WILL PDP SURVIVE THE LOOMING CATASTROPHE?

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has scheduled to hold its Elective National Convention from December 9 – 10, 2017, in Abuja, Nigeria. The Convention is supposed to elect officers of the party at the National level to pilot the affairs of the party for a period of four years.

As the major opposition political party in the country and a party that has also been in power since the birth of the forth republic in 1999 till 2015, Nigerians are of the opinion that the success of the PDP Convention in December will end the APC regime of misgovernance, maladministration and total failure to deliver on its campaign promises.

It is however worrisome that the PDP has not leant any lessons from the 14 months leadership crisis that began on May 21, 2016 and ended at the Supreme Court on July 12, 2017, after some governors on the platform of the party imposed one of their own, the former Governor of Borno State, Senator Ali Modu-Sheriff on the party.

The PDP is once again enmeshed in some serious power-game, involving different stakeholders, zones and organs of the party competing for who becomes the National Chairman of the party and other positions come December 9, 2017. The most worrisome aspect of these power tussles includes and not limited to the culture of impunity and imposition of candidate, influx of immediate past National Working Committee (NWC) members into the race and the records of misappropriation of funds by the same NWC in recent past.

There are endorsements of some aspirants by the zones and party leaders without recourse to merit and capacity to deliver and threat by some zones to leave the party if election does not favour them at the convention.

Another disturbing development is the revelation that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has concluded plans to strategically plant aspirants for key and sensitive offices in the PDP, like the National Chairman, National Secretary, National Organising Secretary and National Publicity Secretary, in order to destroy the party from within as it did in the wake of the 2015 General Election.

It is therefore incumbent on the founding fathers of the party and other elders to intervene urgently to arrest these ugly developments before the scheduled national convention of the party; otherwise, the PDP is heading for another dangerous implosion that may end the life of the party if care is not taken.

Some concerned members of the party are calling on the former heads of state, Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (rtd), Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd) and other Generals, brains behind the formation of the party to quickly intervene on these issues to restore peace to the party before the convention.

Others are also inviting the founding fathers of the PDP that are still alive - former Vice- President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Dr. Bamanga Tukur and Alhaji Adamu Ciroma to call the rampaging members to order before it is too late.

Some stakeholders have also mooted the option of convening meetings of major critical stakeholders of the party to brainstorm on the way forward to resolving these issues in order to carry everybody along and to give everyone a sense of belonging.

Nigerians are waiting with great expectations that the PDP will conduct a very successful, free, fair and credible elective National Convention in December 2017,that will end the misery of the failed APC-led administration at all levels.

Pundits are already predicting rightly or wrongly that this will be a make or mar convention that will give an insight into the future of the nation’s democracy.