DESPITE two High Court orders against PDP’s convention and one in favour, the Ibadan Lekan Salami Stadium was last week agog for the occasion. For a party which serially postponed the event and its NEC meetings, is rapidly losing its governors and federal legislators to the ruling party, the convention was exhilarating, even if it could turn out later to be a pyrrhic victory for a faction or factions of the party. The PDP made the improbable possible in Ibadan.
Conspicuously absent from Ibadan were the Wike faction and Lamido group, each having a judicial axe to grind with the party on the convention. The bottom-line is that both the attendees and avoiders of the convention acted within judicial limits by their presence and absence therefrom.
PDP’s leadership recruitment has been problematically highjacked initially by the presidential party leaders, and later its governors, impairing the optimal discharge of the responsibility of that office. After Chief Solomon Lar vacated the office, subsequent party chairmen were transformed into the political lapdogs of the executive branch, accountable to the presidency rather than the party, frequently replaced at the pleasure of the president in power. After its 2015 defeat the party chairmen degenerated from presidential lapdogs to gubernatorial lackeys.
Applying the late Prof. E. A. Ayandele’s definition of Cross River state as an atomistic society perpetually at war with itself, to Nigeria’s biggest opposition party wouldn’t be out of context, and one wouldn’t be faulted by any rational PDP sympathiser, as the late Prof. Ayandele was crucified by Cross Riverians in the late 70s. The PDP has long ago been atomised into as many interest groups as political chicanery, permutations, fifth columnists and opportunism dictated.
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PDP’s descent to the most problematic opposition party, began with its failure to tackle the Wike menace; the nauseating condescending attitude of its governors, inexcusable postponements of its convention and NEC meetings, legal tussles for its secretaryship, and the judicial acrobatics heralding the ended convention.
There are those who regard the convention as evidence of PDP’s resilience to get itself out of the woods, whilst the avoiders of Ibadan like the plague, consider such a judicially-hazy convention as a negative resilience to plunge the party into a prolonged coma.
The anti-climax of the Convention and its most problematic outcome was the expulsion of the Wike group from the party – a cherished convention gift to Mr Nyesome Wike, whose burning desire since his defeat by Atiku Abubakar in the last presidential primaries is to escalate the prolonged party crises from which it could hardly recover. A recompense for his ministerial portfolio in the APC government.
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The significance of the Ibadan convention lies not only in the manner Mr Turaki was railroaded into the chairmanship of the party by the PDP governors, but in its revelations exposing high profile Wike moles in the party and the divergent political objectives of the PDP governors.
Governors Fintiri and Caleb Mutfwang of Adamawa and Plateau states wanted to eat their cakes and have them again, busy running with the hare and hunting with the hound. Pretending ruptured relations with the Wike group opposed to the Ibadan convention, their displeasure with Wike’s expulsion from the party underscores a hidden political chumminess between them and the expelled minister, and indirectly with the progressive government.
As Wike sympathisers, the two governors would impliedly be ill-disposed to the rumoured presidential bid of Goodluck E. Jonathan in the party as is Mr Wike, thereby incurring the political wrath of Governor Mohammed – if his former principal would risk an electoral contest on a platform of a highly divided party.
There is fatalistic un-seriousness in political leadership recruitment in the 4th Republic, primed for the production of robots to be controlled by those who impose them as presidents, governors, party leaders, etc.
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In the 2nd Republic, party leadership recruitment was merit-based and a serious affair. There was no room for incompetent, politically-untested and uncommitted party men/women in party leadership.
The centrality of party chairmanship to the success or failure of a party made the late Aminu Kano of PRP, Chief Obafemi Awolowo of UPN, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe of NPP, Dr Tunji Braithwaite of NAP, and Waziri Ibrahim of GNPP to combine the chairmanship of their parties with their presidential candidatures.
After containing the Wike menace – a herculean task indeed, and coming to satisfactory terms with the Lamido group – a difficult though not an impossible affair – Mr Turaki could only satisfactorily refocus the party if he distances himself from those who extra-democratically imposed him as party chairman, entrenches robust internal party democracy, instils zero tolerance for indiscipline, and frees the party from internal and external moneybags.
Party national secretaryship was for committed party members such that none of the NPN, UPN, PRP or SDP members would entertain any doubts that Suleiman Takuma or Uba Ahmed, S. G. Ikoku, M. C. K. Ajuluchukwu, or Sule Lamido could be wolves in sheep’s attire, fifth columnists of other parties.
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PDP’s leadership recruitment has been problematically highjacked initially by the presidential party leaders, and later its governors, impairing the optimal discharge of the responsibility of that office. After Chief Solomon Lar vacated the office, subsequent party chairmen were transformed into the political lapdogs of the executive branch, accountable to the presidency rather than the party, frequently replaced at the pleasure of the president in power. After its 2015 defeat the party chairmen degenerated from presidential lapdogs to gubernatorial lackeys.
Revelling in his electoral victory, Mr Turaki glosses over the judicial uncertainty of the convention that produced him as party chairman, and the difficulty of resuscitating a deeply divided atrophying party.
Just two days after the newly elected Turaki-led National Working Committee clashed with the Wike faction’s Abdulrahman Mohammed-led National Executive Committee at the Wadata Plaza headquarters of the party, where one of the factions wanted to hold its inaugural meeting, and the other faction wanted to have its National Executive Committee and Board of Trustees meetings, underscoring the imminent implosion of the party.
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If Turaki isn’t judicially knocked down by the convention’s consequential litigations, could the starry-eyed reformer save the party from the judicial and gangsterism plots of those bent on sniffing life out of Nigeria’s biggest opposition party? Mr Turaki needs more than 24/7 a week to save the PDP.
After containing the Wike menace – a herculean task indeed, and coming to satisfactory terms with the Lamido group – a difficult though not an impossible affair – Mr Turaki could only satisfactorily refocus the party if he distances himself from those who extra-democratically imposed him as party chairman, entrenches robust internal party democracy, instils zero tolerance for indiscipline, and frees the party from internal and external moneybags.
Jahun, a public affairs analyst writes from Dutse, Jigawa State.
