Going by the utterances of Wike’s men, the restructuring process begins with the removal of former-Senate President Iyorchia Ayu from the office of the party’s national chairman and his replacement with a Southerner.
By Ichie Tiko
Once a upon a time, as the story goes, the rat, at the prompting of its friend the lizard, joined the latter in taking a jolly plunge into the depths of the chilly waters of a certain river. After frolicking in the waters – and seemingly escaping the clutches of the crocodiles and hippopotamuses they so most irreverently teased and badmouthed to no ends – they swaggered back to dry land.
But then an ugly incidence that was both predictable and predicted occurred. The scaly skin of the lizard meant that the body quickly dried up. But it was an entirely different outcome for the rat. Its furry skin trapped large amounts of cold moisture and the careless rodent shortly died of pneumonia!
It is a well-known fact that ever since Rivers State Gov. Nyesom Wike lost in the presidential primaries of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to former-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, he has declared an open war against the party and its flagbearer. However, going by the recent utterances of Wike and his ‘three musketeers’ – Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Gov. Sam Ortom (Benue) and Gov. Seyi Makinde (Oyo) it now seems that their major grievance has dramatically shifted from castigating Atiku for winning the primary by stealth and subterfuge, as against outright ceding it to the South, to a demand to restructure the PDP to optimally reflect equity, justice and inclusiveness.
Going by the utterances of Wike’s men, the restructuring process begins with the removal of former-Senate President Iyorchia Ayu from the office of the party’s national chairman and his replacement with a Southerner. To give them their due credit, it is absolutely reprehensible for a political party contesting a national election – and even state-wide and local government council polls – to have all the heads of its two organs – the national/state/local government/ward chairperson and principal ticket holder coming from the same region/zone/constituency.
Until a few days ago, Sen. Walid Jibrin from the North-Central (Nasarawa) was the chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT). The national chairman is from the same North-Central (Benue). And the presidential flagbearer is from the North-East (Adamawa State). Wike is perfectly right when he wonders who would represent the interests of the South in the PDP when key decisions are being made since the top echelons of the party are monopolised by the North. Can a lamb truly get justice from a court presided over by lions?
To make matters worse, PDP is the same major opposition party that has been sounding like a broken record when it comes to criticizing Buhari ad nauseam for the lopsided appointments he has a propensity to make. The more things therefore seem to change, the more they stay the same.
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This isn’t however to say that there haven’t been dissident Northern voices in the PDP castigating the region’s monopoly. The former BoT Chairman, Senator Jibrin, has consistently been one of such voices. He recently voluntarily resigned from office after his serial pleadings for the national leadership to toe the path of sanity and reason as being demanded by Wike fell on deaf ears. Former Senate President Adolphus Wabara from Abia State was immediately appointed to replace him.
But if the PDP national leadership had expected this trivial concession to end the verbal pyrotechnics threatening to tear the party asunder only months away from crucial national elections, they’ve been left in no doubt about Wike’s intention, with the party’s enfant terrible bellowing that BoT is largely an advisory body – a bulldog that cannot bite. Although the alacrity with which Wabara accepted his appointment gives the lie to the claim by the Wike camp that the “South isn’t interested in the position of a paper tiger,” they are hell-bent on rejecting any cosmetic reform or palliative measure that doesn’t include the immediate removal of Ayu and his replacement with a Southerner. And it is generally known that whatever Wike wants, Wike always gets!
To underscore their resoluteness, Makinde recently rejected the appointment to replace Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, as Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, with Tambuwal becoming the Director-General of the Atiku Presidential Campaign Organisation. I must, however, say that Tambuwal’s appointment – if it’s indeed true – simply amounts to pouring insult in a gaping injury as it comes at a time the Wike camp is increasingly chafing at extreme restrictions and limitations imposed by what it rightfully perceives as complete ‘northernisation’ of their party.
The other side of the divide argues that it is only after the presidency is in the bag that other positions can be more reasonably and equitably shared. What’s paramount during the run-up to the February 2023 election, they further posit, is for all hands to be on deck to first birth a victory by whatever means necessary prior to sharing the spoils of war. But it is my well-considered opinion that Northern leading lights in the PDP are simply just trying to be too clever by half.
Where honour and integrity constitute invaluable attributes, it ought not to be an intractable challenge to concretise a win-win consensual agreement to pick the presidential flagbearer and national chairman of a political party from different distinct nuclei of influences or principal regions of the country. If this cannot be done prior to the election, what’s then the guarantee that the president – when in office as the supreme party leader – would condone such a ‘restructuring’ that would amount to denying those who seemingly worked hard for his electoral victory from reaping the fruit of their labour?
It should be quite obvious that a vast majority of PDP members of northern extraction are of the mind that a bird in the hand is indeed worth two or more in the bush, hence only the politically-naïve would continue to contend with APC’s Bola Tinubu for choosing a Northern Muslim as his running mate.
Wike and his three musketeers are arguably fighting for a just cause that aims at ensuring that the PDP complies with a provision in its own constitution that provides for rotation of principal offices – particularly the presidential ticket – between North and South in furtherance of fair play, equity, justice and inclusiveness. But there are many in the North who contend that Atiku is right in running again after competing in 2019 because he’s only copying what Goodluck Jonathan did in 2015 when leading Northern politicians in the PDP requested him to step aside so the region could complete its “turn” on the verge of being abridged by the sudden death of then-President Umaru Yar’Adua.
Jonathan and his supporters – mostly in the South – practically directed protesting Northerners to go hug transformers since his right to run for any office, as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution, superseded any restrictions any party constitution may impose. Even the Good Book cautions that he who kills with the sword should expect to die by the sword or, as the Law of Karma avers: What goes around eventually comes around.
Atiku and the North may just simply be encoring the same political concert earlier orchestrated by Jonathan and the South. And as multiple music-award winners P-Square duo once sang: “Do me I do you, God no go vex!” This essentially leaves Wike and the South with only the case of Ayu to deal with.
But while two of the musketeers – Makinde and Okezie – are the allegorical ‘lizards’ in the opening parable, Ortom isn’t so fortunate, and must therefore think twice before foolishly rushing in where even angels fear to tread. He won’t be a governor forever. As a matter of fact, the countdown to his exit from office in May 2023 has already begun. It isn’t too early to start thinking of life after exiting the hallways and chambers of executive power.
Like the legendary US House Speaker Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neill once bellowed: “All politics is local.” Given the inside-the-squared-circle active role he has been playing in the Wike versus Atiku M.A.D. (mutually assured destruction) Rope-A-Dope political martial arts tournament, Ortom must dread a future date when he discovers to his chagrin that he metaphorically stands alone and naked in the Makurdi/Gboko market axis as those among his Benue kith and kin who are now egging him on would then tell him: “You’re strictly on your own!”
They would abandon him for ‘conniving’ with ‘external parties’ to disgracefully bundle a favourite son of the soil – Ayu – from the office of PDP national chairman. By so doing, Ortom would be indicted, contrary to the biblical assurance, for causing affliction to rise up a second time given that a former minister and influential son of the soil – Audu Ogbeh – had been similarly subjected to the same ignominious sandpaper treatment.