By Fred Onyeoziri
A Political party is an association of interest organizations
competing for the power to govern in a national society. And the major strategy
for that competition is elections. It is winning the election that gives the
party the power to govern.
In the context of a free and fair election,
commitment to the interest of the party is the condition for winning success
for a party.
PDP’s failure to enforce respect for the
party’s interest was the major reason it lost power in 2015. It allowed all
manner of private interests – impurity, imposition, factionalism,
god-fatherism, and money politics – to distract it from enforcing respect for
the true interest of the party.
Since that major loss in 2015, the party has been struggling within itself to
reestablish its internal stability and moral legitimacy. Then came the last
(July 12, 2017) Supreme Court decision that gave the party a new lease of life
and a fresh institutional stability.
But there have been some recent happenings,
some sort of echoes from its inglorious past, that seem to suggest that the
party has not quite completely learnt its lesson of winning itself from the
creeping bad habits of its inglorious past.
The final litmus test of PDP’s regeneration
and ability to survive into the future is the forthcoming elective convention,
especially the race for the National Chairmanship position. This will be the
final test of whether PDP has learnt enough lesions to ensure its
survivability.
If commitment to the true interests of the
party is not allowed to guide the conduct of this National Chairmanship race,
then the concluding story will be an inglorious rendering of a nunc-dimittis.
Unfortunately, there are indications that the old habits are creeping back to
endanger the true interest of the party by sowing seeds of injustice,
unfairness, factional selfishness, and cash-muscling syndromes.
If the present leadership of the party cannot
muscle-in to protect the true interest of the party but rather surrenders to
the many-sided private and factional interests, then the battle for survival is
over for the party. Unfortunately we do not have a core of committed delegates
who will vote according to their conscience to protect the interest of the
party rather than be bought-over by the numerous cash-cows masquerading as
major stake-holders.
Let me conclude this piece by identifying some
of the factors that will derail the ability of the party to pursue its true
interests. By the party’s established tradition, party positions are usually
zoned to specific geopolitical zones. Accordingly, the chairmanship position
should have been zoned to the South-West for the simple reason that the
South-West has never produced the national chairman.
Equity, justice, and fairness demand that the
post should go to the South West. But by some curious logic, rather than pursue
this path of equity and justice, the position is said to have been zoned to the
South contrary to the established tradition of zoning to a geopolitical zone. And
rather than correcting this by micro zoning to the South-West some curious
private interests are muscling for the position to be taken by the South–South.
How on earth can anybody who wants to promote the party’s interest
and sense of justice be pushing for the South–South when it was the same
South–South that produced the last leader of the party and also the last Acting
National Chairman of the party?
Whereas the interest of the party directs that
the chairman comes from the South West, those who are muscling for the position
to come from the South – South obviously have other narrow and private interest
to serve. Clearly, the forces that are pushing for the South-South are
antiparty, narrowly selfish, and guilty of the impunity syndrome.
Worse still, if the current leadership of the
party cannot protect the interest of the party but rather surrenders to this
South-South pressure group, then this leadership has become both anti-party and
guilty of the imposition syndrome. What good is a party leadership that cannot
protect the interest of the party? A party leadership that cannot correct
errors of judgment or of omission or commission is failing in its leadership
responsibility.
Now that we know who the South-South
candidates are, and they are not wonderful people, the present party leadership
will be stabbing the party in the back if it continues to play helplessness in
the face of these South-South musketeers.
As we have indicated earlier in this piece, it
is the rightful turn of the South-West to produce the next national chairman.
Therefore, any attempt to divert this position to favour the South-South is
unjust, unfair, inequitable and anti-party.
Now that the South-West is rethinking the
logic of its association with APC is not the time to treat it to the injustice
and inequity side of PDP. Rather, this is the time to attract that zone with
the fairness of PDP by planting the party’s national chairman in that zone.
This is what the interest of the party requires. The alternative is a clear
conspiracy against PDP.
A PDP leadership group that connives at this
conspiracy or colludes with it will be sowing seeds of disintegration for the
party. Added to the shocks of its recent past, this additional conspiracy will
bring PDP to the end of the road.
Very often in the management of the interests
of an organisation, the selfishness of factional groups and so-called
stake-holders end up being the biggest threat to the life of the organization.
This is the danger confronting PDP as it
prepares (or rather fumbles through) for the December 9 convention. If its
current leadership cannot play it right and straight, if it cannot resist the
South-South subterfuge and rise to protect the interest of the party, there may
be no more game left to play for the party hereafter! !
*Prof. Onyeoziri is a political analyst and a
public writer
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