It was an ugly spectacle. Dozens of men in well-laundered dresses and shimmering shoes filed out in the morning to enter the national secretariat of their party, Wadata Plaza, in the Zone 5 area of Abuja, for a meeting. They dressed like partygoers; some tucked their hands in the pockets of their Sunday dresses; others looked upset. There was hardly an exchange of banters expected from adults draped in such outfits befitting an important occasion. As they lined up to enter the beleaguered building, they were confronted by armed security men who had taken positions in different parts of the building and its surroundings. The security operatives, mostly policemen in battle gear, cut the image of men on a mission to repel an envisaged confrontation. Within minutes, there was pandemonium. The security agents refused to open the gate for some of the party men to enter the building. It became clear that the policemen were on an instruction to stop the rival politicians from entering the plaza. Obviously, one faction was using its power over the other to claim legitimacy for the landlord of Wadata Plaza. But the other faction was poised for resistance. There was a brawl. Some of the gentlemen who looked trim like guests at a wedding a few minutes earlier were hauled off the floor and thrown out like gate crashers.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was fighting the PDP.
Since losing the central power in 2015, the party has been experiencing the dark side of life. The platform has not got its bearings right since then.
Ahead of 2027, its aggrieved, angered, divided, and disorganised leaders are locked in acrimony. They dissipate so much energy to worsen the party’s internal conflicts instead of presenting themselves as a united force ready for ready to form a formidable opposition.
Reconciliation has totally broken down and more chieftains are cleverly jumping out of the sinking ship. That is now the fate of a party that loomed large for 16 years; the platform that produced three presidents – Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua, and Goodluck Jonathan.
The PDP collapsed during the 2022 presidential primary. The factors in that collapse are Atiku Abubakar and Waziri Tambuwal, serial defectors and returnees to the party; Wike, a cantarkerous, ambitious moneybag and an acclaimed party financier; and Iyorchia Ayu, an ethnically-inclined and regionally-biased national party chairman who pronounced the former Sokoto governor as the hero of the presidential convention, following the success of an intra-party coup that left the zoning question unanswered.
Some critics fear that the nation might be moving towards a gradual descent into a one-party state. The apprehension is unfounded as the constitution clearly makes Nigeria a multi-party, federal democracy. However, the opposition that should give operative content to the constitutional provision is floundering. That 27-year-old PDP is unable to put its house in order and reposition itself as a formidable alternative route is a disservice to the party system and plural democracy.
Although its factional convention was ill-timed and unnecessary, the Damagun group, backed by the three musketeers – Governors Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Bala Mohammed of Bauchi, and Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa – insisted on the thoughtless convention, despite serious warnings by discerning party stalwarts that the atmosphere was not right and more strategies were required to cross some hurdles.
Their suggestion that a national caretaker committee saddled with the responsibility of uniting the two divides was blatantly and uncritically ignored. Sensing the looming disaster, they stayed away.
Makinde appeared to be the moving spirit. He was the host and big financier who thought that the PDP should be preserved as an opposition that can bounce back. That altruism is polluted by a glaring presidential ambition, which is not a sin, but a source of concealed envy among his peers.
The fourth governor, Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau, was like an observer at the Ibadan gathering. The suspicion that his body is in the party while his soul is elsewhere has continued to grow. Right there at Adamasingba Stadium, the lack of factional cohesion also came to the fore.
The governors, definitely, were confused. The discomfort was visible. There was the feeling that something was amiss.
Midway, the convention ran into turbulence. The convention organising committee chairman, Fintiri, detected an error. He sought to correct it, but he failed to garner support. It paled into a failure of courage. The Adamawa helmsman reasoned that since officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were not on the ground to witness the jamboree, there was no point going ahead with the exercise.
He, therefore, threw the challenge at the delegates, who barely understood the implications. When another party leader mounted the podium to move a motion that the convention should continue, the crowd chorused “yes.” The opportunity for self-correction was bungled.
But the governors were not actually in one accord too. They were sharply divided over the critical matter of expulsion targeted at certain recalcitrant party colleagues, whose moles also witnessed the Ibadan gathering.
Many delegates, in utter gullibility, cheered the expulsion of 11 chieftains, including Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike, National Secretary Senator Samuel Anyanwu, former Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose, and National Organising Secretary Umar Bature.
But two governors frowned. Although they could not openly protest, they rejected the dismissal on their X handles.
The lack of agreement or cohesion set tongues wagging among other top leaders who applauded the rustication but could not find an explanation for its rejection by Fintiri and Mutfwang.
The Adamawa governor, a good friend of Wike, feared that the action could escalate the crisis, lead to further disintegration of the party and block the path to unity. His Plateau counterpart gave a better explanation. He said the expulsion was never discussed at any meeting of the seven-member PDP governors’ forum and the National Executive Committee (NEC).
That the two governors promptly dissociated themselves from the sanction underscored the lack of synergy and team spirit, and the absence of mutual understanding among the arrowheads or undertakers, as they are now aptly described, and unwillingness to collaborate without basis.
It means that PDP battles with multiple cracks, as manifested by the exit of the Atiku group to form a camouflage coalition, using African Democratic Congress (ADC) as a borrowed platform; the split into two factions, led by Wike/Anyanwu and Damagum/Turaki; and the manifestation of suspicion, distrust and broken confidence among members of the PDP Governors’ Forum.
At issue is the antagonist interest driving the different actions and positions taken by the warring PDP leaders. The core issue they are all responding to is the 2027 election. Today, they are working at cross purposes. After the presidential poll, which the PDP is not preparing to win, the gladiators would then retrace their steps from the perfidy, close ranks and embrace the reality that unity is the strength of a political party.
The question is: why can’t they come together now instead of coming together after the next poll? Can the three factions – Atiku of ADC, Wike/Anyanwu, and Damagum/Turaki – really do without one another?
Consequently, the convention paved the way for a further disaster instead of clearing the pathway to unity and understanding. It was organised amid contrasting court judgments, with the various armchair commentators within PDP indulging in false interpretations.
A Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice James Omotosho, halted the preparations on the ground that they violated the PDP constitution and the Electoral Act.
Another Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice Peter Lifu, ruled that the congress should not hold until former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, who was excluded from the chairmanship contest, is allowed to participate. The two court rulings were ignored.
But there was a cover. Party leaders leaned on the ex parte order delivered by Justice Ladiran Akintola of the Ibadan High Court, granted and later extended till December 8, when the tenure of Damagum and his divided NWC will expire.
That will be a defining day for the party in distress.
But there is a puzzle begging for a solution: would Turaki or Abdulrahman assume the reins as national chairman or acting national chairman?
Neither of the two factional leaders has been recognised by INEC, despite their show of shame on Monday at the Wadata Plaza national secretariat of the party, where their supporters engaged in a physical combat.
The solution, therefore, would lie with the courts, where legal fireworks are expected to resume next month. The claim of Damagun/Turaki camp is that the Supreme Court had ruled that the national convention is an internal affair and cannot be entertained by the court.
But the Wike/Anyanwu group has insisted that the process and provisions outlined by the party’s constitution and the Electoral Act should not be violated. The Wike/Anyanwu faction is being suspected by the Damagun/Anyanwu faction because Wike has declared his support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for a second term. Lamido continues to cry foul, saying the convention that excluded him was held in error by “small boys” who were not around when he and other gerontocrats were sweating to form the party in 1998, contrary to the judgment in his favour.
The division is likely to jeopardise the preparations for the Osun State governorship primary. Who conducts the primary between Turaki and Abdulrahman? Again, only the court can decide. But Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke, a PDP chieftain, is not leaving anything to chance. His application for defection has been turned down by the All Progressives Congress (APC) chapter. He has put on his thinking cap, liaising with other mushroom parties in a bid to avoid becoming “partyless”.
So far, no politician of repute has defected to the PDP. The main opposition party is being avoided like a plague, despite its vast taproots across the 774 local governments.
Will the party survive the current storm and stress? Only time, the silent monitor of human follies and foibles, will tell.
