PDP NATIONAL CONVENTION AND UNITY LIST

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came into power in May 1999 after several years of military rule amid infrastructural decay. Today, the biggest and strongest party in Africa is not only playing the role of opposition in Nigeria but is also struggling to put its house in order after it suffered defeat in an election almost three years ago.

The humbling of the PDP in 2015 did not come to some people as a surprise because the leaders of the party became arrogant with power and lost touch with the people, thereby ignoring the core values upon which the party was formed and the slogan of the party ‘power to the people.’

Impunity, lack of internal party democracy and imposition of candidates during elections became the norm of the PDP. Party positions were no longer contested and won on the basis of merit but on the whims and caprices of godfathers who sponsor candidates for elections to satisfy their own selfish and primordial gains.

The Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s post- election committee report was vivid and explicit on this matter, identifying the main cause of PDP’s failures in the 2015 general elections. The report also made several recommendations that will salvage the current predicament.

We thought that the leadership of the party will learn some lessons from the 14 months leadership crisis that ended at the Supreme Court on July 12, 2017, but we were wrong. The PDP is once again deeply enmeshed in another round of intrigues, serious power game and the culture of impunity that ruined the fortune of the party in 2015 is back.

It is very important for Nigerians, PDP members and supporters to understand the men and women behind these power game and this is a clarion call for all concerned PDP members to rise up to challenge this ugly trend before the party is thrown into another catalogue of crisis.

Just last week, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and some of his colleagues gathered in Enugu to endorse his national chairmanship aspirant, Prince Uche Secondus but this plan was truncated by other governors of the party who believe that endorsement is also part of impunity.

It has also been revealed that some leaders of the party, especially the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who in his post-election committee report identified impunity and imposition of candidate as the bane of PDP is spearheading the drawing up of the so-called unity list with a view to excluding other candidates contesting various offices at the convention without testing their popularity in the field.

Interestingly, the Chairman of the National Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi and some stakeholders of the party have since rejected this idea of exclusivity, and had called for a level playing field where all eligible candidates will be allowed to contest for any offices of their choice. The reintroduction of ‘Unity List’ to disenfranchise others from contesting at the convention is therefore undemocratic and a return to anarchy.

These stakeholders have also suggested that if the party leaders are hell bent on pruning down the number of aspirants for the convention, especially those for the National Chairmanship position; the stakeholders have proposed an election at the respective zones to determine the best candidate out of the ones contesting for the same offices at the zonal levels.

According to the stakeholders, delegates from the South West and South South regions of the country should be allowed to cast their votes for the best aspirants from their respective zones to represent them at the national convention instead of the current selection process that seems to exclude some aspirants which may also lead the party to more crises.

Finally, these critical stakeholders of the party have challenged all the aspirants contesting for the office of national chairman of the PDP to tell party members and supporters what they have in stock for the PDP if elected. The stakeholders accused the aspirants of abandoning the party at the time the party needs them the most and are only resurfacing after some people suffered to resuscitate the PDP. The success or failure of PDP at the scheduled National Convention will largely determine the stability of Nigeria’s democracy.