PDP’s sorrowful spirit soars

The success of the last convention of the PDP has lifted the sorrowful spirit of the party and given it the mini-swagger that it could not boast of until recently.

First, the campaign for the plum post of chairman of the party was contentious. The impression had been given or gained that the slot was reserved for the South West while the Presidency had been zoned to the North. There was no dispute about zoning the Presidency to the Northern region. The failure to do that when the APC had given its presidential slot to the north in 2015 cost the PDP to lose massive votes of the northern electorate. For the PDP it was now time for atonement: the presidency show go to a northerner. In the strategic thinking of the PDP governors giving the chairmanship position to the South West with only one strong PDP state, Ekiti, would be a miscalculation. So backing Prince Uche Secondus of the South South (with five PDP states) was a matter of politics of expediency. It is now almost certain that the South East with three PDP controlled states may be rewarded with the Vice Presidential position. The South West which is a strong APC zone (five states belonging to the ruling party may be given whatever is available). This may not please the bigwigs of the party in the zone but that is the way the cookie crumbles.

The party had been through a lot of heavy handed drama since its loss of the election in 2015 to the APC. Here was a party that had run the government at the centre for 16 years. It had even decreed in a fit of arrogance that it would run the shop for 60 years. This boast was merely based on the empty bravado of just being in power not necessarily for any life transforming reforms of the polity. Such arrogance led to complacency and a sense of invincibility. Its top apparatchik were “chopping the oil money yanfu yanfu”, recklessly, flagrantly. Then the chickens came home to roost. The chop-chop stories that have been adorning the front pages since the party lost the elections sound like tales from the land of squander Maria. The party lost focus. Its members engaged in an endless blame game. They dragged themselves to all the courts in the land, all the way to the Supreme Court. They ended up losing the governorship of a state, Ondo that was safely in their custody. Their agent provocateer, a hard fighting bully, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, seemed ready to give his opponents as much as he got. In the process, the party went through a harrowing headache and a devouring gulf of despair.

Meanwhile, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who wore the crown of the party as its president for eight years deserted it, not quietly but loudly, causing to be torn into shreds his party membership card in the full glare of television lights. It was an unbelieving unconscionable act of eccentricity by a man who rode on the back of the party to the presidential villa. It was the physical equivalent of using a ladder to climb to the roof top and then mischievously kicking the ladder out of the way. That way other people are deprived of using that ladder successfully. With all the negative narratives that framed the party its weariness seemed to be growing and its life seemed to be going away instalmentally.

However, from this apparent crown of gloom there is now, with this successful convention, some blinding dazzle on its path. The success has brought the promise of a new dawn into the life of the party. This is like a flaming, peaceful burst of light across the country’s political spectrum. Let us say that since most of those contentious disputes have been settled the party is now ready to play the role of an effective opposition party.

Prince Uche Secondus, the new chairman, has three advantages in his favour. He is free from the likelihood of any of the anti-corruption agencies knocking at his door. So for we have heard nothing that could be a smear on his reputation. Secondly, his victory was a roller coaster one, which means that his position is founded on a strong legitimacy. He will therefore receive the support of most of the chapters of his party in the difficult task ahead. Also, he is a grassroots politician who has a lot of experience tucked under his belt. He started politics as a youth leader in the Rivers State chapter of the NPN in 1978. He had been chairman of the Rivers State Chapter of the PDP. He had been the National Organising Secretary of the Party as well as Acting Chairman of the party.

His first task is to rebuild the party into a credible political machine that can be seen as an attractive counterpoise to the APC. Right now the APC is a party in disarray, lost in thought on how to fight insecurity, which it had repeatedly claimed had been tamed; its fight against corruption is half-hearted and episodic with no discernible formula for curbing it before it occurs or tackling it unselectively when it happens. We are yet to see the silhouette of what should be a robust engagement in that sector. But it is a fight that must be won.

Secondus must bear in mind that it is the cash that the PDP governors put on the table that gave him the mandate. Elections in Nigeria after all, largely, a cash and carry affair. He must stay on a firm and fair course, playing the game according to the rules so as to restore internal democracy in the party. The scant attention paid to internal democracy in the past gave room to scuffles and litigations and desertions of the party. There will be enormous pressures on him as the party tries to pick its presidential candidate sometime next year. So far, four people appear to be interested. Ahmed Makarfi, the former Governor of Kaduna State, Sule Lamido, former governor of Jigawa State, Ibrahim Shekarau, former Governor of Kano State and Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President. There may be a few more people weighing the option whether or not to throw their hats into the ring. The fierce battle for the presidential slot will test the will of the party and Secondus. How he manages that chaotic situation will be a measure of the party’s strength and stability.

It is getting clearer by the day that President Muhammadu Buhari will run or be persuaded to run in 2019. It is normal in most democracies for the incumbent’s party to field him without contest from its party members. In Nigeria, it is normal for party members to seek to contest against the incumbent. If any APC person chooses to contest against Buhari, the President will trounce him not because he has performed fantastically but simply because he is the incumbent. Incumbency in Africa often guarantees 90 per cent success.

Buhari will be 76 plus by the time election holds in 2019. It is also unlikely that any young man or woman will emerge as a presidential candidate of any of the two major parties. If the youths think they will get a slot in any of the two parties as flag bearers they are just daydreaming. Presidential elections in Nigeria are an intricate web of intrigues, back stabbing, horse trading, violence or the threat of it and cash, I mean mountains of cash. Whoever we ordinary people vote for at the end of the day is ready, truly not our choice. They are the choice of the godfathers: the governor they will put them before us and we vote for them. That’s all.

For the 2019 elections the three most important issues we have been confronted with for the past three years will reoccur: Insecurity, corruption and unemployment or generally the economy. But because of these three issues and the current near importance of the states the issue of restructuring will loom large in the campaign and election agenda. The southern states and the Middles Belt states seem to be singing from the same hymn book on the matter of restructuring. Anyone who thinks that it is an ill wind that will soon blow away is obviously living in a fool’s paradise. Restructuring the country in a manner that will make it work and liberate the creative energies of our people in all corners of Nigeria is a duty that Nigeria owes itself. We have enough resources and manpower to have a much better country than this. But the current operating environment is the wedge, the roadblock, the hurdle of any meaningful progress. We the voters will like to know what those who want to rule us in 2019 think about the structure of the country. The APC has been dancing around the subject. We are still waiting for their stand on it so that we can decide whether they truly want change or not. For now the APC’s change is purely an exercise in sloganeering.