By Emeka Alex Duru
How the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) approaches the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State and what it makes out of it, will go a long way in defining its future and relevance. A win for the party, will serve as a huge booster to the dwindling morale within its fold. But what matters most is the cohesion, the force with which it goes into the race.
A party and its candidate
Undoubtedly, its flag bearer, Valentine Ozigbo, a global award-winning business leader and immediate past President and Group CEO of Transcorp Plc, is a candidate to run with, any day, in a free and fair contest. He has a pedigree of accomplishment in his field and possesses leadership qualities required to re-engineer the state. Ozigbo also seems to enjoy overwhelming grassroots support across the state – a feat he demonstrated in stealing the show at party’s primary election held on Saturday, June 26, 2021 by dusting touted heavy weights. He comes across with disarming humility and obvious emotional intelligence, two critical considerations required for the high office of a governor. For the highly perceptive and politically active Anambra electorate, he is one to watch in the build up to November 6 and perhaps, beyond.
Uba factor in Anambra PDP
But then, election is not a solo effort. It requires team work, which, for now, seems to be lacking in the state wing of the party. As good as Ozigbo looks, Senator Ugochukwu Uba of the recurrent Uba family in the state’s politics, is up in arms, taking vigorous steps at the courts to rubbish his candidature. The Uba distraction may appear a storm in a tea cup but it is one that has the capacity to undo the party at the eleventh hour, if not properly handled.
To be sure, the 72-year-old Ugochukwu, former senator and erstwhile university teacher, is not on a lone-ranger mission. He represents a tendency in the Anambra chapter of the PDP. That tendency – a nauseating history of internal dissension, has always dogged PDP, especially at governorship elections in the state, resulting in the party winning at senatorial and House of Representatives contests but always firing blank at local elections.
Haunted by history?
Some locate the ugly trend in the governorship primary elections of the party in 1999 in which the process was manipulated in favour of the former governor, Chinwoke Mbadinuju. Irked by the outcome, the leader of the national committee of the party that supervised the primary, General Bagudu Mamman, was said to have warned that allowing the charade which produced Mbadinuju as the candidate of the PDP to subsist, would perpetually haunt the state chapter of the party. He was ignored and the PDP in the state, has not recovered from the crass indiscretion. Ever since, there have always been factions in Anambra PDP especially at governorship election periods. This is the background on which the Ugochukwu Uba factor would be appreciated.
Secondus, NWC and defections from PDP
On the surface, the endorsement of the Ozigbo candidacy by the national leadership of the party as its authentic flag bearer and the pledge to work with him, are steps in the right direction. However, the moral standing of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party and the extent of its neutrality in the crisis in its fold, are major issues the PDP needs to contend with. Presently, at the national level, PDP cuts an image of a weak structure and leaking roof that the occupants are abandoning in their numbers.
In the last couple of months, the party has lost three governors – Dave Umahi of Ebonyi, Ben Ayade of Cross River and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Earlier in the month, three senators resigned their membership of the party and defected to the APC. They are: Sen. Sahabi Ya’u (Zamfara North), Sen. Lawali Anka (Zamfara West), and Sen. Peter Nwaoboshi (Delta North).
The gale of defection from the party is almost a weekly activity in the House of Representatives. The defectors cite leadership failure at the centre and absence of internal democracy as reasons for their action. Some finger the National Chairman, Uche Secondus and the national working committee in the crisis afflicting the party.
A House of Representatives member Rimamnde Kwewum (PDP, Taraba), said as much in a recent letter to the national chairman, drawing his attention to the mass desertion in it. He regretted that Secondus and his team lacked the capacity to remedy the situation in the party, being part of its problems. “You and the current national working committee members will be unable to lead the reconciliation process because you are unfortunately enmeshed in several current controversies,” the lawmaker lamented in his letter, dated July 6. Many members are calling for the resignation of the national chairman and his team as a first step in restructuring the party.
There are also insinuations of the overbearing carriage of Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, forcing his colleagues to abandon the party. But no matter how it is looked at, PDP is presently in a fix and in need of help. It equally needs to put its house in order in approaching the Anambra election. Limping into the contest with a fractured team may do more harm to the party.
PDP and the way forward
What is needed to get PDP on the track, is a coalition of efforts by its chieftains, especially the founding members who had at some points been forced to stay off its activities on accounts on pervasive injustice and impunity in the party. There is danger in allowing the PDP die. Apart from railroading Nigeria to a one-party system, the fragile democracy in the land would be further imperiled, if the party goes down. The APC which is positioning itself to reap from the development, is no better than the PDP in actions and intentions. Both have betrayed Nigerians, considerably.
Thus, for the PDP, the November Anambra governorship poll holds a promise in redemption and repositioning for 2023 politics. With a candidate as Ozigbo, the party can fly. It will however depend on how it goes into the encounter as an organisation and how it comes out of it.
