Despite its acclaimed winning streak, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been assailed by protracted leadership crises in its chequered history, EMMANUEL OLADESU and AUGUSTINE AVWODE examine the multiple crises, which drew the curtains on the turbulent tenures of the PDP chairmen in the last 14 years.
Lar
PDP was built on a solid foundation under theleadership of the renowned Middle-Belt politician, Chief Solomon Lar. The founding fathers were elder statesmen who, under the auspices of G-34, recommended a terminal date for the military rule. As the Provost of that college of elders, the lot fell on Lar to deliver the message to the late military Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha. Curiously, he went to the lion’s den and returned alive. His vast experience as a First Republic federal legislator, Second Republic governor and former minister adequately prepared him for the task of leading a big party. PDP’s beginning was beautiful because the fold was a mixed grill of conservatives, progressives and repentant military apologists.
The former Plateau State governor wielded the fold together. He had taken the baton of leadership from the interim chairman, the late Senator Sunday Awoniyi, the Aro of Mopa. In 1999, the acclaimed largest party in Africa won federal and state elections without rigging. The two parties that competed with it, the All Peoples Party (APP) and Alliance for Democracy (AD) originated, in part, from the PDP. The AD arrowhead, the late Chief Bola Ige, was among the eminent politicians who wrote the PDP constitution. It was after he left the group that Major-General David Jemibewon (rtd)became the chairman of the party’s Constitution Committee.
Lar’s calculation was that, since the public opinion favoured power shift to the Southwest geo-political zone, either Chief Olu Falae or Ige, was well positioned to fly the PDP presidential flag. It was distressing to him that the two of them hurriedly left for the APP, and later, AD. Following their departure from the group that was about to metamorphose into the PDP, the conservative forces in the group, especially the members of the polarised PDM, backed by rich and influential retired Generals, raised a search team to discuss with the former military Head of State, Gen. Olussegun Obasanjo (rtd). Although presidential hopefuls, including former Vice President Alex Ekweme and the late Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, still slugged it out with the Ota farmer at the inaugural party primaries, he emerged as the candidate and later won the 1999 presidential election.
Lar, a disciple of the Great Zik of Africa, is a celebrated democrat for President Obasanjo, a retired soldier battling with adjustment difficulties, the transition from soldering to politics was hard; hard for a man who relished the hierarchical military dictatorial order and command. His first move was to get the title of the “National Leader’ of the PDP.” Few months after he assumed office, he agitated for the change of baton at the party’s national secretariat. That was necessary to limit the party’s influence and moderation on presidential activities. It was clear that Lar, the former Police Affairs minister, had to bow out honourably for the relatively younger elements. He spent barely a year in office.
During his tenure, crises were minimal and the party was supreme. Reflecting on Lar’s ouster, one of his aides, Dr Solomon Dalung, who teaches Law at the University of Jos, said that “immediately Obasanjo was inaugurated as the President, he disbanded Lar’s cabinet and the disbandment of that cabinet remains PDP’s waterloo today.”
Gemade
Lar had a second term ambition. But former President Obasanjo had a different agenda. The old politician was not indifferent to the tendency of the soldier-turned politician. he understood the body language. He therefore, decided to show interest in his successor.
The position was zoned to the Northcentral geo-political zone. The contestants were the former interim chairman, Awoniyi, and Gemade, former member of the Interim National Government (ING) led by Chief Ernest Shonekan. Awoniyi, a Yoruba, was from Kogi State. Gemade hails from Benue State. Other contestants were Senator Ahmadu Ali, Yahaya Kwande, and Sule Usman from Kogi State.
Awoniyi, who had often described himself as a Yoruba-Northerner, got the shock of his life when Obasanjo from Ogun State declared that, in the PDP, Yoruba could not produce the President and National Chairman as the same time. He fought back, saying that, by geographical factor, he was a northerner. But there was logic in Obasanjo’s thinking. That reality jolted the minority Yoruba in Kwara and Kogi from the illusion that they were northerners and fuelled the subsequent agitation s for the a new geographical design that would make them re-unite with their kit and kin in the Southwest.
Many believed that the former federal Permanent Secretary, who was a former Private Secretary to the late Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the defunct Northern Region, was a tough politician who could challenge Obasanjo, if he undermined the party leadership. Awoniyi insisted on his candidature for the national chairmanship, but the Obasanjo forces overwhelmed him. He was harassed out of the party he co-founded. On his way out, he lamented the collapse of the party’s due process and derailment of the vision of its founding fathers. Awoniyi said that he was leaving the party of sinners. There was a determined attempt by him to float a new party, along with some aggrieved foes, but without success. In subsequent years, he became a moral voice in the North as the Chair
man of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF).
Since Lar knew that the so-called restructuring of the party mooted by Obasanjo was targeted against him, he supported Gemade against Awoniyi. That led to friction between the two politicians and founding chieftains. Obasanjo made Lar “adviser emeritus”, without any role. But when pressure was mounted on him, he made him the Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) Board. For the former chairman, the journey to irrelevance begun.
The chairmanship election was not a walk-over for Gemade. A committee of elders from the Northcentral, led by PDP vice chairman from the zone, Alhaji Kolo from Niger State interviewed him and other aspirants at the Agura Hotels. Other members of the committee included Isaac Shaanu, Shaaba Lafiagi. Lar was chairman between December 1999 and November 1991.
Gemade inherited a party ruptured by post-presidential primaries. His first move was to pacify the aggrieved presidential aspirants. But crisis had started brewing at the state chapters in many states because of the presidential directive that the pioneer chairmen should hand over to other chieftains in the party. The national chairman went on tour of the troubled chapter. Many of them were polarised. Party men and women looked to Obasanjo, and not the party chairman, for solutions to the intra-party crisis. It was evident that the idea of the national party caucus could not be sustained by the PDP. Suddenly, there was a push for the extension of the tenure of the members of the National Executive Council (NEC) from two to four years.
The national chairman wanted to run the affairs of the party as a democrat. That meant mustering the effort to assert himself. But he was handicapped. Following disagreement with the National Party Leader on party issues, his days in the office were numbered. He complained that certain powerful forces in the party were making unreasonable and unethical demands from his office, adding that it was suicidal to grant the requests. Gemade predicted that the fate that would befall his successors would be worse. Reflecting on his tenure, he said: “ It was clear to me that the mindset of the people who had the party and the government in their control was such that the meddlesomeness that we were experiencing as the leadership of the party would not change”.
At a special convention organised by a committee chaired by Senator David Mark, Gemade was replaced the chairman.
Ogbeh
Ogbeh rose to prominence in the Second Republic when he served as the Minister of Communications under the Shagari Administration. He is a man of impeccable character. When he was made the national chairman, he was a nominal member of the party. The former minister did not nurse a chairmanship ambition. But when the responsibility was entrusted upon him, he embraced the call to service. All those who wanted to succeed Gemade were edged out for him to emerge.
It was very hard for the chairman to blend with Obasanjo. He felt that the President was elected to run the country and the chairman, in consultation with him, was meant to run the party. Ogbeh became the chairman as the party was preparing for the 2003 elections. The party was in turmoil. The state chapters were crisis-ridden and the divisions had weakened the fold. The crisis in Anambra State chapter drew a wedge between him and the President . Both canvassed opposing solutions.
In Lagos State, there were three camps. Efforts to promote harmony failed. The feeling was that the former President was behind the dominant camp, which was bent on rusticating the members of other factions.
In Osun State, the party was engulfed in a crisis of nomination. Ige, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, had been murdered. The former deputy governor, Otunba Iyiola Omisore, a defector from the AD to PDP, was standing trial for an alleged involvement. Therefore, Ogbeh counselled that he should not be fielded as the senatorial candidate for Ife/Ijesa District to preserve the image of the party. The President allegedly disagreed. Some party leaders supported him, explaining that, since Omisore had not been found guilty, he can contest while still in the custody.
However, the parting of ways became imminent between Obasanjo and Ogbeh when he publicly advised the President to pay more attention to the sliding economy and the cries of the populace for improved welfare. As the Special Adviser to Obasanjo on Agriculture, he addressed some cogent issues related to governance, based on public outcry. The former President took exception to washing the administration’s linen in the public. The party chairman told the President that he was not his boy. “I told Obasanjo that I was not his cook”, he later reminisced. Ogbeh was advised to resign. He dragged his foot. But when he was harassed by security agents, he saw the danger coming. He resigned in 2005 in controversial circumstances and later joined the Action Congress (AC).
Ali
Perhaps, the only chairman who had a smooth relationship with the former President was Dr. Ahmadu Ali, a retired colonel, former Federal Commissioner for Education and Third Republic senator. He hails from Kogi State. The two soldiers understood themselves perfectly. Of course, Ali had been described as a chairman-on-waiting, since he contested against Gemade. When he was inaugurated as the chairman, Obasanjo said: “Now, Ali has come. Ali must stay”, a vague reference to the call for his removal as minister by students who insisted that “Ali must go”. Ogbeh was absent at the ceremony which held at the party’s national secretariat, Abuja. Unlike his predecessors, he spent his full term.
Initially, former Governors Fidelis Tapgun (Plateau) and Lafiagi (Kogi); Senators A.T. Ahmed, Alex Kadiri and Abdulazeez Farouk were interested in the job. But they stepped down for him.
Ogbulafor
The emergence of Prince Vincent Ogbulafor as the fifth national chairman of the PDP followed the usual high wire politics in the party. He was the dark horse. He emerged, following the refusal of two implacable power blocs at play in the party to step down for each other.
He did not bother to print many posters, neither did he campaign.Even though he was a former national secretary of the party, former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim and former Ebonyi State Governor Dr Sam Egwu were clearly the front runners.
The politics of the ruling party is often mercurial and generally unpredictable. While Obasanjo supported Egwu, the anti-Obasanjo forces queued behind Anyim with an unbending resolve to thwart whatever agenda Obasanjo had up his sleeves. In the end, Ogbulafor emerged as a consensus candidate. Other aspirants stepped down for him at the party’s national convention in Abuja.
Forty days after he assumed office, Ogbulafor declared that the PDP would rule Nigeria for 60 years under a one-party arrangement. Besides, he enunciated the plan by the party to monitor the performance of the 27 state governors on the platform of the party then.
“I expect that every Nigerian will join the PDP. I don’t care, if Nigeria becomes a one-party state… We want to rule this country for the next 60 years and we meant it”, he had declared.
But typically, Ogbulafor’s tenure at Wadata Plaza, Wuse, was not devoid of the intrigues that often consume its occupants. It is what analysts love to call the ‘banana peel’ of Wadata Plaza. He was forced to resign barely two years after taking office on May 10, 2010.
As the stormy debate over zoning of the 2011 presidential ticket in the party took off, Ogbulafor made no pretence about his stance that the Presidency was zoned to the North.
Soon, things began to fall apart for him. The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) took on him, alleging that he had perpetrated a fraud while he was a minister. He was dragged before an Abuja High Court to face 16-count criminal charge. His Southeast governors soon abandoned him. They mounted pressure on him to vacate office. He was also alleged to have handled, in a shabby manner, the crises in some states, particularly, Plateau, Anambra, Imo and Bauchi.
A pressuere group within the party, the PDP Reform Forum with former Senate President Ken Nnamani, ex-Speaker, Federal House of Representatives, Aminu Bello Masari along side other stakeholders was also calling for a better and more operational National Working Committee that would drive the PDP in line with the ideals of the founding fathers.
He resigned on May 13, 2010.
Nwodo
Former Governor of Enugu State and former National Secretary of the party Dr Okwesileze Nwodo took over form Ogbulafor on June 10, 2010. He emerged based on consensus arrangement and tacit blessing of the Presidency.
Nwodo’s first major job as the National Chairman was to oppose zoning. Nwodo, at an interaction with the media, declared that the formula was ldead. However, he said that if party members wanted the issue revisited, he was ready to do so.
Six months after, an Enugu State High Court presided over by Justice R N Onuorah ruled that he should vacate office immediately and stop parading himself as chairman, pending the determination of the substantive suit, which queried his eligibility for the post. Besides, he had gotten himself involved in the politics of the state and fell out with Governor Sullivan Chime. Southeast Governors rallied round their colleague and passed a vote of no confidence on Nwodo.
Nwodo was forced to resigned and his deputy, Dr Haliru Bello Mohammed, took over as acting national chairman.
Bello
Bello was first elected PDP National Vice Chairman (North West Zone). By March 2008, he won the election into the position of the Deputy National Chairman of the party.
Bello took over the rein of the party at a very crucial time. The 2011 general election was just at the corner. He successfully led the party to victory in the April 2011 general elections. But it must be said that Bello played an outstanding balancing game as he stood in the middle of the party that was torn in two between the pro-zoning elements and the no-more-zoning adherents. It was particularly interesting as he happened to be from the North where the majority were in support of zoning. Having helped President Jonathan to power, he was rewarded with the portfolio of the Minister of Defence . He was, however, dropped a year later in June 2012 folowing the crisis of the Boko Haram sect.
Following that appointment, former National Secretary, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, took over as acting National Chairman to complete the tenure which remained the one single most troubled chairmanship tenure for the PDP. In all, four people served during the tenure.
Tukur
On March 23, 2012, former governor of old Gongola State Alhaji Bamanga Tukur emerged as the next national chairman of the PDP. But in the last one year and one month that he has been in office, it has not been smooth sailing for the consummate businessman turned politician. It has been one crisis after another.
He has been having a running battle with the party’s governors who are said to be bent on removing him. For the record, Tukur could not be said to be the most popular aspirant from his Northeast Zone to which the party had conceded the chairmanship. In a test of strength three days before the national convention which produced him, Dr Musa Babayo had beaten Tukur to the ticket at a Northeast Zonal Convention in Bauchi. But the national body reversed it, saying it was unknown to the party tradition and constitution. And, apparently supported by the Presidency, Tukur emerged, again, via consensus arrangement.
At the convention ground, Alhaji Shettima Mustapha announced the withdrawal of all the other 10 aspirants, leaving only Tukur in the race. And with only a voice vote by the delegates in the Eagles Square, they affirmed the choice of the Presidency for the top job.
Tukur started off with steps that came as new, but controversial. On assumption of office as chairman, he appointed aides numbering about 15.
Last week, however, he sacked all of them in one fell swoop. Tukur, before he sacked them, had a Chief of Staff, Special Adviser on Security Matters, Special Adviser on Independent National Electoral Commission and Electoral Matters, Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters. Besides, his salary, alleged to be N2million monthly, became the talk of town. Insiders say no chairman before him earned salaries other than sitting allowances.
Tukur made reconciliation of all aggrieved old members of the party his campaign slogan and he has pursued that with much zest. As part of the plan to realise his vision, he selected some chieftains of the party and constituted them into an “advisory committee”. The committee, he claimed, would assist him in running the party.
But when he inaugurated the committee on May 30, it was obvious that the chairman never had the support of members of the NWC. They stayed away on the ground that it was an illegal body, unknown to the constitution of the party.
The committee has former Vice-President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme as chairman.
Even two members of the NWC were listed on the committee, Deputy National Chairman Sam Jaja and former National Secretary Olagunsoye Oyinlola did not honour the inauguration too.
Tukur also got involved in Adamawa State PDP internal affairs. He is from the state.
Today, the Southwest PDP has been dealt a major blow. Now, the Rivers chapter of the party is enmeshed in crisis. His reconciliation tour was regarded even by party stalwarts as a flop, hence, the drafting of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih to kickstart another reconciliation.
But, despite the fact that Tukur rode on Jonathan’s back to the office, some party chieftain said that he meant well for the party. He has embarked on reforms. He has also shown example by embracing the rule of law. As shown by the steps he had taken so far, he has demonstrated that PDP can be repositioned. And the first step, in Tukur’s view, is respect for the party’s constitution and enthronment of fairness, equity and justice.
