The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may have had a head start on the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in electing its chairman and generally putting its house in order, but months down the line, there is little to suggest that that advantage has reasonably benefited the main opposition party. The party’s chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, is probably the main reason. When the party fixed its elective convention for October 2021, at a time the APC was engaged in one of the most elaborate and sustained political rigmarole ever, the country whooped with excitement. Should that elective convention hold, the country speculated, the PDP would prove itself rejuvenated and reinvigorated. And should they flawlessly elect their chairman and other national executives, despite the initial acrimony bifurcating their ranks, they could go on to mount perhaps a credible challenge to the dominance and suzerainty of the APC.

Not only did the PDP pull off a coup of the most extraordinary complexion, they did it with aplomb, too textbook to be believed. In retrospect, it looked like the party was all along engaged in a fairy tale adventure as implausible as flying to Mars and back in a day or two. Not only did they have a smooth convention and elected a chairman even more smoothly through consensus and affirmation, they went on to organise a presidential primary in May that made the APC green with envy. The incredibly smooth presidential primary seemed an even more incredible act for the APC to follow in June. Yes, that primary involved despairing compromises and horse trading of the most pernicious kind, but many party denizens put that outcome down to politics, as a matter of fact, realpolitik. Alas, when things look too smooth, it is perhaps time to be wary. Yes, they had two glorious conventions, and it even looked initially like all they needed to do was just paper over the cracks to give a semblance of unity, but the aftermath is now trying their souls sorely and also trying their patience badly.

More and more, the PDP leadership, particularly their presidential candidate, has become exasperated with that aftermath. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, said William Congreve. But with respect to the scorned runner-up in the presidential primary, Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike, hell’s fury is an incandescent rage. He is irate, bitter and, from all indications, inconsolable. He argues that though he feels pained being scorned, especially because it negated the party position on rotation of the presidency between North and South, he is embittered because of the manner he was corned and the demeaning reasons adduced by the presidential candidate, former vice president Atiku Abubakar, and other top PDP leaders. On the other side, however, he was rejected and conspired against, they suggested gamely, because the scorned Mr Wike lacked the carriage and temperament to preside over Nigeria should Alhaji Atiku, assuming he was elected, become incapacitated. Then they drove the knife in by dismissing him as flippant and lacking in gravitas, or something to that effect.

Now, no one liked to be spurned at all, let alone by those who by every definition are not one’s betters. But to be dismissed in uncomplimentary phrases will be difficult for anyone, let alone the supremely confident and witty Mr Wike, to live down. Consequently, he has made it difficult for reconciliation to be forged as quickly as possible. Mr Wike has kept the PDP leadership guessing what his next move might be, and he has alternated between lauding them one day and denigrating them the next. He has also flirted with the opposition and given hints he might not be too indisposed to defecting. He stopped just short of voicing that heresy. But he has acted it inexpertly, and done it with extravagant flourish during the commissioning of some projects in the state. Unable to make up his mind, and still miffed by the inability of the party leadership to cobble a peace deal with him, he has doubled down over his demands, chief among which is the resignation of the party chairman, the exceedingly ambivalent and now increasingly flighty Senator Ayu.

Few outside the PDP remembered that Sen. Ayu was close to Alhaji Atiku, and was thought to even be one of his confidants. At the presidential primary, the PDP chairman simply removed his gloves, rolled up his sleeves, and instead of remaining an arbiter, entered the primary fray on the side of the eventual winner. He helped the winner scheme, jostle and cajole delegates; and when the final tally was read out, he was uncharacteristically delirious with joy. He was quoted as making the inelegant statement describing Sokoto State governor Aminu Tambuwal, a former ally of Mr Wike, as the hero of the convention for being what the Rivers State governor’s camp labeled as a turncoat. Now, whined Mr Wike’s camp, Sen. Ayu wants to have his cake and eat it. Asked shortly after he was elected chairman whether he would step down should the party pick a northern candidate for the presidential election, he evasively suggested he would. It is true he did not make an unequivocal statement in that regard, and managed to leave many observers befuddled with his answers, but it was clear that those who heard him, not being too schooled in the dialectic of English semantics, went to bed assuming that the unprincipled former senate president would act nobly.

At a point in the past one week, he was thought to have actually resigned, with another former senate president David Mark thought to be in custody of the letter. Not so, said the chairman’s spokesman: should he deign to resign, he knew the process to follow, for he is a stickler for the fine arts of resigning plum jobs. The summary of the whole back and forth is that Sen. Ayu has not resigned, despite the resignation being probably the main reason blocking the rapprochement between Alhaji Atiku and Mr Wike. And surprise, except PDP leaders make it compulsory, the chairman will not resign, not now, not in the future, for as he put it, he was elected for four years. And if at all he would consider stepping down, he grunted, it would be after Ahaji Atiku had been elected president. And if he was not elected president, why, the inimitably ambivalent Sen. Ayu would find another excuse from his rich armamentarium. It is not for nothing that he has secured the reputation of being unprincipled and ambivalent.

Convalescing APC surprisingly unites, but…

While the opposition PDP appears frazzled by internal dissension, the ruling APC, initially thought to be irreparably damaged by its same-faith ticket, and terminally wounded by their leaders’ non-performing administration, has begun to convalesce. Now more united than it was last year, and more focused than the early starter PDP, it is perfecting its strategies far from the glare of publicity.

But the embers fanned by its acrimonious interim management team, which heralded their convention in March, are still smouldering. The anger is yet to be doused, and the crushed ambitions of disappointed aspirants left unassuaged. Overall, however, the APC is now doing far better than its beginnings suggested.

Nevertheless, the challenge that will prove the most difficult for them will be how they will convince the electorate during the campaigns that they can transcend the limiting and limited achievements of the current administration. There are some records to recommend the party, but the state of insecurity and the parlous condition of the economy will be their worst disincentive. Much more, paralysed by inaction and inflexibility, they will have a tougher time explaining why ASUU has been on strike for about six months and students kept idle at home.

Yes, the party is convalescing, but the process is slow, fitful and uninspiring. They have barely two months to make a difference if critics are not to begin suggesting that the APC leadership is deliberately setting up their party to fail next February.