By DAN AMOR
With the emergence of Prince Uche Secondus, a former Deputy National Chairman and Acting National Chairman as the elected National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, concerned Nigerians had thought that all was now set for an interesting opposition politics in the country. He defeated all the aspirants who contested for the coveted diadem in a make-or-mar election held at the Eagles Square, Abuja on Saturday December 9, 2017.
But three years down the road, Prince Secondus has failed to ensure a peaceful harmonization of all rough edges in the party. In spite of the horse-trading and other subterfuges which are the hallmarks of all political competitions, PDP leaders must note that the survival and goal of the party should be paramount. So far, like a COVID 19 patient, the party is gasping for relief.
The National Working Committee of the party led by Secondus has failed to provide enviable leadership and direction for the largest political party in Africa. The erstwhile ruling party is so badly floored that it would take a deliberate frantic effort to bring it back to life. At a point, the Governor of Rivers State, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike started behaving as though his second name was PDP whose decision would be final in all matters relating to the party. He felt he could walk on water without sinking and could call the bluff of any PDP elder or even governor without let or hindrance.
Wike was openly raining abuses on fellow governors on national television stations. He still does it occasionally. The party was so buffeted by chronic indiscipline that seedy governors such as Ben Ayade of Cross River State could afford to gallivant all over the world without attending its Governors Forum for straight six months without anyone bothering a hoot to caution them. What would you say of a political party whose elective positions are reserved for the highest bidders?
The daunting task of leading the party to recover lost grounds in the 2023 general elections can only be achieved if all stakeholders eschew bitterness and rancour and forge a united front. Given the hooting and jeering, backstabbing and mudslinging that characterized its lifespan during the protracted crisis, the PDP deserves nothing less than strategic repositioning.
If the former ruling party can muster its resources, including human and material, invest in the media, and put up a good outing like the All Progressives Congress (APC) did between 2013 when it was registered and 2015 when it won the presidential election, reclaiming the Presidency is a forgone conclusion. It was no less a leading APC chieftain than Prince Tony Mommoh, who said recently that the PDP could bounce back to power if they worked hard enough to reposition the party. Mommoh, a man of candour and nobility of outlook, does not mince his words no matter whose ox is gored.
Therefore, periscoping the multiple crises that relentlessly attacked the PDP soon after it lost political power at the Centre to the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) during the 2015 presidential election and given the emergence of the present National Executive Committee to pilot the affairs of the party in full capacity, many believed that there was a silver lining in the horizon. But Secondus and his team have failed to reposition the party three years after assuming full control of the party. Formed in 1998 by 34 Nigerian elders and statesmen who felt the need to challenge the military and return the country to the path of growth and development through adherence to genuine democratic ethos, the PDP saw the need to defend the democratic rights and freedom of the average Nigerian.
It was the PDP that revived all national institutions hitherto wrecked by the military for 39 miserable years. Not only was the National Assembly rejuvenated as the bastion of democracy, the party set the tone for the rebirth of the Judiciary which has since been pocketed by the APC since the inglorious removal of Hon. Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen as Chief Justice of Nigeria.
The party resuscitated the Code of Conduct Bureau and the Code of Conduct Tribunal. Its government set up the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offenses Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Between 1999 and 2015, the PDP despite its obvious short comings, shot Nigeria to international acclaim as a country just emerging from the pariah status to which the military had confined it after 15 years (1984-1999) of gangsterism, rapacity and greed.
There is no doubt that the nation transited to civil rule in 1999 after a prolonged disruption during which the military held sway. Sadly, one cannot in all honesty say that genuine democratic practice started immediately. This was so because decades of military imposition stalled the evolution of a truly democratic culture.
Like any other form of societal activity, inducing the acceptance of norms, attitudes and behaviour compatible with the functioning of a democratic culture was bound to take time. But in no time, the party started giving meaning to the anxiety of Nigerians for a liberal and accountable political atmosphere. Yes. The PDP, like a demented hen, started sucking some of its best eggs. Some of its finest governors were even sent to jail through trumped up charges. Yet, under its watch, Nigerians saw food to eat and were able to send their children to school.
In spite of the fact that the new president then, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, had a military background, the PDP inculcated in its members a clear philosophical-cum ideological orientation as well as a sense of loyalty to a strong organisational structure anchored on disciplined esprit de corps, the result of which was its ability to hold Nigeria together for sixteen unbroken years as a united country.
Since the short transition period from military to civilians necessitated the coming together of strange bedfellows as members of the party, the forced cohabitation had clearly not been harmonious. Hence, the plethora of crises that threatened to put the mega-party out of circulation. But the party which in sixteen years had succeeded in building a strong middle class and corresponding social safety nets to cushion the uncertainties of the economy could not have gone into the smoky air of oblivion.
Now, with the more than five year balance sheet of inefficiency and nonperformance of the APC-led Federal Government under General Muhammadu Buhari, the PDP has no choice but to co-opt the civil society, the Organised Labour and the media to extricate Nigeria and its people from the jaws of establishment political sharks and pythons who in just five years have made the country so suffocating for Nigerians. Prince Uche Secondus and his new team were expected to sue for peace, bring all the aggrieved members under the party umbrella and forge a united front.
Chief Olabode George, High Chief Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, Prof. Tunde Adeniran and others, who were said to have stormed out of the venue of the convention in protest against perceived irregularities demonstrated their love for Nigeria and their party by accepting the current situation with equanimity bearing in mind that they would certainly become whatever God wanted them to become through divine intervention.
Unfortunately, it was the party leadership that failed them by not doing the needful. Indeed, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan is the best any party can have in that category anywhere in the world. But it is not enough to issue press releases or address press conferences. Secondus and his team should tell Nigerians the PDP is the government in waiting with alternative and informed choices.
How would they handle this intractable insecurity problem? How would they put food on the table of the over 40 million Nigerians that go to bed without food daily, etcetera? The party was supposed to have started selling their programmes to the electorate immediately it lost the 2019 presidential election by the whiskers. The PDP must educate Nigerian voters to appreciate the value of their votes so as to protect their votes. The PDP elected lawmakers must network with their counterparts from other parties to push for formidable electoral reforms. But, ultimately, the party leadership must reach out to its founding leaders and former governors who suffered untold witch-hunt through Obasanjo's "dog-eats-dog" syndrome.
The strategic trajectory of the party's current endeavour is to centre a nation-wide critical stakeholders' dialogue that has the capacity of reimagining and rethinking the founding vision and ideals of the party. It is to mainstream reconciliation in the party's institutional infrastructure rebuilding project; to strengthen conflict resolution mechanisms for the internal harmony and fraternity and to map out a framework for the allocation of political patronage amongst the six geopolitical zones ahead of the 2023 general elections.
This Big Idea would be operationalised in a media/public space advocacy driven strategic retreat that would have in attendance members of the NWC, members of the NEC, BoT, Governors Forum, NASS Cacauses, Zonal, State and LGA leadership conclaves, special party wings like Women, Youth, and Diaspora, and carefully selected party stalwarts, who will brainstorm for one full week under the guidance and direction of experts and thinkers around the retreat's key thematic trajectories.
The decline in standards in our political terrain can only be arrested by going back to the basics. We have to build proper political parties anchored on structure and discipline, funded by the generality of its membership and bound together by coherent philosophical and ideological thrust.
There is nothing new about this as PDP clearly manifested some of these attributes in the past. Secondly, all stakeholders must come together to fashion a national agreement on democratic principles, which must set out in clear, unambiguous terms, the way and manner in which the democratic process is to be operated. There is no longstanding democracy in which such an agreement , sometimes unwritten, does not guide the democratic system.
Rejigging
the PDP is not only in the interest of the party but also in the interest of
Nigeria and the people who are now aware of the difference between politics and
propaganda. This is imperative as Nigerians need the party as a fish on a dry
sandy beach needs water. A stitch in time sometimes saves more than nine.
*Amor, a public
affairs analyst, writes from Abuja
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