Tag: Modu Sheriff

The furore over the appointment of former Borno State governor, Ali Modu Sheriff as the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP seems to have fizzled out unilaterally. Though a forum of ex-ministers of the PDP had stridently opposed his emergence on the ground he is not the kind of person the party needed to re-invent itself at this challenging moment, all indications are that Sheriff’s appointment has come to stay.

He has been charged with the duty of preparing a timetable for the national convention of the party by May during which its substantive national chairman is expected to emerge. Apparently conscious of the criticisms that trailed his appointment, Sheriff has said he will not stay beyond the stipulations of his party’s constitution. If that constitution is strictly adhered to, he is expected to exit that office this month when the tenure of the last substantive chairman, Adamu Mu’azu will expire.

But the mandate given him by the national leadership of the party seems to have foreclosed any idea of his vacating that office before May. Sheriff appears conscious of this fact. And has used every opportunity to reassure party members especially those opposed to him that he is capable of leading the party to glory. He even boasted that the controversy and panic over his appointment was because the leadership of the ruling party is aware of his capacity to unite the PDP and also bring back those who defected to the APC.

But he failed to disclose why his emergence allegedly sent the ruling party panicking. Perhaps, there are things he knows that are not readily available to the public. If there was full disclosure, we would have been in a position to know the extent to which his credentials would positively impact on the fortunes of PDP which at the moment, is reeling under credibility crisis due to the high number of its leaders arraigned for allegedly milking the nation dry.

No doubt, the PDP is currently facing the greatest challenge of its life- a crisis of relevance. Not only did it lose the last election after staying in power for 16 years, it has been accused of running down the economy. The current regime has used every opportunity at its disposal to highlight the mismanagement of the nation’s economy during the years they held sway and this is bound to create credibility problems for that party.

How far Sheriff and leaders of his party can go to reverse this waning image perception and pull a big surprise come 2019, is left to be seen. He may have to initiate a number of far-reaching actions in several fronts with a large measure of success to be able to make a head way. For now, that possibility is still within the realm of conjecture.

But Sheriff appears to have hit at the crux of the recurring crisis in his party when he said last week that PDP will not be run by impunity with a promise to return the party to its real owners such that everybody will be happy. Hear him: “By the time we finish congress, everybody will be happy. PDP will not be run by impunity. The party will be returned to its owners”.

By this, he seems to have recognized that one of the biggest challenges of the party – a challenge that brought it to its current pass – has been its utter disregard for internal democracy within its fold. Not only were the people- the real owners of the party serially shunted out in the election of their leaders at all levels, the congresses of the party were manipulated to achieve predetermined outcome oftentimes resulting to the imposition of unpopular candidates.

There was also the ruinous feeling the party could field any manner of candidate and still win in elections that are expected to be manipulated given its control of the coercive apparatus of the state. Recurring complaints by members of lack of internal democracy and impunity in the party were treated with scant disregard. Ironically, these were some of the grievance of those governors who decamped from the party to the APC shortly before the elections – a move that largely led to its loss in that election.

If the PDP is now singing the new song of internal democracy, it is compelled to do so by the inevitability of the situation in which it has now found itself. It seems to have no other choice than allow the people take control of electing those to preside over the affairs of the party at all levels. It either allows internal democracy to reign supreme or go under. That is the foreboding reality. The things that make internal democracy inevitable within the party are already here.

So Sheriff is neither saying anything new nor does he have an alternative than to allow the rules of democracy to play out. Even then, as a party whose slogan is ‘power to the people’, it is a huge contradiction that it has been serially found wanting on this basic principle. Since old habits die slowly, it may not surprise anyone that there may be some within the party who because of their privileged positions would still want the decadent order.

That would be at a great expense of the party. Those who want the PDP to survive as a virile opposition may not be doing so out of their love for that party but for the foreboding prospects of the nation sliding to a one party state. For whatever misgivings we may have for that party especially given its handling of the nation’s affairs in the last few years, it is still vital that it is in such strength of health that it can provide credible opposition to the ruling party.

This will strengthen democracy given the plurality of choices it will provide to the electorate especially in a clime with the tendency for people to gravitate towards the ruling party. Before now, it has been argued in some quarters that Africans do not tolerate opposition. That was why we had some people canvassing for benevolent dictatorship and all manner of contraptions as a way out of the cycle of political instability that characterized the continent a couple of years ago.

Though some progress has been recorded within the continent in the rungs of the democracy ladder, still palpable evidence of this tendency to be with the ruling party is there. The plethora of decamping from the PDP to the APC says it all. It is amazing how key party leaders who hugely benefited while the PDP was in power have since after the elections been decamping as if principles and party ideology meant very little to them.

Yes, it is still part of democracy for anyone to decide which political party to identify with. But the way our politicians have exercised that right seems to amplify the view that Africans have little place for opposition. What this suggests is that there is a natural tendency in this clime for gravitation towards a one party state.

Unless conscious efforts are mounted by all institutions to check this slide, we are bound to have problems with the kind of democracy we run. This fear was real during the days the PDP held sway. It is also no less relevant now. The INEC and all the arms of the government have a crucial role to play to ensure that this tendency does not become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Free, fair and credible elections represent the irreducible decimal out of this danger.

That danger was at an all time high before the Supreme Court delivered its judgments in the governorship election petitions in Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Delta states- states considered key to the strength of the PDP given the resources available them. Though those judgments attracted a barrage of criticisms bordering on their alleged inability to give justice to the petitioners through its reliance on legal technicalities, they seem to have opened a new window for the PDP to survive.

Perhaps, had they gone the other way, the PDP would have been in a very feeble position to mount credible opposition. That could have been the undoing of democracy on these shores. So the issue of justice copiously canvassed to fault the Supreme Court judgments in those governorship petitions, could find counterbalance in the unintended prospects of the rulings to stabilize multi-party democracy in this country. If they are termed political judgments, the end may have justified the means as democracy will be better for it.