power between 1999 and 2015, its leaders were carried away by government power. They thought that federal power was the only requirement for party nurturing. While the party was in government, it started decaying as the supremacy of its power-loaded president came to be perceived as party supremacy.

Gradually, the founding fathers faded away without an opportunity to cleanse the party. A deep gulf had developed between them and the younger elements, whose gradual rise to stardom coincided with that period of party dictatorship which became the norm.

The current battle stems from the split among the younger elements who gained total control of the party after the residual class of gerontocrats painfully relocated to the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

They could not keep the dilapidated house together. As the crisis escalated, it provided an escape route for their colleagues to dump the distressed platform. Three governors – Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State, Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta and Peter Mbah of Enugu – hurriedly jumped out of the sinking ship. Now, Douye Diri of Bayela is packing his load. He is said to be comparing notes with Agbu Kefas of Taraba. Reports said Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang is feeling lonely and gazing at APC, whose National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, is from the state and has hinted that more governors would follow.

The danger now is that many stalwarts are willing and ready to work for the ruling party without defecting from the PDP.

Those leaving in droves claim that the crisis is injurious to their ambitions. They fear the legal technicalities that can knock them out of the 2027 polls if the leadership crisis persists. The party’s secretary has insisted that the PDP is a party of signature forgers. Senator Sam Anyanwu is simply saying that he has no hand in the preparations for the convention as the party’s scribe. Lawyer Nyesom Wike, ‘governor of Abuja,’ is firing salvos, warning that an improper convention would not be acceptable.

The preparations have polarised the PDP into two camps – that of governors and that of a few gerontocrats being excluded from the planned elective convention. Former Governors Sule Lamido and Ahmed Makarfi have said they loathe intimidation by “small boys” of yesterday now trying to push them around.

The old method may still align with the new times, if certain conditions are met.

Traditionally, national chairmen are foisted by the conclave of governors. But the key omission moe is proper consultation.

If the position of the national chairman has been zoned to the North and micro-zoned to the Northwest, should the old men not be informed about the intention to impose Kabiru Tanimu Turaki by the governors from the Northcentral and the Northeast? If the governors are sure of themselves, why can’t they throw the contest open, allow democracy to take its course and prove that they are really in charge by mobilising party faithful to vote for their candidate at Ibadan on November 15?

Given the unfolding scenarios, the outcome of the PDP national convention may further mar its efforts at having a harmonious platform. But it would be very interesting to see a party stalwart who can wield the magic wand that would save the party from drifting into anarchy.

PDP is still the main opposition party. To be relevant, the warring chieftains should close ranks, do a soul-searching and erect building blocks of unity.

It is possible. But it is a hard option for the party.