The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, yesterday pledged that the leadership of the party would not waver in the task of effecting the needed reforms.
He restated the party’s commitment to seeking peace, unity and reconciliation among the membership.
The party chairman said: “There is no going back in this struggle to entrench democracy and good governance in our country. No going back in seeking peace, unity and reconciliation of our differences.
“I want all of you to understand where our family is and the family will always adjust and move forward and do what is in the best interest of the family.
“I can assure you of our journey to rebuilding our party based on equity and justice in which there is no going back. We will entrench a process of election, and not selection. Our philosophy remains consensus and not imposition.
“When you have a strong united and peaceful political party you are sure of having a good developmental programme for the nation”.
Tukur stated this yesterday when some interest groups visited the party’s secretariat.
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has taken a swipe at five northern governors for allegedly calling for his removal from office.
Tukur described Governors Sule Lamido (Jigawa); Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano); Babangida Aliyu (Niger); Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto); and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) as lacking in wisdom, caution, prudence and good counsel.
The PDP chairman’s reaction was based on reports in some national dailies that the governors had demanded his removal from office at a private meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan last weekend.
In a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Media, Prince Olver Okpala, on Tuesday, Tukur said the actions and unguarded utterances of the governors were capable of heightening political tension in the land.
The statement said: “The recent visit by some governors from the north to the President has raised furore, although the discussion between the President and the governors was held behind closed-doors, the media has been awash with the news of the meeting and the issues discussed.
“Media reports have it that the four governors who had earlier visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo and two former military heads of state demanded the removal of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as the national chairman of the PDP.
“We do not know the veracity of this claim, suffice it to say however that, the governors have the fundamental right to meet and discuss among themselves and whomsoever they like and may also have the fundamental right to freedom of speech and to air their views on any issue of national importance.
“However, in so doing one would expect them to make comments with decorum, humility and caution. As leaders whom the general public look upon as role models, they are expected to show respect for constituted authority and the elders, which include Alhaji Bamanga Tukur who have contributed immensely to the peace, progress, development and advancement of this country.
“Much as the constitution guarantees certain fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of speech and assembly, there are constitutional limitations to these freedoms.
“The leaders should show wisdom, caution, prudence and good counsel in their comments on national issues as their unguarded utterances and calls can cause unnecessary political tension.”
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur; on Thursday said the party would reclaim the South-West in the 2015 elections.
Tukur made this known when he inaugurated Gov. Seriake Dickson – led 30-man National Reconciliation Committee.
He said the PDP was determined to reclaim the South-West, saying it was painful that the zone, excluding Lagos which used to be under PDP was now under the opposition party.
The chairman attributed the crisis in the zone and some parts of the country to the inability of its members to manage past successes.
He, therefore, charged party members in the South-West particularly to work harder to ensure victory for the party in the zone and to bring Edo back to the party.
Tukur said the reconciliation of aggrieved members was critical to ensure that the party reclaimed the South-West in 2015 elections. “There is no gainsaying that we need reconciliation to be our guide for the success of the party ahead of the next election,’’ Tukur said.
He said the committee was a critical necessity to hasten the realisation of “quick wins’’ in the party reconciliation platform.
Aside the South-West, Tukur identified Anambra and Imo, South-East; Edo, South-South; Nasarawa, North-Central; Borno and Yobe, North-East; and Zamfara, North-West; as areas of concentration for the committee.
Responding on behalf of other committee members, Dickson described PDP as the strongest force holding the country together, irrespective of its diversity and threat to its existence.
According to him, a large platform such as the PDP cannot be devoid of tendencies of conflict of interest and all manners of crisis from time to time.
Dickson, therefore, tasked political players to play the game according to the rule of engagement.
He thanked the party leadership for appreciating the need for peace across the country and the confidence reposed on the members.
The governor urged the party members to work with the committee to make it stronger to ensure its electoral victory.
“As party members, we must be credible, discipline, fair and firm and improve our mechanism for internal democracy for the selection of party candidate.’’ Dickson said.
He expressed optimism that though the assignment was challenging it would deliver on its mandate because of the calibre of its members.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the committee is expected to facilitate the reconciliation of party members and leaders in target states, particularly non-PDP states.
It is to provide the template that will make the party organise credible primaries and select candidates for elections.
It is expected that the committee will support and work closely with similar committees that had earlier been constituted by the party.
Alhaji Asheik Jarma and Mr Umar Damagun, will serve as the Deputy Chairman and Secretary of the committee, respectively.
The crisis of confidence between the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and Chairman of the party’s special convention committee, Prof. Jerry Gana, appeared to have been resolved.
The Tukur led National Working Committee (NWC) held a meeting with Gana’s committee at PDP secretariat on Monday where the two parties agreed to reschedule the special convention earlier fixed for August 31 by the convention committee.
The meeting was held at the instance of President Goodluck Jonathan.
The convention date had been changed on two occasions. New dates for the national convention and the Southwest congress are expected to be announced at an expanded meeting of the party’s leadership on Wednesday.
Tukur, had in the heat of the disagreement last week, announced the suspension of the committee’s programme as announced by the Gana, a development that necessitated the intervention of President Jonathan.
Speaking with journalists shortly after the meeting, Tukur said the issues affecting the conduct of the forth coming convention had been ironed out and disagreements over the matter resolved.
Gana, who also spoke after the meeting, corroborated Tukur’s position, saying that the party leaders had agreed to sink their differences and move ahead in the overall interest of the party.
Also present at the meeting were the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, who is the secretary of the Gana committee; Governor Godswill Akpabio who is the committee’s deputy chairman; and a former chairman of the PDP, Dr. Haliru Bello Mohammed.
Is the party over? It is necessary and even mandatory in the light of the current ruptures and eruptions in the dominant party structure in post-military Nigeria to take a closer look at the military origins of party formation in the post-military Fourth Republic. This is with a view to determining the origins of the current crisis of party formation in contemporary Nigerian politics and the possible ways out of the historic gridlock.
To be sure, this exercise has little or nothing to do with whether Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the embattled chairman of the PDP, survives the throne of bayonets. Whatever his tragic illusions of grandeur, Tukur is a mere epiphenomenon in a consuming and engrossing dance of the political forest. If he is able to see himself as he truly is, or the situation as it really is, then there would be no need for what is known as dramatic irony.
Like President Jonathan, Tukur himself is a a product of a determinate historical process which must eventually unravel before our very eyes. The fate of the nation is far more important than the fate of two individuals however important or self-important. It is this process and the political occlusions as they violently unfurl that must be of concern to patriotic Nigerians.
Just as individuals suffer from what is known as post traumatic stress disorder, so do societies. Nigeria suffers and has continued to suffer from the stress and traumatic disorder of post-military rule. If the worst afflicted is the ruling party, the other party formations also suffer from the stress and roiling contradictions to a lesser degree.
A dispassionate analysis of the crisis must also take on board the current efforts of opposition parties, spearheaded by the ACN and the CPC, to form a broad-based alliance against the ruling party. The opposition must take more than a passing interest in developments in other African countries and the mixed results so far.
Whereas in Guinea, Senegal and the Benin Republic, the stitching together of various and seemingly incompatible political tendencies succeeded in upending the status quo and inaugurating a new social order, in Zimbabwe it led to an abominable compromise and tense power-sharing while in Kenya it eventuated in civil war and near genocide. The last presidential election in Kenya merely showcased the bitter ethnic divisions in the nation.
In Zimbabwe, the old wizard of Harare still continues to rule the roost even as the opposition has become a butt of joke and bitter derision. By the time the wily and obdurate Robert Mugabe was done with it, the opposition had lost so much ground and prestige that at the moment it is no longer in a position to mount a challenge in the name of freedom and democracy.. With the scion of Karamoja Odinga Oginga still sulking and with the son of Jomo Kenyatta a presidential fugitive from international justice, Kenya remains a seething volcano.
There are many who believe in retrospect that Nigeria would have been spared its current post-military trauma had the old opposition coalition that fought the military junta to a standstill remained steadfast in its insistence that nothing good could come out of a post-military Nigeria without a major restructuring and reconfiguration of its top-heavy and lopsided political structure.
By jettisoning its original demand for a national conference before meaningful elections could be held, the opposition fell for a military sucker punch which made it a willing tool and accomplice in a power game for which it was particularly ill-suited and ill-equipped. The old masters simply overran and overpowered it. The result is a military ordained party in perpetual power with all its democracy threatening toxic side effects.
The hardnosed and hard-headed pragmatists dismiss this rosy view as touching in its idyllic naivete. One, it ignores the realities on ground. Second, it overlooks the balance of power even as the military shambled away in disorderly and disorganised retreat having exhausted its political and historic possibilities. It was not the civilian agitators that got rid of General Sani Abacha. It was the military themselves. It was not the NADECO insurgents that summarily eliminated Abiola. It was the culmination of the original move to clear the political deck of its human cobwebs.
NADECO and its allies merely panicked and pressurised the military establishment to come up with a fresh initiative. In other words, the departing military still retained the initiative. Hobbled by struggle-fatigue, riven by internal divisions and dissensions and with its international source of funding about to dramatically evaporate since the global donor community were aware of its limits and limitations, the opposition could only meekly comply.
It was not cut in the mould of an ANC which had the cohesion, the capacity and the superior organisational ability to wage a long-distance struggle. In any case, the strength and disposition of the enemy often crystallises the strength and disposition of the adversary. Unlike the apartheid monstrosity which had the ideological solidity, the political clarity and institutionalised memory about the kind of society it was creating, the Nigerian military never came up with a set of coherent ideas about a new type of society with the military as its arrowhead beyond its reliance on sheer brute force.
Both the Babangida and the Abacha Transition Programmes were exercises in sustained brutal duplicity unleavened by neither redeeming vision nor intellectual sagacity. Once the vice grip of each on the levers of power and brute force was prised apart, it was easy for either to briskly unravel.
But what the military echelons lacked in intellectual sophistication and ideological subtlety, they made up for in raw political cunning. Despite its loss of prestige and authority and the sudden death of its leader, the military after Abacha remained the dominant political party in the nation. Babangida, Abacha and Abubakar to a lesser extent knew the Nigerian political class and had them solidly within their rifle sight, so to say.
It is useful to recall that in his maiden broadcast to the nation, General Abubakar had pledged to continue with the Abacha Transition Programme. It was a remarkable howler. But the Minna-born soldier quickly changed his mind once the master puppeteer behind the veil ticked him off. Without Abacha’s savage repression, his transition programme was dead on arrival. So were the league of elected charlatans.
But you cannot bequeath what you don’t have. What the military was looking for were not visionary idealists or transformative leaders who could take Nigeria to the next level but politically correct journeymen sworn to protect the status quo. People who could be relied upon to indemnify the retreating army against loss and loss of face. It is to be noted that it was not NADECO leaders who began immediately crisscrossing the country to identify and plot with the pair of safe hands but members of the old military aristocracy.
Thus was born the PDP and by extension the Obasanjo presidency as a protective shield for the retreating military and as a grand cartel for the protection and furtherance of the interests of the monied plutocracy thrown up by military rule as well as the old oligarchy. It is to be noted that 20 years earlier, the NPN was born in chillingly similar circumstances and very much for the same purpose.
It is to be noted that in the run up to the presidential election of 1999, General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma famously noted that that although the Yoruba people had been asked to produce the next king, they could not be kingmakers in their own cause, Thus a strange king was procured for the Yoruba people even as the king lost in his own ward. Twenty years earlier, Obasanjo himself as military head of state had even more famously observed that the best person would not always win a contest.
In contrast, when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was told about the ambition of a former military ruler of the old west to join the partisan political fray, the old man had tersely responded that while he was not interested in probing the military as an institution, individual members who chose to join partisan politics would have their background subjected to searching scrutiny. Obasanjo would have chuckled to himself. The old man still didn’t get it. It was the shortest and sharpest political suicide note in Nigerian history.
So it is then that we are faced with the conundrum of a party which was not founded on the premises of national development or rapid transformation but on the platform of sheer racketeering and privilege pimping. Can the PDP give what it doesn’t have? Can it take Nigeria to the next level? While the PDP must be commended for its policy of demilitarisation through cooptation, it has also re-militarised the polity through its politics of harsh regimentation and its garrison mentality.
This is what is currently playing out with seismic reverberations across the length and breadth of the country. It is not a revolutionary upheaval but the volcanic implosion of a party that has come face to face with the fatal contradictions of its origins, roots and foundation in military autocracy and the transformative, politically redemptive yearnings of most Nigerians.
The nation-threatening explosions will go on for quite some time until the PDP is put out of its misery by a pan-Nigerian ensemble. Obasanjo who drove away the original founders has himself been driven to the outer margins of the party. This last week, in a futile show of sterile impotence, the party’s South West caucus endorsed Jonathan’s re-election bid without the former president’s input. It doesn’t get more bitterly ironic. And it is morning yet on the day of traumatic transition from military despotism to true democracy. It didn’t start raining yesterday.
No doubt, the crisis rocking the once-powerful Nigeria Governors’ Forum has not only exposed the abysmal pettiness
in Nigeria’s high places, it has also brought to the fore, the hidden truth about how dirty our politics has become. It is bad enough that an election involving presumably thirty-five wise men from different parts of the country has torn the NGF into shreds. Aside the cheap lies and bare-faced deceptions at play, the low in all this is that some characters simply don’t know when to bury their heads in shame and concede defeat. Okay, maybe the NGF, an association of first citizens of the nation’s 36 states, is not particularly popular among Nigerians who, rightly so, see it as vainly political and a distraction to grassroots governance as these state chief executives always troop to Abuja for one meeting or the other. But no one can deny the fact that it has also played crucial role in instilling sanity into a system that gives the Presidency the power to hire and fire, sustain life or choke it to death. But then, that is a topic for another day.
Back to the subject of discourse. AlhajiBamangaTukur and his co-travellers in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party may find it convenient to live in self-denial, regaling in the throes of “not only being in office but also being in power.” With his age and experience, I would have thought Tukur should have been cautious in declaring that “in the PDP, there is no vacancy in the national chairmanship.” That, to my mind, gives the impression that he does not appreciate the enormous challenges before him. Holding down the position of national chairman of a behemoth called the PDP is not the same thing as barking orders as the Chairman of a Business Roundtable. It does not matter if you are privileged to have a vote of confidence certificate, duly signed by the President, in your flowing babanriga. Countless others have relied on that piece of paper only to bite the dust days shortly thereafter, with the President being the chief executor of their ouster. In the PDP, more than any other political party in Nigeria, that is the norm!
The discomfiting truth is that our politics is deceptively slimy (apologies to ChinamandaAdichie) and riddled with lies. Even the so-called manifesto of our ruling party sits on a farcical pedestal, remaining largely inoperable and mostly irrelevant to the need and expectations of the silent majority of citizens. Now, people have asked: why is it difficult for 36 First Citizens to conduct a free, fair and credible election that would see to the emergence of one of them as Chairman? The answer is not that simple. First, it is clear that these strange bedfellows are not sold to the time-tested democratic credo of one man, one vote. Second, only a handful is prepared to live by the truth and shame a lying devil. Third, many are subservient to the directives of forces outside that gathering. And that, I hasten to point out, must include President GoodluckEbele Jonathan’s frenetic interest in the outcome of the election, despite the denial of his involvement by his band of spokesmen. If anything, we must admit that the NGF is crippled today because of the groundswell of deceit that it has been buffeted with. Intrigues, political manipulations and unabashed lying have combined to deepen the confusion in the land.
Today, hardly can one get a straight-forward, simple as ABC answer regarding what actually transpired when the governors converged on Rivers State Government Lodge in Abuja on May 25. And it should bother us that sifting the truth from this harvest of lies is not an enviable task. Just the other day, Ondo State Governor, Olusegun Mimiko, a man who grabbed victory from the jaws of a harrowing defeat after a fierce battle at the court and in a ballot, dared anyone to produce a video showing him voting. He spoke about a paper endorsing Governor Jonah Jang as the ‘authentic’ Chairman of the NGF through ‘consensus’. Yet he never denied voting. Bauchi State’s Isa Yuguda and Benue’s Gabriel Suswam have been whining about how their colleagues from the North betrayed them and have actually carried out their threat to pull out of the region’s governors’ forum. In all the posturing, they never denied voting neither did they deny witnessing the counting of votes and the declaration of Rivers’ RotimiAmaechi as winner by 19 votes to Jang’s 16. It is really curious that the loser in this game of numbers has quickly rushed to establish a factional office of a forum involving governors from different political parties. He danced naked to the altar of deception, thanking his god for a victory that was never his. Pity.
Besides, it’s dumb logic for anyone to assume that an endorsement of a candidate translates into electoral victory. They ignored the fact that anything is possible in a secret ballot. Nothing stops those forced to endorse a particular candidate from changing their mind at the last minute, when there are no prying eyes to report to the Oga at the top. That, I guess, could only be the logical explanation for the shortfall in the anticipated 19 ‘sure’ ballots for Jang which catastrophically fell short of three. Besides, why should anyone be compelled or blackmailed into signing an endorsement paper if we are to believe the fable that Jonathan is disinterested in whoever emerges as chair of the NGF? And if Jang claims that he has the backing of majority of the governors, why has he not surpassed the 16 representations that have been attending his factional meetings in Abuja?
Seriously, I am beginning to believe RabiuKwankwaso’s testimony that the Jang camp lost because it is made up of neophytes in Nigeria’s political terrain. There is no point crying wolf when they ‘reluctantly’ agreed to participate in the election. Reluctance is one thing, dissension is another. By participating in the election, members of the Jang gang ought to know that they had subsumed whatever power was contained in the piece of paper they now bandy as ‘evidence’ of Jang’s leadership. That is cheap and unsustainable, especially as some of the governors they thought were on their side had come out to fault that assumption. In the past week, SuleLamido of Jigawa, AliyuWamakko of Sokoto, AliyuBabangida of Niger and Kwankwasohavemade spirited efforts to put the records straight. At least, common sense dictates that the sour losers in the President’s camp should believe the accounts rendered by their own party men if they do not see any sense in the election video released by OgbeniRauf Aregebesola of Osun, the revelations made by KayodeFayemi of Ekiti and RajiFashola of Lagos who has equally filed a case against the Jang faction at the an Abuja court.
Now, what these persons say may not be palatable news for those who are quick in labelling the governance style of the opposition as tyrannical, but it will sure save the ruling party from the looming free fall if its leaders take the time to listen to their anguished cry. First, they must accept the fact that Amaechi won because the PDP, as a house divided against itself with an incompetent leadership that chokes dissenting voices, couldn’t have approached the NGF election with block votes. Of course, the opposition simply took advantage of that lapse. Second, the party leadership needs to shed its excesses. And that is possible if a boastful Bamanga can be told, in clear terms, that it could be true that he is “running” affairs at Wadata House but he is running it into ruination with his village headmaster approach to party management. Third, the blind pursuit of the downfall of Amaechi to massage the ego of some persons will end up plunging the party into deeper mess. No doubt, the effect of this is deleterious to the already unstable health of the ruling party.
In the past, I have repeatedly cautioned the party against toeing the self-destruct lane. But it appears it is perennially sold to the lie that, as Africa’s largest political party, it is immune to defeat. If the results of the 2011 election were anything to go by, then the PDP had better prepare for a rout in 2015. Of course, they can ignore the warning signs by relying on Jonathan’s words that the party knows how to come together and consolidate before any general election. That may be true. It is just that the party has never witnessed this kind of internal crisis in its chequered history. The last minute abracadabra seems set to fail this time. And instead of sitting down to address grievances, some persons are boasting about being in office and in power while everything around them is crumbling like a pack of cards. No deceit could be grander than this. Or are we to believe that these persons are merely preparing the ground for the fertilisation of Kwankwaso’s statement that “some people must make mistakes; big, big mistakes” before they are silenced by the emergence of an alternative to the ruining team? If that is the case, then let the lie and deceptions continue. Let them continue building their castles in the air, with lies and deceit as foundation. For how long will they keep on patching a gaping crack that needs a permanent fix? Why is the PDP always running from its shadow?
“Elections should be a free and fair affair. So, it is wrong for anyone or group to threaten to go to war over election. It is about people making their choice.
Everyone is free to offer himself for election, but it is the duty of the people to choose whoever they want.”- The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, on the threat made by ex-Niger Delta militant, Asari Dokubo if President Jonathan is not re-elected in 2015.
The National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, on Friday sacked all his personal and political aides, citing the need to reorganise his office for effective service delivery as the reason.
News of the sack was contained in a statement issued and signed by Tukur on Friday in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the sacked aides included 12 special advisers and one principal secretary.
They are the Principal Secretary, Sen. Ibrahim Ida; Political Adviser Alhaji Ahmed Gusau; Special Adviser, Electoral Matters, Sen. Saidu Kumo and the Special Adviser on Media , Malam Mohammed Ujdud Sheriff.
Others included the Special Adviser, Economic Matters, Chief O. Akindele; the Special Adviser, Inter -Party Affairs, Alhaji Shittu Mohammed; the Special Adviser, Security Matters, Sir Mike Okiro and the Special Adviser Mobilisation, Mr Ishola Filani.
The rest were the Special Adviser, Monitoring, Mr Bennard Miko; the Special Adviser on Governance, Mr Osaro Onaiwu and the Special Adviser, General Duties, Prince Igwe Uche.
Also sacked were the Special Adviser, National Assembly, Malam Abdullahi Gumel and the Special Adviser, Special Duties and Protocol Officer, Malam Saidu Sulaiman.
The statement quoted Tukur as saying that; “after one year in office, the political journey was interesting, challenging and I am better equipped in the general understanding and approaches of the operating system.’’
He said he was also better equipped in the relationships between the party, the Executive and the Legislature as well as in other components of political governance.
“There is no doubt that the multiplier effect of Nigerian democracy has been quite impressive, particularly in the general overview of the scenarios and encounters.
“Informed by this necessity to reorganise my office for service delivery, I therefore relieved all my political and personal aides of their appointments.”
Tukur, however, thanked the aides for their devotion, patience, cooperation and endurance in the course of serving the party.
The fear expressed on Monday by the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, on the state of the party, seems to point to the daunting task before it in planning to consolidate its hold on the national political structure. Assistant Editors AUGUSTINE AVWODE and DADA ALADELOKUN examine the state of the polity just one year after the last general elections.
Monday’s lamentation by the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) Alhaji Bamanga Tukur may not be life-threatening for the party, but is sufficiently ominous for members to ponder its significance. The PDP, since its inception in 1998, has commanded a large following across the country. Its string of electoral successes, by whatever means, positioned it as the party of destination for many politicians in the different parts of the country.
In the 13 years since the return to democratic governance in 1999, the PDP has controlled the Federal Government, majority of the states and local governments.
In the 1999 general elections, the party won in a landslide fashion. It not only won the presidential election, it won the governorship election in 21 states, 59 Senatorial and 206 House of Representativesseats.
In 2003 the party was credited with more votes as it produced the president and 28 governors, leaving the remaining political parties with control of eight states. The PDP swept through the Southwest in one of the most vicious electoral heists recorded in the country. At the end of the day, only former governor of Lagos State Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was left standing.
The PDP also defeated the All Nigeria People Party(ANPP) in Kogi and Kwara States. It however, lost to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Anambra State when Dr. Chris Ngige’s election was overturned by the Appeal Court sitting in Enugu on March 15, 2006.
Buoyed up by the ‘fantastic performance’ of the party, the PDP national chairman, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, declared in 2009, that the party would rule for 60 years. The statement instantly elicited sharp criticisms from the opposition which alleged that the PDP was trying to rob salt into injury since it was generally perceived that it had perfected a rigging formula which the opposition could not unravel.
But, undaunted by the criticisms and condemnation, one-time interim chairman of the party, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, declared that the party would, in fact, rule Nigeria forever. Baraje reportedly made the statement while inaugurating a committee to review the party’s constitution in Abuja in 2011. He said it would be near impossible to wrest the nation’s governance from the grip of the PDP because of the “satisfactory performance” of the party’s elected officials.
Following the seemingly “electoral invincibility” of the party, it started calling itself the largest and biggest party in Africa.
At the height of it, governors found it convenient to dump their parties without as much as blinking an eye to join the ‘ruling party’. And the PDP in turn received such defecting governors with much fanfare, saying it was politically sagacious for states not to be in the “opposition”.
A twist in the tale
As the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) notched up one legal victory after the other, it became apparent that the claim of near invincibility was only temporary. In the 2011 general election, the opposition cut the PDP’s dominance to size in a considerable manner that sent jitters down the spine of the ruling party.
For the first time, the opposition’s impact was felt in the polity in a way it never happened since 1999. The election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Aminu Tambuwah was made possible largely because of the resolve of the opposition not to dance to the dictates of the Presidency and the party over the choice of who becomes the number Four Citizen.
Whereas the Presidency and the PDP preferred Hon Mulikat Akande, the House went for Tambuwah and had its way even with top chieftains of the PDP watching proceedings from the gallery.
Apart from losing the six Southwest states to both the ACN and the Labour Party; in the Southeast, it lost Imo to APGA; lost Edo to the ACN in the Southsouth but won Kano from the ANPP.
Today, defection, for the once-acclaimed “big happy family” seemingly protected from the elements by an equally “big umbrella”, is a source of major concern for the leadership of the party. The party’s Achilles heel is internal wrangling which has spurned much discontent and subsequent defection from it to even less-appealing parties.
To Tukur, the effects of factional crisis within the party is gradually taking a big toll on it as it is losing members. And as a measure to halt the drift and end the trend Tukur has been preaching total reconciliation and reintegration of disgruntled members.
As he attempted to save the party from itself in Kano, Tukur set up an eight-man committee led by the former Minister of Culture, Alabo Graham Douglas, to reconcile the factional group in the state.
It was while inaugurating the Graham Douglas committee, that he voiced the “truth of the matter”. Tukur conceded, for whatever reason, that: “Our party is losing membership due to this crisis. It was not like this when we started this party. People left the party due to several misunderstanding. There are many factions within the PDP. It is the duty of this committee to reconcile them and bring them under one big umbrella.”
The implication of living with continuous crisis is patently clear and the grand old man admitted it. To him, the party cannot win elections as long as internal crises persist in the party.
His words: “I don’t want crisis in PDP. We lost elections because of factions, misunderstanding. We cannot continue like this. It is one of the cardinal principles of campaign to ensure reconciliations within the party. When we reconcile, we build the party, peace, unity and justice.”
Tukur explained that though there are bound to be crises in PDP because of its large followership, but where such crisis are left unaddressed, there would be problem during election period, hence the need to commence the reconciliation now.
Crises-ridden chapters
Many state chapters of the PDP are badly fractured by internal crises. The case of Ogun State in the Southwest is so pronounced that it has been blamed as the cause of the party’s miserable performance in the 2011 general election. So far, all efforts to end it and forge a common front in the party within the state have failed to yield positive result. While some claim that there are as many as four factions of the party in the state, others say they are only three or two.
The prominent factions are those loyal to former President Olusegun Obasanjo; former governor Gbenga Daniel and Chief Kashamu Buruji. Recently, there have been accusation and counter accusation over allegation that the factional leader of the party, Kashamu is the one fuelling the crisis, just as the Kashamu camp equally alleged that Obasanjo was the one “killing” the party in the state.
The crisis which predates the 2011 election led to the emergence of a new party, the Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN). Since then, it has been a case of the falcon failing to hear the falconer for the party’s chapter in the state. And as if to confirm the fears of Tukur, three lawmakers in the Ogun State House of Assembly elected on the platform of the PDP on Tuesday defected to the ACN. The defectors are Adeyemi Harrison (ogun-Waterside), Olusola Sonuga (Ikenne) and Babatunde Edunjobi (Egbado South). As to be expected, they claimed that the crisis in the PDP is one of the reasons why they left the party.
As the crisis in Ogun PDP persists, it may be a tall order to reclaim the state from ACN if it fails to put its house in order before the next election.
In Edo State, the crisis that engulfed the state for almost four years led to the trouncing of the party in the recent governorship election in the state by the ACN. Though the triumph of the ruling ACN was predictable, owing to the sterling performance of Governor Adams Oshiomhole, the defeat of the PDP was made all the more pronounced by the fact that the chapter had been paralysed by internal crises. Nobody knew that the ACN would defeat the PDP with such a large margin so much so that the national and state leadership of the party deemed it unnecessary to challenge the result in court.
In Anambra State, almost all the people who emergee flag bearers for other parties were former members of the PDP. The Senator representing Anambra Central today, Senator Chris Ngige, was a former governor of the state on the platform of the PDP. Less than two months ago, another Senator who served on the platform of the PDP in the state, Annie Okonkwo, dumped the party for APGA.
In Oyo State, prominent members of the PDP have dumped the party for Accord. It was regarded as unprecedented that, after election, members of a bigger party would defect to a smaller political party.
The crisis of confidence rocking the Bayelsa chapter is yet to subside as former Governor Timipre Sylva and his supporters remain implacably opposed to the new administration. In Plateau State, Governor Jonah Jang is in charge. He demonstrated his political sagacity at the polls last year despite the broad division that saw a horde of members defect to the Labour Party with former Deputy Governor Pauline Tallen. After the election, many of those who took sides with Tallen are making efforts to return but have been told to stay away by the governor who is leader of the party. This is contrary to the position of the Tukur leadership preaching reconciliation.
In Ekiti State, the return of former Governor Ayo fayose to the party is causing ripples, as the zonal leader of the party, Mr. Oni would not brood the development. This is reportedly keeping away many of those who would have loved to return to the party in the state
These are just some of the many states where internal crisis has remained the major bane of the party and therefore threatening its good fortune, particularly, the 2015 general election.
No cause for alarm
Any apprehension over the future of PDP, especially as regards the 2015 polls, to the party’s chairman in Ekiti State, Chief Makanjuola Ogundipe, “is the imagination of the party’s opposition.”
Ogundipe, who spoke with The Nation yesterday, said that contrary to such negative insinuations, the party was waxing stronger. ‘In fact, it is not all about 2015; it is about the fact that the party remains the one in the eyes of the people. It is as solid as ever.
‘If two or three persons defected in Ogun State, it is, numerically speaking, insignificant; it has nothing negative to do with the stature of the party. Besides, these are politicians. So, it is nothing to cry about. We are on ground and will win any election any day.’
The Director of Media for PDP in Osun State, Mr. Diran Odeyemi, dismissed fears being nursed in certain quarters over the future of the party. Making particular reference to the defection on Tuesday, of three Ogun State PDP lawmakers to the ACN as well as other such defections, he said: ‘There is nothing to worry about over that; it is normal in politics. What about thousands that have in the past defected to PDP from other parties? And it must be noted that many do defect to the party of the moment at any level possibly to get contracts and curry other such favours from the government of the day. Besides, as we speak, thousand are defecting to PDP today somewhere on Osun State where I stay. It is nothing to feel worried about. Our party remains strong and the one to beat.’
Then, The Nation asked: “But sincerely, do you think your party, the PDP stands any chance in 2015, going by the fears expressed by its national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, earlier in the week?” Odeyemi’s response: “I often laugh off such fears whenever anybody expresses them over PDP and 2015. It is laughable because the party remains rock-solid and will come tops in any election, either in 2015, before or beyond. It is all about the pedigree of the emerging candidates in such elections. It is about what he or she can offer the people. So, PDP is not undergoing any peculiar problem that could threaten its chance in 2015; we are fully on ground.”
But with the determination by opposition parties to sink their differences and form a formidable alliance to confront the PDP in 2015, will the party’s fortune blossom or suffer reversal? Only time can tell.
