The founding of the Peopleโs Democratic Party was spearheaded by former Vice President Alex Ekwueme, who cobbled a group of 34 First Republic and Second Republic politicians together to stand up against the dictatorship of Gen. Sani Abacha.
At the advent of the Fourth Republic, he nurtured the group to form the PDP, which is now โfalling into the handsโ of those who had hoped that it would transform into a formidable opposition to the All Progressives Congress that it lost the presidency to in 2015.
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives and current Chief of Staff of President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, who claims to welcome the African Democratic Congress coalition, thinks that opposition political parties could promote broader political engagement in Nigeria.
The PDP, which lost its nPDP faction to the APC, after what seemed like a civil war led by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Bukola Saraki, a former governor of Kwara State, who later became Senate President, seems incapable of playing the role of opposition to deepen Nigeriaโs democracy in this torturous Fourth Republic.
Regrettably, it is increasingly looking as if Abubakar, a beneficiary of the PDP that made him vice president twice under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, appears to be the one who will eventually bury the glory of the party.
And a less glorious ADC will be the beneficiary of PDPโs glory that is being taken away by the coalition of strange bedfellows, most of whom are only looking for any available platform to achieve their political ambitions, as Olalekan Ojo, a human rights lawyer, suspects and counsels, โEgo and personal ambition must take a back seat.โ
He adds, โThe key is for stakeholders to understand that the president is not an entitlement, but a vehicle to rescue Nigeria from entrenched dysfunctionโฆ If the opposition fails to rise above individual interests and adopt a unified, pragmatic approach, the ruling party will retain the upper hand by default.โ
He thinks that the ADC, which parades those he described as recycled politicians with questionable promises that no one believes, consists of the very wheeler-dealer political elites and moneybags that it claims to oppose.
Commodore Olabode George (retd), a former military governor of Ondo State and former National Deputy Chairman (South) of the PDP, suggests that the partyโs internal crisis started when former Vice President Abubakar insisted on being the partyโs presidential candidate in 2023, even though the presidency should have been zoned to Southern Nigeria, according to the partyโs constitution.
His words: โ(In) the (2022 PDP) convention, General (Muhammadu) Buhari had just finished his eight years (as President of Nigeria)โฆ Then, Atiku Abubakar (from Northern Nigeria) wanted to compete (for the presidency). We said, โNo. A Northerner had just finished eight years. (The presidency) has to be in the South.โ This was the beginning of all the crises (in the PDP).โ
Clearly, Commodore George, who once devised the ploy of asking Abubakar to allow younger people to run for president, insisted that a northerner should not succeed another northerner who just spent eight years as president.
That was also the argument of the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, a former governor of Rivers State, who joined fellow Southern Nigerian governors in Asaba, Delta State, in 2022, to declare that the presidency should move to the South in 2023.
Wike and four other PDP state governors, Okezie Ikpeazu, Abia; Samuel Ortom, Benue; Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Enugu; and Seyi Makinde, Oyo, formed the Group of Five Governors, who refused to support Abubakarโs presidential candidacy because the PDP breached its own protocols of ethnic balancing and rotation of the presidency.
Recall that Abubakar led the nPDP โrebelsโ out of the larger PDP with the argument that the presidency should return to Northern Nigeria after President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, had spent six years in office after succeeding late President Umaru YarโAdua, a northerner.
For Abubakar to be clamouring for the return of the presidency to Northern Nigeria after only two years of the presidency of a Southern Nigerian gives the impression of a man who is either unfair in his dealings or confused in his mind about what is right and decent. The North, it was, that started the idea of rotation of the presidency.
Abubakarโs vaunting ambition seems to have consumed his sense of equity. He was so conceited and insensitive during the 2023 presidential election campaign to the extent that he openly declared that the Northern Nigerian electorate only wanted a northern president, and neither a Yoruba nor an Igbo president.
Not a few Yoruba, who heard the nonsense, were disappointed with the man who described himself as pan-Nigerian in outlook. They were even more disappointed when his Ilesa-born wife came with the warped logic that the Yoruba would have an accessible First Lady in her if Abubakar became president.
Though the First Lady position is a stranger to the Constitution, she may have been hinting that through her, the Yoruba, whom she has not hitherto openly identified with, would have easy access to lobby a President Abubakar.
Well, there are no records or reports that the Yoruba had access to her when Abubakar was vice president to former President Obasanjo. So, it is a bit of a wonderment that she wanted to sell such puerile subterfuge to beguile the Yoruba to support the presidential ambition of her husband.
In a veiled reference to Abubakar, who left PDP with David Mark, a former Senate President, and others, into ADC, George argued, โIt is a disservice to the party whose platform they used to get to higher positions in the country.โ
At a meeting with PDP stakeholders in Lagos State, George had concluded, โThere is no coalition in todayโs Nigeria that can be stronger than PDP,โ before asking Abubakar, Mark and others to retrace their steps and join others in the restoration of the PDP.
Georgeโs umbrage was also directed at Wike, whom he accused of undermining and destabilising the PDP by collaborating with interests that belong in the ruling APC. Indeed, observers have accused President Tinubu of using Wike to destabilise the PDP.
George says: โWike (who has refused to resign from the PDP, even though he is a minister in the ruling APC government) seems like a loose cannon within the party that is cooperating with the APC to weaken (the PDP).โ
Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde has also called on erstwhile members of the PDP who have joined the ADC to return. He admonished them, โYou canโt abandon your house because of a leaking roofโฆ It is the responsibility of the members to fix the leaks, strengthen the foundation and keep the house standingโฆโ
Instead of his emotional preoccupation with Abubakar, who he thinks shouldnโt be president because he is a Northern Nigerian, George should cooperate with Wike, with whom he shares this noble opinion, and look for a credible Southern Nigerian presidential candidate for the PDP.
Credit:Punch