The Bitter Truth PDP Must Be Told
Fellow Nigerians, these are not the best of times for our dear party PDP, a party that prides itself as the largest political party in Africa, and rightly so. My romance with PDP could be traced to the pre-2019 Presidential election when I voluntarily supported its candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, free of charge, without joining the party. I have always been more of a supporter of candidates rather than Political Parties. The reason is simple and straightforward. Political Parties in our country lack marked ideological differences, the reason it is easy to wake up in APC this morning and go to bed in PDP the same evening. No principle, no philosophy and no ethics. Our Political Parties, including the smaller ones are home to rampaging, itinerant and mostly unconscionable politicians who are only in pursuit of power and vainglory without the interests of the people at heart. Thus, it has been virtually impossible, and extremely difficult, for the few exceptional leaders to find solace, succour and anchor in any of these Political Parties.
It was with a similar view that in 2015, I supported Retired Major General Muhammadu
Buhari without being a member of the APC. When I finally gave up on him later on, in his first term, I exercised my right of freedom of association by supporting Atiku, in 2019, hoping he would at least tap into his vast business experience and cosmopolitan nature to rescue Nigeria from the doldrums and the backwardness that the APC government had unleashed on our hapless nation. Unfortunately, he lost, under controversial circumstances.
Atiku was already over 70 at the time, and I thought he would retire graciously and peacefully, to enjoy the comfort of his family and friends, for several reasons. He is a Fulani man like Buhari, who by God’s grace should complete eight years in power, at the helm of Nigerian affairs, in 2023. He belongs to almost the same age bracket as Buhari. As Nigeria currently stands, I believe the country urgently requires a younger, youthful, energetic, visionary, cerebral, charismatic, decorous, humble, self-accomplished, tolerant, leader to re-unite our country and re-set it on the path of peace and prosperity. According to the zoning principle of PDP, power should move to the South, wherever the Southerners in PDP and APC decide to situate it. At that time, Peter Obi’s Labour and Kola Abiola’s PRP were not yet in the equation.
I did my permutations and assumed that PDP would have recovered from the blistering defeat it suffered as a ruling Party in government, in 2015, and learn new lessons that would help it recapture power from those who made grandiloquent promises that hoodwinked Nigerians, including myself, in 2015, but fell short on deliverables so soon after. I never imagined that PDP will studiously ignore an opportunity to rebrand itself as a refreshingly new Political Party that would open a window of fresh air and offer hope to already critically frustrated Nigerians at home and abroad. My confidence was also predicated on the emergence Dr Iyorchia Ayu, a famous scholar and distinguished politician as the PDP National Chairman. I had promptly dismissed the rumours in certain circles that he was installed to supervise and guarantee the coronation of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. I knew him as far back as the turbulent days of the June 12, 1993, Presidential election, which was won by Chief Moshood Abiola, but annulled by the military establishment.
I finally decided to join the PDP after my chance meeting with Dr Ayu at the home of Governor Nyesom Wike in Port Harcourt last year. Dr Ayu was in Rivers