A latent war of attrition among PDP factional leader started with the pulling out of the late Bola Ige/Olu Falae group on the eve of the party’s registration in 1988. It did not become covert until the party’s takeover by retired Generals and their contractor fronts. Victory in the 1999 election and greed over sharing of spoils of victory only brought in more acrimony. Resentment among factional leaders at this point was tagged “family quarrel” because there was more than enough to go round. But by 2015, PDP had fought itself out of power. For a group driven by greed, that there might be nothing to share until probably after 2031 is the source of today’s bitterness and factional leaders’ resolve to fight to the bitter end.
Much as PDP anti-democratic fortune-seekers might wish to change the narrative, I am not sure Nigerians are deceived by the claim that the current renewed war of attrition is a patriotic attempt to protect democracy, or prevent President Tinubu from turning the country to a one-party state.
Is it not an irony that those who in 1993 buried democracy, promoted an unconstitutional Interim National Government, became beneficiary of sacrifices of NADECO, Civil Society Groups, journalists and other unsung Nigerians killed by Abacha soldiers, and then danced on the grave of MKO Abiola for 16 years without acknowledging his supreme sacrifice, now say they are soldiers of democracy?
It cannot get any more sardonic than the claim that President Tinubu, the arrow head of opposition to dictatorship and the only man left standing during Obasanjo 2003 “mainstreaming” crusade that led to PDP’s ‘land slide and sea slide victory in opposition strongholds’ (apology to Walter Ofonagoro) is today considered a threat to democracy?
There is no doubt Nigerians are worried about survival of democracy. How about the ongoing deliberate attempt by anti-democratic elements like Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi and others now in ADC, (Obasnajo’s special vehicle for disgruntled politicians) with history of moving from party to party at every election season in search of platform to mislead our youths below 30 years of age? This concern is perhaps what informed Nigerians who know that democracy thrives better under a multi-party system, to counsel PDP factional leaders on the virtue of negotiation which is an invaluable democratic ethos, instead of acquiring new war arsenals.
Concerned Nigerians had also expected the warring factions to have been sobered by INEC’s declaration of the controversial Ibadan Convention null and void, and the forced dislodgement of warring factional leaders and their thugs by the police from their Abuja Wadata Plaza headquarters which for a period became a battle field. However, with last Wednesday’s Wike-backed NWC announced dissolution of the party’s state executives in some states and the inauguration of a 19-member state caretaker committee, it is not difficult to conclude that neither survival of PDP nor democracy matter to Wike’s group or his opponents who are also digging in.
For instance, instead of Seyi Makinde, the newly appointed war leader seeking way to put his house in order after the Ibadan fiasco, he is trying to find a scape goat in President Tinubu. And without the courage to confront PDP demon, Kabiru Turaki, the Ibadan elected faction leader is seeking outside help to truncate two and half years old Tinubu’s administration. Nigerians can still hear the roaring ring of his desperate plea “I want to call on President Trump, what is at stake is not just genocide against Nigerian Christians, he should come and save democracy in Nigeria”. Turaki can be excused because a drowning man will hold to any straw.
But he has probably not heard about a Yoruba axiom that admonishes us to first study the apparel a man that promises us a new dress adorns. In his desperation, Turaki forgets that Trump was the first American President in 200 years to be impeached twice for sponsoring an attack on the Congress, the symbol of American democracy in a failed attempt to overturn an election he lost and a leader that has assaulted all democratic institutions since his re-election.
But much as we all want PDP to survive because democracy thrives better under multi-party system, the challenge is whether a party that has always been haunted by crisis of internal democracy can offer what it has not got. It is on record that Obasanjo was imposed by retired generals and northern ruling class as Yoruba candidate and eventually president in 1999. And as a leader who was roundly rejected by his Yoruba people even in his own polling booth, by becoming a president without a base, it can be said he literarily climbed the palm tree from the top.
And in power, Obasanjo who has always been a victim of messianic complex, publicly declared he was not obliged to listen to appointed advisers insisting he would rather listen “to the voice of God’. But deeply religious Nigerians agreed that it was the voice of someone else other than God that drove Obasanjo and Maurice Iwu to conduct the most scandalous elections in Nigeria in 2003 and 2007. In the 2003, the judiciary had to retrieve stolen mandates of governors of Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun from Obasanjo. In 2007, Umaru Yar’Adua the declared winner, was so scandalised by the extent of rigging that he set up the Justice Uwai’s commission to prevent a repeat of what happened under Obasanjo.
Besides Obasanjo, all PDP political actors are tarred with the same brush of anti-democrats. There were the 16 PDP governors who resorted to self-help after losing the Governors’ Forum election to Rotimi Amaechi; there was PDP gang of seven including Atiku Abubakar, Alhaji Baraje, Bukola Saraki and some governors that traded PDP for APC in 2015. In 2023, Atiku Abubarkar, Kwankwaso,and Peter Obi, out of greed, splintered PDP into three on the eve of an election, while Wike like his fellow sore losers, led his ‘integrity group ‘of five governors to Tinubu’s camp to spite Atiku.
But beyond actors, PDP itself is never a political party. The distinguishing characteristic of any political party is a consensus of members on identified values and principles. PDP and its factional leaders hardly agree on anything. PDP’s illegal sharing of our nation’s resources is often accompanied with acrimony. It was through their endless war of attrition that we knew about the mismanagement of the privatization programme under Atiku and El Rufai. Bukola Saraki was the whistle-blower in the fuel subsidy scam. Yar Adua and other PDP members told us Obasanjo spent between $10 and $13b on the energy sector that only brought darkness. It was from Chukwuma Soludo and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala the nation got to know the level of debauchery by PDP leaders under Jonathan presidency. The above facts confirmed the claim by many including former US envoy to Nigeria, that PDP is not a political party but an elite group that came together for the sharing of power and proceeds of oil.
But if Nigerians want to know the true colour of PDP and its ignoble leaders, all they need to do is sieve what Seyi Makinde, the new war commander of “PDP warriors of democracy” claimed to have discussed with the president from other aspects he did not disclose.
But first two quick anecdotes: Wike once told us long before the mass defection of PDP members to APC started that some governors who criticise President Tinubu openly often pay nocturnal visits to seek private favours. Makinde said he went to see the president in respect of expansion of Ibadan Airport. As a member of Council of State, he did not need Wike to see the president if expansion of Ibadan airport was the only agenda.
Makinde, like his fellow politicians is probably a man of many words because we can draw more conclusions from what he did not say than what he said. For instance, he started his narrative not from airport expansion but from where he told the president that Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, the man the president picked in place of his recommended ministerial nominee, did not have the capacity to mobilise APC party in Ibadan with the president challenging him by saying “ I want you to do the mobilization for me”.
For Makinde who supported the president in 2023 but currently not facing the challenges of re-election like his fellow PDP defectors, the president’s response was proof he coerced his colleagues to join APC and his rejection of the president’s request establishes his democratic credential and consolidates his position as commander of PDP warriors of democracy’!
I have been wondering if Makinde is confessing he and his defected colleagues can be so cheaply bought; how he expects Tinubu whose resourcefulness, political, brinkmanship and capacity for skilful exploitation of human infirmities has been acknowledged even by political foes, not to take advantage of politicians who behave like prostitutes with five husbands (apology to TOS Benson).
