Can PDP Really Bounce Back In 2019?

8 years ago

Can PDP Really Bounce Back In 2019?

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has often boasted that it was going to rule for 60 years.

This wishful thinking was swept away after the 2105 general elections and the once ruling party will be forced into opposition from May 29. Can the party bounce back? ANDREW ESSIEN writes.

Mrs Ibongedi Anthony is a business woman from Akwa Ibom State and a card-carrying member of the PDP who, before the general elections, was confident that her party was set to sweep at least 30 states of the federation and cap it up with the presidency at the centre. But after the less-than-impressive outing of the PDP at the polls, she has decided to re-evaluate her political inclinations to the party.

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On his part, Samuel Gyang from Plateau State has been in the All Progressives Congress (APC) with his political benefactor since the party was registered by the electoral umpire. Just before the elections, his political ‘godfather,’ in his calculation, thought the party had no chance in the state and thus crisscrossed to the PDP. As a good ‘son’, Gyang followed with the hope of some form of political rehabilitation since his ears were full with the promise of benefiting from the much talked-about stomach infrastructure policy once the party won.

Alas, how wrong was this calculation as the PDP was defeated in the state and the once-rejected party, the APC, won overwhelmingly, giving credence to the biblical allusion that the rejected stone may yet turn out to become the chief cornerstone. Gyang has since launched a comeback to the party, to the utter dismay of his political ‘father’ who has, in turn, disowned him.

Several other stories like these abound across the length and breadth of the country since the PDP lost the political battle. Some dominant names in the party have been ditching or are considering abandoning ship in the face of the political earthquake that hit the polity after the elections, giving rise to concerns from various quarters whether the PDP would be able to bounce back to its former boisterous self.

Already, traffic to Wadata House and Aso Villa has drastically plummeted since after the elections and calls are rife for the sack of the Adamu Mu’azu-led National Working Committee (NWC), since, as aggrieved party members say, the ‘game changer’ has changed the game albeit negatively for the party since the advent of his chairmanship.

At the end of the PDP’s NWC meeting, the first after it lost the presidential election to the APC, and with a tsunami of defections already hitting it, the party`s national publicity secretary, Mr Olisa Metuh, sought to assuage party members across the country that the NWC had put machinery in place to re-engineer and re-focus the party, in keeping with the collective determination to consolidate its support base in states of the federation.

While speaking with journalists, Metuh also noted that some members have left the party, calling party members with genuine grievances to direct such through the appropriate channels within the party in line with the provisions of its Constitution.

When asked why people were switching allegiances after the elections, a political analyst, Mr Kedono Momoh, was of the opinion that politicians were not well grounded in the art of politicking and as such what abounds in the political landscape are political toddlers who do not pay the price for the glory sought after, stressing that they were just interested in making money out of politics. As a result, if they do not see any future for personal aggrandizement, they simply move to the next party, albeit shamelessly.

Momoh posited that this does not augur well if proper democratic values and ethos are to be entrenched. He said politicians must put the country before themselves and nurture their political parties, be it a ruling party or the opposition. Citing the Republican and Democratic Parties in the USA as examples, he stated that there, you find people who have stayed decades in politics in one party so much so that once you mention their name, you could be rest assured that whatever the fortunes of party are at a particular time, they will remain with it.

“A member of the Bush family, hoping to contest for the White House in the coming elections, did not abandon ship because the Democratic Party won the last elections. He has consistently been in the Republican Party just like the family patriarch but the same is not the case here. You find a man crisscrossing several parties to a point that you don’t know where he started from just to achieve selfish ambitions, causing problems along the line” he stressed.

Against the backdrop of high-ranking PDP members leading the defections of hundreds to the APC across the country, the Senate President David Mark and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, issued statements reassuring PDP members that they would be the “last men standing” for the party. This was just as the governor of Niger State, Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, said the PDP defectors lack political fortitude, declaring that he would rather resign from politics than defect.
Among the notable names that are included in the exodus of several PDP members into the APC are former national legal adviser of the PDP and a gubernatorial candidate in the 2012 election in Ondo State, Olusola Oke; the political adviser to the outgoing president, Ahmed Gulak; Senator Nicholas Yahaya Ugbane; Senator Dangana Ocheja and former attorney-general of the federation, Michael Aondoaka, to mention but a few.

When asked reasons responsible for the trend, a PDP stalwart who craved anonymity, pointed at the destructive political steps of the imposition of candidates across the country, without consulting the various key stakeholders within the political space in the areas concerned.

“Secondly, the lack of internal democracy within the PDP to which, interestingly, the APC had its own fair share until the build-up to the general elections but with many excruciating sacrifices made by key leaders of the party, who had to jettison personal ambitions. This saved the party from ignominious defeat and it paid off handsomely for them. They are all savouring the sweet aroma of victory now,” he said.

The question on the minds of analysts is that with the PDP having been on the driver’s seat since the return to democracy in 1999, will it be able to play the opposition role?

The APC, rather comically, recently advised the PDP to urgently learn the ropes of how to be in opposition, stating that rather than blaming others for its loss in the just concluded general elections, the party should blame itself.

In a statement, the APC national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the PDP would need training to effectively carry out its new and tough task of an opposition party as it is now obvious that the party and its handlers need to understand that for them to succeed in their new role, they must be credible, empirical, more sophisticated in use of language and very passionate, in addition to being able to operate on a lean or zero budget.

With early calls for leadership change early, many wonder if the PDP is on a path to self-destruction and whether it can effectively play the role of opposition. In fact, speculations are rife that aggrieved stakeholders in the PDP have intensified the plot to unseat the party’s national chairman, Adamu Mu’azu, and members of the NWC, blaming them for the party’s electoral woes.

Permutations are that Mu’azu is expected to call for the meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the party anytime between now and May 15 where the NWC members will be asked to resign, and if he fails to call this meeting, he would be forced to do so as soon as possible.

Whatever the case may be, a former minister of transport and member of PDP BoT, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, agrees that the PDP needs to be rebuild.

“We have to reorganise the PDP for future elections. Now, we won’t create anarchy in the party by dissolving the NWC abruptly. But eventually, the Mu’azu-led executives have to go. We need young and experienced hands to reorganise our party,” Babatope said in a recent interview.

Many are of the opinion that with the absence of towering figures and savvy personalities in the party, it will face a herculean task as it tries to revive, rejig and rebrand itself. With the new political development and realities on ground, the party is presently engulfed in crisis, which, if not properly managed, could lead to its disintegration, thus robbing it of its opposition status, which people expect it to provide in this new dispensation.

One hopes that the party does not dwell too much in self-abnegation, for it still has a crucial role to play in keeping the APC on its toes, lest the new ruling party begins to take Nigerians for a ride all over again, something that will play into hands of the PDP which has vowed to return to office in the next general elections.