By Willy Eya, and Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Today, August 17, is a major date in the calendar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Except the unusual happens, the party once touted as the largest in Africa would hold its national convention to elect its substantive officers. Venue of the convention is Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital.
Ordinary, the national convention of any party comes as a happy event with a lot of fanfare. It is usually an opportunity for major stakeholders of a party to converge on one venue to take major decisions and elect their national leaders.
But in the case of today’s event by the main opposition party, it is one national convention that even optimists would be hesitant to celebrate its outcome. Why? The convention is mired in confusion arising from the decisions of two courts of coordinate jurisdiction. The courts are the Abuja High Court and the federal High Court in Port Harcourt.
On Monday, there was confusion over the legal battle over today’s convention as the two courts in question gave different orders on whether the event should go on or not. While the federal High Court in Port Harcourt validated today’s convention, the federal High Court in Abuja had made an interim order stopping the Ahmed Makarfi-led faction from going ahead with the event.
The Port Harcourt court presided by Justice Ibrahim Watila had in its order directed the Inspector General of Police, The Rivers State Commissioner of police and the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) to provide security for the convention.
The Secretary of the PDP National Convention Planning Committee, Senator Ben Obi had, for himself and other members of the committee approached the court to among other reliefs refrain the police, DSS and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from interfering in the successful conduct of the national convention.
But the Federal High Court in Abuja presided by Okon Abang, had ruled that the convention be suspended pending the determination of an application by the Ali Modu Sheriff faction.
Justice Abang had ruled that the interim order would subsist till when the motion filed by the Sheriff-led faction seeking an interlocutory injunction against the convention was heard and determined.
The judge gave the order after joining Makarfi and six other members of his factional Caretaker committee as defendants to the substantive suit which was filed on July 1, 2016 by Sheriff and members of his faction.
But speaking on the development, Counsel to Senator Ben Obi, Wori Nyeche Wori, said with the granting of the interlocutory injunction, the PDP has the legal backing to carry on with the convention.
Also in a statement on Monday, Dayo Adeyeye, spokesman of the Markafi faction, said the convention would take place because a federal High Court in Port Harcourt had given a superior order for it to proceed.
But with the different positions of the courts which have coordinate jurisdiction, there seems to be an air of confusion surrounding today’s convention. And the question on the lips of critical observers is –after today’s convention, will the opposition party fare better or worse?
PDP’s quest to reinvent itself
There is no doubt that the PDP has been making efforts to reinvent itself and chart a new course in spite of the leadership crisis that has bedevilled it for sometimes now. But so far, all efforts to reconcile feuding groups in the ensuing power struggle have not yielded the much desired result.
Since the last general election where the PDP lost its status as Nigeria’s ruling party, things have not been the same for the party, which apart from styling itself the largest in Africa, boasted that it would lead the country for 60 years.
Efforts by the party to get its acts together under one strong leadership at its Convention in Port Harcourt Rivers State last May was not successful. Rather, it broke the party into two factions.
Prior to the botched May Convention, several top shots of the party had expressed misgiving over the zoning of the position of National chairman to the North East and the insistence of the then chairman of the party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff to contest for the position.
Sheriff, a former governor of Borno State in a bid to douse tension over his appointment as National chairman had promised to quit after three months.
Naturally, not a few chieftains of the party saw his ambition to remain in office beyond May as a breach of the earlier agreement. Expectedly, they resisted him. To show their displeasure over the support of the PDP governors for Sheriff’s bid to contest for the National chairmanship last May, aggrieved members of the party led by former deputy Senate president, Ibrahim Mantu staged a parallel convention in Abuja same day the main convention was scheduled to hold in Port Harcourt.
However, in a twist, the PDP governors after a meeting at the Rivers State Government House in Port Harcourt, withdrew their support for the former Borno governor’s chairmanship bid. Inside sources say after attempts by the governor to get Sherriff to jettison his chairmanship ambition failed, the governors decided to pull the rug off his feet at the convention venue. But the former party boss got wind of the plan and refused to show up at the convention. Instead, he quickly called a press briefing where he called off the convention.
At the convention venue, the delegates voted for the dissolution of the party’s National Working Committee(NWC) and set up a Caretaker Committee headed by former governor of Kaduna State, Senator Ahmed Makarfi as chairman and Senator Ben Obi as secretary. The caretaker committee was given 90 days to organise a fresh national convention.
But Sheriff later dismissed the dissolution of the NWC as a joke, insisting that he remained the leader of the party until 2018. He later replaced former members of the dissolved NWC and appointed former House of Reps member, Cairo Ojougboh as deputy national chairman of his faction.
Since last May, there have been conflicting court judgements on who is the rightful chairman of the PDP, with Makarfi and Sheriff laying claims to the leadership of the party. In the ensuing tussle, the police sealed Wadata plaza, the secretariat of the party.
Bumpy path to reconciliation
Although analysts say the way forward for the party is to start on a clean slate by electing a credible leadership in a rancour-free convention, that cannot be achieved in an atmosphere of crisis and the party itself recognises this fact. In its bid to engender peace in the party, the BoT set up a reconciliation committee headed by Professor Jerry Gana. Members of the BoT and the reconciliation committee have been reaching out to party leaders and aggrieved members.
A fortnight ago, the BoT members led by Jibrin visited former president Goodluck Jonathan to solicit his support in the reconciliation drive. The former president promised to intervene in the crisis.
The Reconciliation committee in its part, met with the former Borno governor behind closed door in Abuja last Tuesday. Before the Tuesday meeting, there have been at least two different attempts by some PDP governors and leaders to broker peace between the party and Sheriff.
The factional national chairman said he is disposed to a reconciliation meeting but that it must be done in accordance with the rule of law.
At the end of the meeting, the former Borno governor gave four conditions for peace. This included the postponement of the convention, the change of the venue of the convention from Port Harcourt to Abuja, removal of the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike as the chairman of the convention committee and the validation of the ward and local government congresses held by his faction.
The Tuesday meeting was followed by several other meetings by leaders of the PDP with Sheriff’s camp between Wednesday and Saturday last week. One of such meetings was held on Friday night between the Borno governor and Governors Ayo Fayose, Nyesom Wike and Ibrahim Dakwambo of Ekiti, Rivers and Gombe respectively. Inside sources said the governors appealed to Sherrif to shift ground on his demands.
However, when the Gana Committee submitted its report to Jibrin in his Abuja residence, it became obvious that the peace talks with the former Borno governor did not achieve the desired results.
While submitting his report, Gana said in the course of its assignment, his committee consulted and discussed with all aggrieved persons in the party. He said recommendations if implemented would heal the wounds of the party and reposition it for the challenges ahead, noting that one of the key recommendations of the committee was that members should desist from running to the court over issues that are clearly internal affairs of the party.
However, he was not forthcoming on whether his committee succeeded in wooing Sheriff into the main fold.
But the special assistant, media to Sheriff, Inuwa Bwala confirmed to Daily Sun on telephone that there was no truce between the feuding party. He accused the other side of playing to the gallery.
Jibrin told journalists that the BoT will quickly look into the report with a view to implementing it’s recommendations. However, Gana said the national convention slated to hold today would go as scheduled.
It was amid fears that the Sheriff camp may want to scuttle the Port Harcourt Convention through the courts that the Makarfi Caretaker Committee got an injunction from a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt to restrain the security agencies from interfering with the exercise.
But even among optimists, there are fears that the convention if not well managed may compound things for the party. Already, some leaders of the party are already sounding a note of warning on the consequences if the election of leaders do not follow due process.
One of the aspirants for the national chairmanship position, Chief Raymond Dokpesi said the party must guide against imposition, otherwise it would be catastrophic. At the moment, all eyes are on the BoT to see how it would manage the reconciliation process and the convention. If the BoT succeeds in the two tasks, it would mark a fresh dawn for the party. But if it fails, it may just be the beginning of the end.