A PROMISING EASTER DAWN FOR IMO PDP

For 12 long political years (1999-2011), the Peoples Democratic Party umbrella towered over Imo state like a giant canopy. Politicians who dared to seek recognition outside of its huge shade, found themselves in the blistering heat of irrelevance and struggled desperately to get back in. Following the defeat of the party in the 2011 gubernatorial polls and also the 2015 presidential and gubernatorial polls, the travails of Imo PDP went from bad to mbadamba, to cite a native wisecrack. The party was steamrolled out of contention in the rescheduled senatorial election for Imo North (Okigwe zone) by the All Progressives Congress. To confound matters even more, party stalwarts found themselves on different sides of the ensuing Makarfi/Sheriff struggle that consumed the PDP for over a year.

After that, the party turned to a shadowy hulk of its old self. Thus, only a Nostradamus could have foreseen this inspiring turnaround, when Charles Babatunde Ezekwem and Ray Emeana took over as chairman and secretary respectively two years ago.

From the ashes of defeat and intra party squabbles, Imo PDP is rising, like a home grown phoenix, into a sunlit dawn of heart-warming aspirations for the growth and deepening of democracy in Imo State and Nigeria. No longer “wobbling,” to use Obasanjo’s descriptive phrase.

“Since the inception of this Executive in August 2016,” Ray Emeana, secretary of Imo PDP told state party faithful on February 5 this year. “…I am surprised that the Imo PDP Executive has not been listed in the Guinness book of records as the party with the highest litigations against it… We are most grateful to God that we have come out victorious in all the cases.”

In the Nigerian political jungle, being in opposition is not a bongo carnival and Emeana’s speech to the assembled stakeholders was a rallying cry for them to get their act together and mobilise the grassroots for a decisive victory in the 2019 gubernatorial polls.

“Gone is the era of playing politics at the state capital with total neglect of our wards,” he advised, and listed a number of constructive actions to shore up the vastly eroded membership of Imo PDP. “This is a new PDP,” Emeana, a one- time legislator who represented Owerri North in the Imo Assembly, asserted.

A Ward to Ward (W2W) Group is overseeing the drive to register new members into various party platforms like the PDP NonIndigenes Association, PDP Traders Association, the PDP Physically Challenged Association, and PDP Mechanics and Allied Associations, amongst others. Capping them all is a PDP Integrity Group in various urban centres signposting the new era in the once unpredictable party machinery.

Internal democracy is the mantra of this new reality and the Imo PDP gospel is spread through a bi-weekly Imo PDP Newsline and the PDP Radio Hour on My Radio 101 FM, a new and popular radio station that has ruled the airwaves above Imo State since late 2016. The Radio Hour is a call- in programme that allows listeners in Imo and beyond, to update their appreciation of the challenging makeover of Imo PDP, from the political auctioneering of the past into a true democratic institution with respect for democratic norms and protocols.

Though stability has returned to the party since the Supreme Court decision on the Makarfi/Sheriff squabble, Ray Emeana’s admissions about a deserving mention in the Guinness Book suggest that it may not yet be “uhuru” for Imo PDP. Indeed, resentments exist among the membership which would not augur well for the determined comeback of the green-red-white Umbrella to Douglas House, Owerri.

Realising this, the party hierarchy set up a so-called Imo oneUmbrella Team; to reach out to all disenchanted members in an independent fence- mending peace and reconciliation effort of the party.

Wading into the numerous complaints, the “One Umbrella Team” found that the overriding desire of party leaders “to control party executive councils from wards to state level in the name of structure control” was at the root of most disputes in the party.

The onus now lies on the current state executive to curb the excessive tendency of party elders and leaders to want to dominate every rung of the party structure. To mend fences, the Ezekwem- led council has since lifted the suspensions on some party stalwarts, as recommended by the Imo one-Umbrella Team.

Predictably, the amazing strides of the new leadership in maintaining party cohesion against all odds have attracted the caustic criticism of jaundiced opponents. Imo PDP belongs to an individual, they allege. Analysts attribute this unseemly label to the fact that Ezekwem had been largely unknown before his emergence as chairman, and was considered a featherweight politician by many pundits. His reform agenda was seen as paving the way for some powerful interests to call the shots. Rather than give him due credit for the startling rejuvenation of the once-moribund party, his traducers prefer to hand the kudos to some big, un-named “masquerade”.

However, Ezekwem has been quick to debunk the suggestion. “The PDP in Imo State is too large to be owned by one man or for one man to dictate what happens within the party,” he declared to reporters. “Our membership is not discriminatory. How then can only one man own or monopolise the party?” he asked.

Pita Okute, novelist and script writer, is an indigene of Imo State