nPDP fattens APC, as PDP shrinks

By Chidi Obineche
The Phoenix
In the run-up to the commencement of political hostilities in 1998, three major parties emerged on the scene – All Peoples Party (APP), Alliance for Democracy (AD), and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
There were no ideological persuasions in their formations. People just banded together to take their chances as the military retreated to the barracks. In the beginni                                                                                     ng, there was nothing to suggest that the PDP would grow overnight to become a behemoth. Tension, disagreements, disenchantment and desertion reared  their  ugly heads early in its odyssey. The AD metamorphosed from this grave misunderstanding, when some leaders of the PDP led by the late Chief Bola Ige opted out to form the AD. At the time, there was a rash of criss -crossing across the three parties as the politicians sought for nesting, positioning and relevance.
Former Vice President, Dr Alex Ekwueme was the interim leader and had an illustrious following of associates within the fold. A huge number of them came from the second republic National Party of Nigeria, NPN, and commanded heavy influence within. Calculations were wrought and Ekwueme dumped the interim leadership for the presidential slot of the party. He failed to take cognizance of the lurking, interloping military overlords, who were keen and determined to regiment the process and enthrone their lackeys. Against all calculations and predictions, they hijacked the party from outside and foisted former military leader Gen Olusegun Obasanjo on the party using tendentious military, Machiavellian tactics, and carrot and stick approach made popular in the preceding years by General Ibrahim Babangida (Rtd).
Ekwueme was defeated in the national convention of the party held in Jos in early 1999. The emergence of Obasanjo as the presidential candidate of the party signalled the first major face-off within the party, as he immediately sidelined most of Ekwueme’s henchmen in planning campaigns and major decisions. Opposition within the party grew in leaps and bounds. The late Dr Chuba Okadigbo, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, Wada Nas, Chief Onyeabor Obi, among others took up the gauntlet as opposition mounted against Obasanjo and the PDP. Obasanjo and the PDP nonetheless coasted to victory in the April 21, presidential elections, won 21 governorship seats across the states, and an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly. The total control of all power levers did not bring much comfort and stability to the party, as it slipped into more ferocious crises at all levels. Obasanjo’s courage, lack of inclusiveness in his decisions, and independent mind created ripples and internal opposition. 16 state chapters of the party were embroiled in crises. Contrary to popular expectations that Okadigbo was to become the senate president, the table was overturned and the late Evan Enwerem emerged. His choice of Abubakar Atiku as against tested Northern politicians like Rimi  and Adamu Ciroma as running mate pitched the northern oligarchy against him.
Political groups and associations flourished within the party and struggled to wrest power from Obasanjo, who though without any discernible structure, managed to stay afloat.
An exasperated Nas described the former president in late 2000, as “power drunk, whose politics and regime will  ultimately lead to the implosion of the party”.
Onyeabor made allusions to a man “who is eating a food he did not know how and when it was prepared, and since he has  no sense of history of the party will definitely destroy it”,.
Barely one year in power, the word “implosion” sneaked into the political lexicon and was banded about with great relish. The long wait for the implosion began as the  party rocked from one crisis to the other. So many were the crises, ahead of the 2003 presidential primaries of the party, that there were heightened fears of a possible military intervention. Democratic dividends and developments took the back seat as the battle to seize control of the party raged on all fronts. Inspite of these sombre pictures, peace moves for reconciliation continued unabated as the party held on to power till date.
Playing hamlet without the prince
The PDP under unrelenting convulsions over the years had managed to rule in utmost instability. No major party  had emerged to give it a strong run, a situation  former nationalist, and first republic minister of aviation Chief Mbazulike  Amaechi sees as “the lack of challenge which has made it to be docile and self-serving.
“The fact that it survives every crisis in its way has made it too over confident and relaxed, believing that it will overcome whatever comes its way. This belief is entrenched and that is why the leaders are hardly moved. Infact sometimes they look for the trouble themselves”.
Somehow, the latest crisis which led to the formation of the New PDP by some aggrieved governors and leaders  and the lack lustre manner in which it is being managed may become the first real major test for the party. The pioneer chairman of the Lagos chapter of the party, Chief Olorunfunmi Bashorun, admits that the party’s bad day has come.
Bashorun, who is now in APC, told Sunday Sun that “Every dog has its day. PDP’s luck cannot drag forever. Yes, they have survived many upheavals, but the magnitude of this one is nothing compared to previous ones. Again, you have to look at the nature and character of the person in power as president.
How weak is he? How acceptable is he to  all segments of the country? How knowledgeable and skilled in politics is he? Who are his henchmen? What are the dynamics for the next election?” A professor of political science and former minister of information, Sam Oyovbaire posits that the sociology of Nigeria must be taken into consideration when analysing the outcome of the 2015 elections
“First, there has been an unnecessary hype and exaggeration of the possibility of two major parties. We have failed to take into consideration what I call the sociology of the Nigerian political process in the sense of the fragmentation of interest and the ethnicisation or regionalisation of the overall landscape”.
He continues “Though it is the ideal, nothing dramatic has happened in the sociology of the political landscape of the country that would throw up such a development”.
Death for PDP
The general excitement of  the merger of the new PDP with the All Progressives Congress, APC, signposts the death, through weakening, of the PDP. So much is this belief that supporters of the APC and cronies of the merging rump from PDP are already basking in euphoria and dreaming of outright victory in 2015. The timing of the mergers, including the coming together of All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, Congress for Progressive Change,CPC, and the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, is instructive.
It came two years ahead  of the elections, giving enough room for stability and planning. Previous mergers and alliances in Nigeria’s history were usually snapped-up in a hurry just months before a major election.
For Akwa-Ibom state Governor and Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum,Chief Godswill Akpabio, the merger is a welcome development. Indeed, he had called on them to leave the party before they eventually did.
His cold warning to them is that ‘you will lose your followers. They may not be ready to go with you. We leaders always exaggerate our importance believing that our followers will always follow us to any where without question”.
But the Director of Press and Publications to Adamawa state Governor ,Murtala Nyako, Sajoh Ahmed has a different rationale for their action. “This party, PDP will die and we will help in burying it”.
Oyovbaire however contends that the PDP should immediately retool itself before the elections, otherwise it will face serious challenges.
But while the excitement is in the air, there are niggling posers on the fate of PDP. These posers include issues like the capacity of APC to wrest power as it is not imbued with common enrobing manifestoes or ideology.
The central objective of all the people in the party is to stop President Goodluck Jonathan from winning the 2015 elections.
Nothing more. Having failed in stopping him in PDP, through surreptitious control of the party machinery, their sights are set on 2015. And if that fails, that is the end as you will see most of them crawl back to the party.
For the APC, Oyovbaire cautions that it must go beyond being a platform for election only, and plan to be a serious political party with long term objectives.” The battle for the control of the political space has just begun. The party with more vision, guts, and poise will emerge victorious at the end of the day.