PDP: A Party at Its Wit’s End
Last week’s resignation of the national chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, can make or further mar the party. Omololu Ogunmade writes
Since the Peoples Democratic Party lost the 2015 general election, things have virtually fallen apart in the party. The centre can hardly hold in the party that had prided itself on being the biggest in Africa. The hitherto self- styled largest party in Africa has now become a shadow of its former self as it licks its wound. PDP did not only lose the presidential poll to the opposition All Progressives Congress by over two million votes, it also lost its major strongholds to APC at the governorship elections in the North, winning only Taraba and Gombe states in the entire North.
The PDP only recorded success in the South- south and South- east, thus, turning the erstwhile Nigeria’s largest party with huge support across the length and breadth of the country to a more or less regional party. The party’s one time dream of ruling Nigeria for 60 years has also now become a pipe dream.
Whereas independent observers expected the party to quickly pick itself up and reposition for vibrant opposition, PDP has rather been plagued by protracted internal feud, which on Tuesday led to the resignations of its national chairman, Adamu Mu’azu, and Board of Trustees chairman, Tony Anenih.
Mu’azu had been the object of criticism since the party’s loss at the last general election. He had tried, to no avail, to combat the forces calling for his head since the loss. His traducers had maintained that having led the party to sheer disaster at the polls, he no longer possessed the nerve to retain his seat as the party’s national chairman.
His plight was made worse by a series of allegations that he connived with the APC to kill the party’s fortunes at the elections. Some of his traducers would even allege that they could provide evidences of the connivance before and during the elections while others would allege that Mu’azu only lived up to his nickname as “the game changer” by ultimately changing the game in APC’s favour.
But Mu’azu had vehemently dismissed the allegations and simultaneously vowed to resist moves to force him to resign. But the more he hung on to office, the more he was overwhelmed by the heat of the struggle.
The hostility, however, attained a turning point when it was obvious to him that he was no longer welcomed in the Presidential Villa. His loyalty to the party had been in doubt before the elections, as some elements in the Presidency had accused him of working for the opposition at the heat of the electioneering. That the party performed abysmally in his Bauchi home state at the polls had been described as evidence that his heart was never with the party.
The matter became worse when members of the National Working Committee of PDP, reportedly, teamed together against him with a plan to humiliate him out of office. It was at this level that Mu’azu knew that the game was up for him and, hence, the only option available to him was to throw in the towel if he must escape imminent embarrassment.
His resignation on May 20 was followed by that of Anenih.
BoT Chairmanship
While protagonists of the drama had said that if the Augean stable must be thoroughly cleansed, Anenih must also go the way of Mu’azu, the popular “Mr. Fix it” has claimed that he was not forced out of office, but only opted to quit to pave way for the emergence of Jonathan as the next BoT chairman.
Nevertheless, now that Mu’azu, perceived to be the problem of the party is gone, what prospect does the party have for a better future? This remains an issue to watch out for.
Sources sympathetic to the plight of PDP had remarked that if the party must pick up its fragments and regain recognition in the polity, it must get its choice of leadership right once and for all. According to them, the party must find for itself a credible national chairman who can show leadership by exhibiting the ability to galvanise various conflicting interests in the party.
Such a leader, they say, must be able to secure the respect and confidence of members from various parts of the country in such a way that the party can again begin to show signs of recovery.
Prior to Mu’azu’s forced resignation, a source who did not want to be named had told THISDAY that PDP governors were the major force behind the move to oust him with the overall intention to install their cronies at the top echelon of the party. This, the source said, was with the ultimate intention to take over the party even after some of them must have left office on May 29. It was against this background that rumours were rife that a South- south governor had been pencilled to succeed Mu’azu.
Struggling for Survival
However, events since after Mu’azu’s ouster appear not to show any sign of hope for PDP. Acting national chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, said on Thursday that the present crop of the party’s leadership would not quit but ultimately serve out their tenure.
This brought reminiscences of the remarks of some stakeholders immediately after Mu’azu’s resignation that the emergence of Secondus as acting national chairman would hold no prospect of change or progress for the party. According to them, it will take a completely new and visionary chairman to reposition the PDP as a vibrant and formidable opposition.
Some other individuals have reasoned that if Secondus and the current members of the party’s NWC, who allegedly led the PDP to disgrace, have to hold the baton of leadership beyond now, the situation may further cripple its hope of recovery. Besides, they argue that it would only affirm the belief that PDP is nothing but a South- south and South- east party. Secondus hails from the South- south.
Throwback to the Past
There are suggestions that if PDP must witness a quick recovery and regain its lost national spread, it must never resort to the gamble of leaving its headship in the South as it will limit its existence to the two regions. This, it has been noted, would only rekindle Nigeria’s experience in the First Republic when the three existing parties were branded regional parties because they only had sizeable presence in their regions.
At the time, the Northern Peoples Congress, led by the Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, dominated politics only in the North and it was, therefore, known as a northern party, while the National Council of Nigerian Citizens, led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, was regarded as the party of the Igbo. In the same vein, the Action Group, led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, fully controlled politics in the then Western Region.
The last elections attempted to polarise the country along regional and religious fault lines with APC clearing elections in the North with only a presence in the South- west as a result of the merger arrangement which involved Action Congress of Nigeria, the hitherto dominant party in the region.
On the other hand, PDP won elections mainly in the South- south and South- east, with minute performance in Taraba, Adamawa and Gombe states in the North- east.
It is against this background that concerned minds have advised the PDP to quickly shop for a popular and charismatic northern leader with the potential to revive it, regain North’s confidence in the party and consequently shelve the toga of a regional party.
The would- be- chairman, many have suggested, must be acceptable to the vast majority of northerners and must have the ability to reconcile aggrieved members of the party who left for APC at the heat of the crisis which broke out in PDP ahead of the 2015 elections.
Some observers have also warned that should the PDP fail to make good use of the resignation of Mu’azu by entrenching the right and visionary leadership, the party may find it difficult, if not, impossible to ever get it right again. This makes the recent warning by Senate President David Mark relevant. Mark had warned that if the party failed to put its house in order, “the haemorrhaging and comatose PDP” would soon perish and its memory forgotten. Mark’s expression may be food for thought for the party at this moment of change.