IN a statement last Sunday by his Special Adviser on Media, Governor Seriake Dickson suggested to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which was about to conduct its national convention yesterday, not to focus entirely on the convention but to shift their gaze in the direction of recapturing the presidency in 2019. The convention, he advised, must be seen as a means to an end. According to him: “…And let me use this opportunity to caution our party leaders across the country. I hope we are not focusing too much on this convention instead of focusing on winning federal power. I think we should be strategic and focused and think of how to get an acceptable candidate through a fair process for all the zones; in a process that is open to all the three zones of the North so that we can get somebody who would have the support to win the presidency for us. That is the key thing. So, I advise that people should not see the forthcoming national convention as an end in itself. People should see it rather as a means to an end. Nevertheless, the convention is important because we need to get it right; the process itself must be right and the outcome should also be acceptable so that we can now move to the next stage.”
Why Mr Dickson interpreted his party’s frenzied moves to conduct a successful national elective convention as being too preoccupied with it to the detriment of the 2019 presidential election is difficult to tell. While it is true that the party is consumed by a desire to make the convention successful, and was even more captivated by the dynamics of zoning and electing its chairman, it is even truer that everything party leaders and members did before the convention was predicated on the 2019 polls rather than merely conducting a successful convention. That objective was plain to everybody to see, including the Bayelsa State governor, had he looked more closely.
Even if Mr Dickson misread what should be his party’s priority, prematurely talking of producing an acceptable standard-bearer for the presidential election when that process was still about a year away, he was nevertheless right to argue that the convention should be seen as a means to an end, and that their success in the coming polls must be anchored on a successful convention outcome. But, like all PDP leaders, Mr Dickson is also obsessed with the 2019 presidential poll and desperate to get the party back in Aso Villa. Yet, neither he nor any other PDP leader has spoken of the purpose of ‘reclaiming’ Aso Villa, nor of the lessons learnt in losing the coveted seat.
They have ignored the salient issues of national vision, national ambition, and national ideology. For the 16 years they occupied the presidential office, they did not seem perturbed by the laxity they showed in pursuing great national, awe-inspiring goals, nor penitent about their appalling misuse of power, nor yet crushed by the obvious fact that they left the country poorer and more chaotic than they met it. Now, they are desperate to return to Aso Villa without the mortifying agency of the introspection and remorse necessary to remake and renew the country.
This piece was written a day before the PDP convention. It is not clear whether among the grand speeches at the convention some speakers would be heard to reflect on what the party did wrong in office and how to redress that wrong and strategise their way into office. It is also not clear whether the new chairman, who will be the most powerful man in the party for as long as the PDP would not be in Aso Villa, would mastermind the rediscovery of the party’s self-confidence and inner strength, and put the machinery in motion to reform and reclaim public confidence in the party’s platform and ideology.
If the party was preoccupied with the convention before yesterday, it was simply to ensure they got it right. But what they do thereafter to reposition the party to winning ways is even more strategic than the elementary mechanics of conducting a convention. After all, every potential standard-bearer, who by the way will not emerge until another convention sometime next year, would be interested in who won the chairmanship election.
For the PDP to reclaim any good image it thought it had, it must first occupy itself with the methods and processes of remaking the party to engage with the electorate. That reengagement will not happen simply because the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has not quite met the expectations of the people. It will happen for other different reasons. For in the final analysis, the electorate will sensibly juxtapose the misdeeds of the PDP in their 16 years in office with the alleged disappointment caused by the APC in its about three years in office. It is unlikely that the electorate will see a fair comparison between 16 and three. The only way the PDP can stand a chance is to prove that it has learnt major lessons from its loss and is more than ready, with proof of its contrition, to reconnect with the electorate.
