Secretaryship dispute compounds PDP’s woes in Anambra, others

The unrelenting legal battles by the embattled National Secretary of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Samuel Anyanwu, to retain his office after participating in the Imo State governorship contest has left the party at a crossroads. In this report, AZIMAZI MOMOH JIMOH writes that apart from stalling the much-needed reconciliation efforts, the lingering feud is already negatively impacting preparation for the forthcoming Anambra governorship poll and impending NEC meetings.

An intractable leadership crisis is holding the once stalwart Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the jugular. As such, the near future appears daunting for the party, especially as the warring groups across its key organs prepare for a more devastating internal battle.

Unless the Supreme Court delivers its verdict to resolve the secretaryship tussle in the opposition party, it will not find its feet to be able to make crucial decisions to advance the party’s interest.

The Supreme Court has scheduled for March 10 to hear the appeal filed by Anyanwu against his ouster by a Federal High Court and the judgement’s affirmation by the Court of Appeal.

On its part, the PDP Governors’ Forum and the BoT had proposed that the party’s National Working Committee, headed by Ambassador Umar Ilyas Damagum, should convene a meeting of its National Executive Committee (NEC) on March 13, 2025. But, because of palpable anxiety in the party ahead of the expected Supreme Court ruling on the 10th of March, 2025, no preparation has been made for the proposed NEC meeting.

Senator Samuel Anyanwu had, after the judgment of the Enugu division of the court of appeal, which removed him as secretary, proceeded on appeal to the Supreme Court. His prayers for reinstatement, among other issues that have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the crisis, is the meeting of key organs of the party, including the National Executive Committee (NEC), the National Working Committee.

Although Sunday Ude-Okoye received the backing of the PDP Governors Forum and the Board of Trustees to begin to act as secretary, the Damagum-led NWC is yet to give its blessing. And the development has crippled almost all activities of the party.

The zonal PDP Congresses, preparations for Anambra State governorship elections and preparations for the national convention of the party are also being threatened by the failure to forge proper reconciliation in the main opposition party.

The wave of defection from the party, which resulted from irreconcilable differences, has added more problems for the beleaguered party. The latest crisis victim is the Anambra State governorship elections, attracting zero attention.

Very unusually, and despite the announcement of the sale of forms, nobody has come forward to buy, even as the sale of forms ends on March 7, 2025. The exercise may be extended; it was learnt on Thursday.

Worsening the crisis is the situation in which the camps of the incumbent Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, on one hand, are seriously struggling to outwit each other to win the political manoeuvre.

The challenge is in who produces the party’s national secretary, a key official whose signature must appear in every communication to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The multiple crises, which culminated in the emergence of two national secretaries, have severely hindered reconciliation and peace efforts within the party, exacerbating indiscipline and injustice.

Troubled reconciliation
Efforts by the forum of PDP Governors, the Board of Trustees (BoT) and a section of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party to put a stop to the issue by formally endorsing Sunday Ude-Okoye as party’s substantive secretary failed as leaders prioritise selfish political interests ahead of the 2027 elections.

The latest twist is that while Sam Anyanwu is being invited for questioning on alleged anti-party activities by the Tom Ikimi-led disciplinary committee, Ude-Okoye is being interrogated by the police over allegations of forgery of the party’s constitution.

It was learnt at the weekend that in a bid to hit back at Damagum for allegedly frustrating Ude-Okoye, some members of the NWC are set to convene an emergency meeting of the committee to make a crucial decision on how to get a final solution to the Ude-Okoye secretary debacle.

But, such moves are not without problems because Damagum must agree to convene the meeting. Aside from that, the two-thirds majority required to convene a meeting may not be feasible as more NWCs are in strong solidarity with him, thus frustrating the possibility of the meeting being legally recognised.

With the tension plaguing the PDP, many fear that the quagmire may linger till the end of 2025, when the party plans to hold another convention to elect a new national executive to run its affairs.

When the former Osun State governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, emerged as the new chairman of the reconciliation committee of the PDP last year, many leaders and analysts familiar with the political terrain were not very optimistic.

However, the committee boasted of being equal to the task of doing the needful. History however, repeated itself as crisis mongers redoubled their efforts such that the voices and gospels of peace by the young reconciliation committee got overwhelmed.

There are growing concerns that Oyinlola’s committee may end up the way previous committees, where such assignments evaporated without any useful outcome. As at the time of going to press, no fewer than five different reconciliation committees have been established by the party to resolve internal conflicts since 2015 when it lost control of political power.

For instance, in 2016, it set up a national reconciliation committee headed by Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State to reconcile feuding factions in the party.

This was preceded by Professor Jerry Gana-led reconciliation committee. Dickson was retained as its chairman when the party reconstituted the committee in 2018.

Then, in 2020, the PDP NWC established a reconciliation committee chaired by former Senate President Dr. Bukola Saraki to resolve disputes arising from the 2019 general elections and party congresses.

The 25-member Oyinlola-led reconciliation committee had the uphill task of convincing the key warring factions and their leaders to embrace peace and strengthen the party, particularly for the next election.

But, issues of indiscipline, which has continued to plunge the party into crisis, are being promoted by party leaders. While reviewing the party’s troublesome situation recently, Oyinlola agreed that conflicting interests of key party stalwarts were behind the crises. He, however, raised the hope that the issues could be resolved should the leaders cooperate and elevate party interests above personal interest.

“There are no extraneous challenges other than those bothering on human interest. In any party, jostling for positions, wanting one thing or the other becomes the order because there is nobody who doesn’t like what is good” he noted.

Damagum, who accused leaders of promoting the crisis stated: “I want to say this with the highest sense of responsibility, part of this crisis that you see today within the NWC, is propelled by our leaders that are supposed to unite us. It’s very unfortunate, I would say it the way it is.”

Expressing his disappointment, Oyinlola remarked: “I’ll be sitting down as the chairman only to see my members called by certain leaders to visit certain places, without my knowledge. And I want to use this opportunity to caution us, caution our leaders.

“You may have ambition, but you don’t ride on a dead horse to reach your destination. If you create a crisis simply to further your ambition, you may get what you want, but your dream will not be realised, because by that time, you have injured the horse and you are going to ride to that destination.”

Further, he said, “as the conscience of this party, some of us are also complicit. We should look inwards, search our conscience. This party is dear to all of us, it is the only thing we have. The hope of Nigerians today is on this party, so we should sheath our swords, work towards uniting ourselves so that we’ll have a credible vehicle that can challenge what is bedeviling us.”

Saraki, who was the chairman of the reconciliation committee, has also identified slavish loyalty to personal ambitions as key factors frustrating peace efforts in PDP, even as he lamented that the once party of the masses, is becoming a sacrificial ram for individual political ambitions.

“The party was built on ideas, philosophies, and policies. Let us move away from building ideas on personal ambition. We cannot have ambition if we don’t have a party. We cannot have a party if we don’t have ideas. This is where it starts. This is the foundation,” Saraki said.

He continued, “Let us stop talking about who is running for councillor, governor, or president in 2027. Let us focus on what the PDP represents. What are the issues and policies that we must address? This is what Nigerians want to know.”

A former deputy chairman (South) and member of PDP’s Board of Trustees, Chief Bode George, explained why the reconciliation and discipline is eluding the party.

According to him, what the party needs is a post-mortem of how the crisis started before the committee can reconcile members. “The party cannot but take a look at what happened, who created it, who did what to avoid recurrence in the future,” he said.

In a direct reference to the pre-2023 election crisis in the party, the elder statesman said, “There’s no chance in the world that the chairman of the party will come from the same zone as the presidential candidate of the party. That was where the disagreement started, and they didn’t handle it well. That was why we went to war, and became divided.

“So, if you are setting up a reconciliation committee and a disciplinary committee, let us do a post-mortem analysis that led us to this division during the election. The pre-election, proper election and post-election matters should be discussed. After that, we will now be able to set up a committee to reconcile people,” he stressed.

Acting national chairman, Umar Damagum; chairman of BoT, Adolphus Wabara; notable members of the NWC including the National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba; National Legal Adviser, Kamaldeen Adeyemi Ajibade; Sam Anyanwu, National Organising Secretary, and Sunday Ude-Okoye have become terribly enmeshed in the crisis to the point that their words are viewed with scorn due to allegations of bias.

The elephant in the room as far as the crisis is concerned, is the proxy political battle between the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and incumbent (FCT) minister, Nyesom Wike, as well as many other governors nursing 2027 presidential ambition. What is in vogue is that actors deploy all powers to remove anyone seen as an obstacle to their political progression, without care for ethics, the party’s constitution or even rule of law.