The People’s Democratic Party came into existence in 1998. It is the only major political party in Nigeria that was born in the 20th century. It was an offshoot of G32 made up of seasoned and eminent Nigerian citizens, whose only preoccupation, in the dying days of the regime of General Abacha, was to redress the injustices of the Abacha regime. When Abacha suddenly died and the succeeding Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, hurriedly organised a transition to democracy with a determination to hand over power within a year, the G32 morphed into a political party, named the People’s Democratic Party, in continuation of its determined fight for equity, justice and fairness. The major national injustice in the land then, which had become a national and international embarrassment, was the cancellation of the June 12 election, won by Chief MKO Abiola, and his subsequent demise in the gulag of General Sani Abacha. PDP deployed its constitutional mandate to permanently settle the debacle of June 12 by ceding its presidential ticket to the South-West.
PDP knew that if they ceded the post of the President to South-East or South-South, June 12 will still remain unsolved. This is because the Geo-Political Zones in the South vary both in ethnicity and religion. The British recognised this variation when it divided Nigeria into regions of the North, East and West. When Nigeria gained independence, the South was further subdivided into East, West and Mid-West, while the North remained one. History has shown that whatever was deemed to belong to the West was not always assuaged if it was given to the East and vice versa. PDP in 1998 was formed under the leadership of Chief Dr Alex Ekwueme from the South-East. He later became interested in becoming the next President of Nigeria, under the PDP constitutional provision that power should shift to the South. But PDP was formed to redress injustice according to its Constitution. Though PDP agreed to shift power to the South, they wanted the section of the South that was most unjustly treated to have it. The party, specifically, in Section 7(3)(c) of its Constitution vowed to adhere “to the policy of the rotation and zoning of Party and Public elective offices in pursuance of the principle of equity, justice and fairness”. Since it was the South-West that fairly and squarely won the June 12 election, which was unfairly annulled, the sympathy of the country was for the South-West and every known PDP stalwart worked for the emergence of a candidate from the South-West. Rotation favoured the South but zoning favoured the South-West.
It’s instructive that immediately PDP worked for the emergence of a candidate from the South-West in the primary, every known politician from the South-East worked to elect that candidate in the general election. Every political party chose candidates from the South-West for the post of President. The only reason Obasanjo won the election was because the South-East overwhelmingly voted for him despite the South-East losing out in the primary. South-West did not vote for Obasanjo but he won because of the support he got from other Geo-Political Zones in the South. The only Zone Obasanjo has not compensated with the post of President for supporting his election in 1998 is South-East. Time has come for the elder statesman to support a President from the South-East in the interest of peace, equity and justice.
PDP also demonstrated patriotism by choosing a pardoned prisoner who had become virtually bankrupt to be their candidate because they felt that he had the capacity to deal with the perceived problems of Nigeria then. They were not thinking about the next election, they were thinking about the next generation and the interest of keeping Nigeria one. You and I can say a lot of things about President Obasanjo, but you cannot doubt his innate desire for the oneness and unity of Nigeria. In 1998, the greatest need of Nigeria was rebuilding the trust among the federating units which was badly battered and replaced with distasteful mutual suspicion arising from the cancellation of June 12. In their choice of Obasanjo, they thought about Nigeria first. They didn’t think about money bags, they thought about leadership bags. In their choice of Obasanjo, they didn’t look for a man that will give them money, because Obasanjo had none, they thought about who to give money if only the person can rescue Nigeria. They thought like statesmen, not like politicians. That was the finest of PDP. They continued on this trajectory and eventually dwarfed other political parties.
By 2007, PDP zoned its ticket back to North in the interest of power shift and rotation. However, President Umaru Yar Adua died, after about almost three years in office, and this commenced the birth of confusion, betrayal and deception in PDP. It is important to note that Obasanjo was not as selfless in choosing Yar Adua to be President as the people who chose him to be President. He didn’t consider the interest of Nigeria first and its stability in choosing Yar Adua. The terminal infirmity of Yar Adua, for which he later died, was already public knowledge. It has reached advanced stage when Obasanjo chose him to be President. Obasanjo was pointedly accused by Northerners that the only reason he chose Yar Adua was because he knew Yar Adua will die in office and this will automatically return power to the South. Unfortunately, their prediction came through and Goodluck Jonathan, Yar Adua’s Vice President from the South, became President. This was the beginning of the North’s distrust of PDP. Obasanjo also, cleverly, eliminated all the capable hands under him who fought against his third term agenda. The only reason Obasanjo fought against the ambition of Atiku Abubakar to become President in 2007 was because Atiku fought ferociously against his third term agenda. His allegation that Atiku Abubakar was extremely corrupt as reason for his withdrawal of support was irretrievably destroyed when he threw his weight behind Atiku in the 2019 election. Atiku had not become a Pastor or Imam after that labelling of him as irredeemably corrupt by Obasanjo as to give Obasanjo the leeway of adducing repentance of Atiku as the reason for his change of mind to support his presidential ambition in 2019.
There were three shades of opinion in PDP as to how to respond to the sudden death of Yar Adua in 2011 vis – a- vis the constitutional provision of power shift and rotation in the interest of equity, justice and fairness, which the death of Yar Adua had brutally assaulted. The first was that North should be allowed to complete its second term by being allowed to contest the 2011 election. In order words, power should remain in the North to respect the eight-year-tenure zoning arrangement. The second option was that Goodluck Jonathan should be allowed to complete the eight-year joint ticket of Yar Adua and himself, so power will return to the North in 2015. The third was that the position should be thrown open to all candidates to contest in 2011. At the end of the day, the preponderant opinion was that Goodluck Jonathan was a young man and it will be unfair to terminate his regime after about one year in office. Let him be allowed to contest for the presidential election in 2011 and hand over power to the North in 2015. Effectively, post of the President was zoned to the South-South in 2011. We must note that the concept of zoning doesn’t entail stopping any person who wants to contest against the wish of his party, it simply enunciates the policy of the party to create the conducive environment for a candidate from the chosen zone to emerge. Some politicians, including Atiku Abubakar, kicked against this option and insisted he will run. Nobody stopped him. He ran and lost. Jonathan won the general election and defeated Buhari. This was the power of unity.
In 2015, PDP backslided from all the options which they agreed they will follow in 2015 and chose the path of grand deception. This broke the party into pieces. North felt betrayed and insisted that the zoning arrangement must be respected. Tambuwal, Saraki, Atiku, Kwakwanso and the rest worked out on President Jonathan in protest of the disrespect of the zoning arrangement which concluded in 2011 that power should shift to the North in 2015. PDP even printed only one nomination form for the President, sending a signal that other aspirants are not wanted. They left PDP and joined APC and helped defeat Jonathan in 2015.
By 2019, having learnt a bitter lesson, PDP, belatedly, resorted back to its zoning arrangement by ceding presidential ticket to the North. Their unity showed in their good performance at the election, but it was not good enough to grant them victory. They allowed the same power grabbers to win the presidential ticket. The danger in giving power grabbers a ticket is that they have said different things about their own political party at different times when they joined other political parties and such statements were used against them when they get the nomination of their Party. Atiku was defeated in the general election. Even in opposition, there was only one Geo-Political Zone that gave maximum support to PDP. This was the South-East. They didn’t care about the consequences in voting PDP again while in opposition. They remained loyal, even when most of the Geo-Political Zones have abandoned PDP and they were threatened with only 5% patronage as punishment for their unalloyed loyalty to PDP in 2015.
In 2023, Nigerians thought it was a done deal for the PDP to zone the presidential ticket to South-East. They earned it through undying loyalty to PDP. A Northerner is about to conclude his 8-year tenure and it’s the turn of the South to become President. Naturally, the South-East should inherit the post because the South-West and South-South have produced both President and Vice since 1999. It is very insulting to the sensitivity of the average PDP member in the South-East that PDP is deciding to throw the contest open to sabotage the possibility of South-East producing the next President. This is a grand deception. Bode George has warned of defeat to PDP if they refuse to harken to the voice of reason and zone the post to the South. Wike has warned. Ohaneze, Afenifere, PANDEF have warned. Atiku was reported to have said that he will step down if the post is zoned to the South-East. PDP should listen to reason and zone this post to the South-East and avoid destroying the party entirely through grand deception.