By Godwin Etakibuebu
At the end, after sailing through a very ferocious and turbulent political tide, the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] had a successful electable national convention in December 2017. The Convention needs to be seen as a great achievement, against the background of the rough road the PDP travelled after the 2015 General election.
The PDP, being the ruling Party and parading itself as the largest Political Party in Africa, lost the 2015 General Election, “against the run of play”, as Segun Adeniyi [Editorial Chairman of Thisday Newspaper and an outstanding author] puts it. Being the “largest Political Party in Africa”, as it claimed, the PDP’s fall [loss] at the election became like the “dance of death” by a falling elephant in the forest – huge and catastrophic in nature.
It was therefore not expected that the PDP, just like the physical elephant it compared itself to, would be able to rise to its feet, within two years of such terrific fall, through the democratic route of National Convention. That it was able to achieve this in December, 2017, within a pace of two years, must be commended for a reason.
Besides the “unexpected fall” [as PDP leadership and its members were the only ones that did not know that losing the 2015 election was inevitable] the presence of Ali Modu Sheriff in the party did not give hope for PDP’s “resurrection from the valley of fall”. Yes, his [Ali Sheriff] presence which was made possible by a comprehensive political miscalculation and blunder of President Jonathan; then leader of the PDP, in the name of strengthening the party, became a colossal disaster and liability on the PDP until the Supreme Court came to its rescue. This victory of “outliving” Ali Modu Sheriff [the spoiler] by the PDP must also be given a place of recognition.
Another thing we need to consider in order to appreciate the success of the PDP’s convention is to look at the APC; a Political Party that came to power on the slogan of “Change”, and its inability to conduct National Convention almost three years into domination of the political arena, despite the fact that its [APC] constitution explicitly mandated such. It is only when one identifies failing students in any given class that caliber of those [students] passing in the same class can be appreciated. Let us leave this just like that.
It is for these reasons and many others that PDP’s rise from the debris of political fall, through the conduct of an electable National Convention, brought hope for survival of democracy in Nigeria because of the role a viral, vocal and strong opposition [political party] plays in strengthening democratic structure in society. An All Progressive Congress [APC] domination of the political terrain in Nigeria without a proportionate and solid opposition would have remained a permanent national disaster. As lack of check and balances in any democratic endeavours transfer monopoly of tyranny on “sole-practitioner-incumbent”.
One more important thing that makes evaluation of the PDP Convention a worthwhile exercise is the fact of role-function its success has in shaping the Nigerian political terrain in 2018 and 2019; the year of another General Election. There is going to be major political re-alignment, not only in the PDP but most urgently in the ruling Political Party [APC], though the later may not admit this. It is for these reasons that we should now evaluate the calculus of that Convention since politics, by my personal interpretation, is a game of “manipulation and permutation”.
The most important elective offices of the PDP convention, ditto most conventions, were that of the Presidential candidate and National Chairman, though other offices, with all due respects, are also very important. Deliberately, the PDP zoned the presidency to the North [for the purpose of splitting the Northern votes against Buhari’s popularity should he decides to contest in 2019] and the Chairmanship to the South as that would balance the North/South issue. One outstanding thing about the zoning is that the defunct National Caretaker Committee, led by Ahmed Makarfi, did not restrict the position of the Chairmanship to the South/West in any public declaration though it would have preferred that.
While the South/West battled itself in producing the Chairman, it failed, and this is for two major reasons. First, one of the PDP Governors; Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State, having positioned himself as a Vice-Presidential material to whoever emerges as the Presidential candidate from the North, worked assiduously against the emergence of a South/West Chairman for the Party. His political calculation was that if the South/West produced the Chairman of the Party, there is no way the Party would nominate him as vice-president.
Governor Fayose had earlier played this game when he astutely pursued the acceptance of Ali Modu Shefiff as the Chairman of the PDP. That pursuit in positioning himself as vice to the man from Borno; knowing fully that he [Sheriff] was looking beyond the Party’s interim Chairmanship to becoming a Presidential candidate for the Party in the future, was Fayose’s hidden ambition. Fayose only discarded this pursuit; which put the Party into a very strenuous legal battle, only after discovering that the “permanent interest” which brought the “unholy alliance” between himself and Ali Sheriff, was no more. That is just politics – it is always permanent interest.
For this reason, Fayose found a willing partner in prosecution of his ambitious agenda in the person of his Rivers State counterpart – Governor Nyesom Wike. The later, nourishing his own hidden agenda, knew how important his second tenure as governor meant for him and ipso facto, would rather have a Chairman of the Party “he could call his own” for achieving the second tenure ambition. It was on this calculus that Prince Uche Secondus from Rivers State emerged as PDP chairman through “a unity list of delegates” on the Convention ground in Abuja.
The second factor responsible for the South/West losing out on the Chairmanship race was what most notable personae dramatis from the South considered the overbearing posture of Olabode George “lased with a sort of arrogance”. These people came to the conclusion that he [George] has not really proved to be of any electoral asset. They recalled that given all the backing, with logistics and financial resources, he received from the PDP-led federal government of Obasanjo for eight years; he could not deliver Lagos State to the PDP.
To this group, Chief Olabode George remains an electoral/votes liability who would not be able to add any value to the PDP if elected Chairman. Clever Governor Fayose played smartly on both factors in fathoming the convention the way it went by eliminating all contestants from the whole South/West zone, including those from his own Ekiti State. It is always game of manipulation and permutation.
The last of the calculation for today’s analysis would be the anticipated benefits accruable to Ahmed Makarfi in the coming days, because in zoning the presidency to the North, one of the undeclared interests of the man [Makarfi] was the possibility of him becoming the Northern Presidential Candidate when the time comes.
Yes, a Northern presidential candidate is a must for the PDP in 2019, but can emergence of Makarfi [that is if he makes it that far as presidential candidate for PDP] really stand the test of denting Muhammadu Buhari for votes in Northern Nigeria of today? It is my opinion that Makarfi; a two-time Governor of Kaduna State, who made it to the Senate through the instrumentality of “just leaving office as governor”, to become a Senator – a position he could not hold when he attempted second return to the Senate, may not be a man of glory for PDP in 2019. Too many people in Kaduna State are of solid opinion that “he hasn’t gotten that stamina to become a Northern President” if PDP fields him in 2019.
So far, the calculus of the Convention, as exposed in this work, might have created a thorough navigational aid for a voyage of discovery into the Nigerian rough political Ocean for the PDP through 2019 and beyond, Eldorado may still be a step beyond Philippi.
How far the PDP would go in checkmating the APC for the presidency’s slot in 2019, may still be “a long walk to freedom”, in the worlds of the great Madiba – Nelson Rolihlahia Mandela.
*My apology for not continuing with the topic: “The hypocrisy of Buhari in governance” today but we are returning to that any day this week or next week, by the decision of my Editor. Happy New Year to all.
Godwin Etakibuebu, a veteran journalist, wrote from Lagos.