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The Peoples Democratic Party was the major political party in Nigeria in 1999 when Nigeria returned to democratic rule. There were about 34 prominent Nigerians, called the G-34, led by Dr Alex Ekwueme, who formed the party at inception. Most of them were celebrated democrats with impeccable democratic credentials. Unfortunately, “owners of Nigeria,” made up of serving and retired military Generals, for reasons that bordered on self preservation, decided to choose a fellow army General, in the person of General Olusegun Obasanjo, without any democratic credentials, to emerge as the party leader and eventual President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under the party in 1999. His regime became an extension of the military style unitary system of government in which the President was in charge of everything and acted more like a king than a President.
In fairness to Obasanjo, he was able to commandeer the economy to substantial recovery which saw us pay up our foreign debts and did not see us borrow more heavy debts until his exit as President. The GDP expanded and the GSM mobile services flourished. However, on the job of nourishing essential ingredients of democracy to ensure successful and peaceful transition of power, which reflects the will of the Nigerian people, in free and fair elections, Obasanjo failed to deliver.
Obasanjo described elections as do-or-die, and organised elections that were so unfree and unfair that the main benefactor of Obasanjo’s election, President Umaru Yar’Adua described them as flawed. Internal democracy within PDP was practically dead during Obasanjo’s regime that a gubernatorial primary election won by Chibuike Amaechi in Rivers State was unilaterally cancelled by Obasanjo for a nebulous reason that the election had k-leg. Indeed, at the twilight of his regime, he had acquired the monarchical sense of entitlement to power that he wanted a third term in office, but failed to capture it, as even some prominent members of his government and his party were opposed to it. This failure to obtain a third term instantly turned Obasanjo against his party, which made him prop up Gov Umaru Yar’Adua, who was the least interested in the post of the President, to contest for the post which he eventually won in a flawed presidential election.
Yar’Adua died about two and half years later due to a pre-existing terminal medical condition. His Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan, took over the reins of power which offended the eight years rotational agreement between North and South. The inability of the PDP to assert itself and its Constitution in 2011 to ensure that power remained in the North for eight years, despite the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua in office, in deference to the eight years rotational agreement between North and South marked the beginning of the downfall of the PDP. President Goodluck Jonathan was also insensitive to the mood of the country, particularly the North, when he decided to run again in 2015 to become President, which would have seen him sit as President for almost 10 years. If he had succeeded, the South would have had the post of the President for about 18 years in 2019 while the North would have had it for only about two and half years within a period of about 20 years of our democracy. The North rose up, and with the active collaboration of the “owners of Nigeria,” including Obasanjo, brought Jonathan down and ended the reign of PDP in 2015. The presidential election of 2015 ushered in the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Buhari into power. PDP failed because it disregarded its own constitution.
One would have thought that after that experience, PDP would learn its lesson or even learn a new strategy. They failed in all, and today the party is in an intensive unit of a political hospital suffering multiple organ failure. In 2019, it fielded a fellow Northerner to contest with an incumbent northern President and failed. It cried to high heavens that the presidential election was rigged to no avail. The northerners will not be willing to truncate the regime of a fellow northerner half way, neither would southerners be willing to die to fight a Northerner against another Northerner. PDP forgot that Buhari contested presidential election four times before winning at the fourth attempt. Buhari called for blood against election rigging three times he contested against southerners and there was appreciable resistance against the Southerners even when there was no convincing evidence that he won against the Southerners on the two occasions he lost. When he lost against Yar’Adua and scored a woeful 6.6 million votes, even when Yar’Adua publicly acknowledged that the election was rigged, Buhari did not call for blood. Even if he had called for blood, no Northerner would have supported because another Northerner was in power. It’s practically impossible for now to dethrone an incumbent President with someone from his section of the country, especially in Nigeria where the conduct of free and fair election is not guaranteed. Whatever can dethrone Tinubu must come from the other section of the country.
The brightest opportunity for PDP to produce its next President and defeat APC was in 2023. The strategy was very simple, zone the post of the President to South-East. The South-East Geo-Political Zone was the most loyal to PDP since 1999, voting for the party despite tribe or religion, without getting anything from PDP. In the South, the South-East Geo-Political Zone had voted for the South-West and South-South to produce Presidents before 2023 in PDP. It was only natural that it was the turn of the South-East to produce the next President and it was the duty of the PDP to zone it to the South-East. It was instructive to note that politicians like Atiku Abubakar made the concession not to run for the post in 2023 if it was zoned to South-East. Unfortunately, the G-5 Governors refused to accept this zoning formula because this zoning arrangement would have precluded their leader, Nyesom Wike, from running for the office of President in 2023. Gov Samuel Ortom, one of the G-5 Governors who chaired the committee, broke the news that the party had thrown the post of the President open to every interested Nigerian.
PDP went into the presidential primary with Wike and the G-5 believing that they would win, prompting Wike to vow that he would support whoever (North or South) that emerged from the primary. He lost to Atiku Abubakar who won, when Gov Tambuwal threw his weight behind him. Wike solicited the position of the Vice-Presidential Candidate and lost to Gov Okowa. The G-5, having lost out in all power equation in PDP, resorted to anti-party activity by supporting Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC). INEC later declared Tinubu winner. The PDP lost the election because Peter Obi left the party and ran differently, G-5 remained in the party and ran against the candidate. Kwankwaso left and ran alone. When they divided their votes, Tinubu with his minority votes was declared the winner through technical glitch. This was when PDP entered into a coma.
After the election, Wike was made the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to ensure that PDP became a servant of Wike who is now a servant of APC. It worked. Wike made it clear that he will support Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election. When the G-5 started clamouring that PDP should zone the presidential ticket to the South even when the election is still more than two years away, any casual onlooker understood that they meant the ticket should be zoned to Tinubu.
Let it be clear that what the PDP did at their last National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting was not zoning, it was deception. Zoning is among the six Geo-Political Zones, not between North and South. Rotation is between North and South. Presidential power is in the south now, not in the north, so the issue of rotation does not arise. If all the parties are serious in zoning the post of the President to a Geo-Political Zone in the interest of equity, justice, and fairness, let APC, PDP, ADC, LP and every other party zone it to the South-East because South-East is the only Geo-Political Zone in the South that has not produced the President. This was what happened in 1999 when all the political parties zoned the presidential ticket to South-West and produced only Yoruba presidential candidates. Without this arrangement, any opposition party that falls into this monkey trick, formulated by the G-5 members of the PDP to zone the ticket to Tinubu, is as dead as the PDP. The only strategy by any party willing to win Tinubu in 2027 is to allow a free, fair, and transparent presidential primary election among every Nigerian citizen interested to run from any part of the country, preferably from a Geo-Political Zone that has not produced a President since 1999 to recruit the best candidate to confront Tinubu, win him, and rebuild Nigeria from the ruins of Tinubu’s maladministration.
The obvious sign that the PDP is dead is the absence of tangible politicians vying for the post of the President in the party. The mere fact that PDP is luring politicians who have left the party to come back to contest for the ticket depicts that the party is dead. Most of PDP’s Past Presidents, Vice Presidents, Senate Presidents have either left the Party, or lost interest in politics completely. Obasanjo even tore his PDP membership card. Atiku, former Vice President is gone. Goodluck Jonathan and Namadi Sambo have lost interest in politics. Pius Anyim, Ken Nnamani, and David Mark, former Senate Presidents of the party are gone. The remaining politicians are the almajiri politicians waiting for the instructions of their leader, Wike, on how to re-elect Tinubu in 2027.
