This piece was originally published in this Column on Sunday, August 20, 2016. It centred on the leadership crisis on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), an organisation, which at the onset of the current democratic experiment, showed some promises, but got carried away, soon after coming to power, by twin factors of indiscipline and absence of internal democracy.
At the time of the publication, the current leadership was literally at infancy stage.
Many had then thought that those involved would allow the voice of reason to reign. That however, was not the case and has not been. If anything rather, the PDP is now a shadow of its old self, leaving the country to the dangers of a potentially one-party state.
The story of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s leading opposition political party, is not one that can be exhausted in a setting. This, perhaps, is coincidental; or providential as some say.
Just as the party, at its height, had appropriated the claim of the largest political party in Africa, the dimensions of its story have been those of an octopus. Both at its fame and its current lowest point, PDP has always defied precise prediction.
But one thing that cannot be contested by even its committed members (assuming there are still some) and its supporters (if there are still), is that the party has become a bungled dream, in a way.
Even when it had been thought that managers of the party would learn from its disastrous outing in the last general elections, nothing seems to have been learnt. In the process, the slide continues.
If there had been any shred of hope on the party rising from its obviously comatose position, especially at the national level, the confusion that trailed its aborted Port Harcourt national convention, made total nonsense of such.
It is in fact, disheartening that when many had thought that PDP would use the convention to put its house in order, the party lived up to what its critics ascribed to it – a torn umbrella.
Even with Senator Ahmed Makarfi and his 12 disciples vowing to restore the party to reposition the party, it is certain that PDP is currently a shadow of its old self. This is, to say the least, piteous.
Even without mouthing it, it has become obvious to even any casual observer that most of the remaining members of the party are merely with their body in it but with their mind elsewhere.
Of course, it may be convenient to watch from the sideline and say; ‘it is their thing’. That may be correct. After all, it is not everybody that is a politician. More so, not all the politicians belong to its fold. But whatever any person may make of the current situation in PDP, it points to a sorry tale in the country’s political development.
The problem with the developments in the party is not that of losing an election. That, is normal in democracy. After all, the 105-year old African National Congress (ANC), another increasingly mismanaged enterprise, lost a local election in South Africa.
But the sad story in the imminent extinction of the PDP is the sheer inability of the political class to apply the party, while it reigned, in instituting a credible and enduring democratic culture in the land.
At its formation on July 29, 1998, the facilitators of PDP were guided by far reaching visions. They had for instance dreamed of a party that would put the Nigerian nation on a new phase of political engineering.
Part of their dream was to put in place a political platform that would ensure a “re-creation of civil political institutions, reconciliation of Nigeria, rekindling of the spirit of unity and brotherhood in the polity and the revitalization of powers of the people to build a prosperous industrial democracy”.
Propelled by these lofty ideals, the founders of the party had aimed at bringing together all patriotic and like-minded Nigerians into a single formidable party, capable of renewing and refocusing the loyalties and productive energies of the nation to work for national reconciliation, economic and social reconstruction, respect for human rights and rule of law and to restructure the country in the true spirit of federalism.
Their long term aspiration was to erect a frame work that would ensure a just and equitable distribution of power, resources, wealth and opportunities to conform with the principles of power shift and power sharing, rotation of key political offices and equitable devolution of powers to zones, states and local governments so as to create socio-political conditions conducive to national unity and to defend the sanctity of electoral democracy.
The encompassing principles of the party were adequately complemented by an embracing motto – Justice, Unity and Progress, while the slogan of the party, instructively acceded “power to the people”.
To add up, the PDP had in its fold a generous spread of the nation’s first rate politicians. It also appropriated to itself the tag of the largest party in black Africa.
In a way, its claim of greatness paid off handsomely, initially, as it garnered many electoral victories, though, often questionable in some cases.
How then did the party get it wrong? And how can it be pulled from its unceasing drift? These are the questions that many chieftains of the party do not seem to ask themselves or conveniently choose to ignore. This is why PDP has remained a toddler at 19; a scarecrow of sort and indeed, an object of ridicule even among casual political observers.
It is the failure to address these nagging questions that has seen the organisation, even in its fallen state, still being callously raped by its officials and members who only see in it a platform for attending to personal needs and attaining political offices.
This accounts for the nauseating culture of impunity in the party. It was this stinking culture that had seen mere political upstarts who ordinarily should have been at the back stage in the organisation, assuming positions of importance in its affairs.
This is why, from the skewed emergence of Olusegun Obasanjo as the party’s presidential candidate in its1998 Jos convention, PDP has not had any transparent primary even in its state chapters. The party has also not had any democratically elected National Chairman since the erstwhile Vice President, Alex Ekwueme and former Plateau State governor, late Solomon Lar, occupied the office in interim capacity. What has rather been the norm is a culture of imposition and absence of internal democracy. The trend, sadly, replicates in the local wings.
For a party that advertises eagerness to claw back to power two years ahead, the expectation is that of a radical departure from an ugly past that has not earned it enduring rewards. But that seems farfetched. Rather, what PDP has shown in its consuming leadership feud, is that it is yet to learn from its mistakes.
The danger is that All Progressives Congress (APC), may have a free reign to continue riding roughshod on Nigerians in the absence of a viable alternative. Somehow, the ruling party appears to be enjoying that solo run, hence almost two years after coming to power, it is still confused on what to do. And Nigerians have remained the losers.
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