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A recent piece credited to former Jigawa State governor and one-time foreign affairs minister, Sule Lamido, captured the hopeless state of affairs in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the supposed leading opposition political organisation in the land. In it, Lamido had raised salient questions that ought to give managers of the party cause for concern.
He reportedly asked, “Pray, do we still have the National Working Committee of the PDP? Or better still, do we have a party called PDP? If we have one of the two, how come their total absence in the saga playing out in the PDP family in Rivers? Is the docility of the leadership of the PDP so comatose to the extent that President Tinubu of APC, our sworn rival and opponent, is now the grand patriarch of PDP?”
These are critical questions that strike at the essence of the PDP and its leadership. Perhaps, more than any other development in contemporary times, the crisis between the Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, has utterly exposed the decay and absence of cohesion in the party. The face-off between Fubara and Wike, his godfather, centred on the control of Rivers politics and, by extension, the resources of the state. In the course of the impasse, moves were made by 27 members of the House of Assembly sympathetic to Wike to impeach the governor, which four lawmakers loyal to him promptly thwarted. The 27 lawmakers further dumped the PDP and crossed over to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Not wanting to be caught napping, Fubara ordered the demolition of the Assembly complex and hastily signed the state’s 2024 appropriation bill into law. Members of the legislature in his camp also declared the positions of those that had joined the APC vacant. The pro-Fubara legislators also got a court pronouncement declaring the Speaker in their fold the authentic presiding officer.
The situation remained hazy when President Bola Tinubu intervened, summoned the warring parties to Abuja, where some fleeting agreements were reportedly entered into. They included withdrawal of all court processes, cessation of impeachment moves against Fubara, recognition of Martins Amaewhule, the Speaker in Wike’s camp, and recall of commissioners who resigned their offices in solidarity with the FCT minister.
Wike, Fubara and the feuding lawmakers belong to the PDP. But in all the controversies and the obvious cosmetic Abuja peace accord, PDP was not mentioned. And there was no recourse to it. Maybe, just maybe, that could have been what informed the National Working Committee (NWC) of PDP vowing on Tuesday that it would take disciplinary actions against Wike and other members who have worked against the party in various ways.
PDP national chairman, Umar Damagum, who made the disclosure in Abuja, stated that the party would take relevant decisions on the matter at the appropriate time. He was not precise on what he meant by appropriate time and when it would be expected.
The national chairman talking that tough should have sent jitters down the spines of those creating confusion in the party. Without holding brief for him, it was not only Wike that betrayed PDP at a crucial time. Following the emergence of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate of the PDP last year, Wike and other governors on the platform of the party, Seyi Makinde of Oyo, former governors Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), Samuel Ortom (Benue) and Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), constituted themselves into the so-called Group of Five Governors (G5) who worked at cross purposes with the party.
Makinde eventually won a re-election, while Ortom, Ugwuanyi and Ikpeazu, who had served out their terms, lost their senatorial elections. Wike did not compete for any office but was appointed minister by Tinubu, in apparent payback for acting the mole for him.
The question is how far the threat by Damagum, the national chairman, would go. There is the likelihood of the affected members having a good laugh while the chairman sweated, knowing that nothing would happen to them. Quite unfortunately, PDP has become a huge joke in Nigeria’s politics. The story of the party is not one that can be exhausted in an instance. Just as the organisation at its height had appropriated the claim of the “largest political party in Africa,” the dimensions of its story have been those of an octopus, defying precise prediction.
But one thing that cannot be contested by even its committed members (assuming there are still) and its supporters (if there are) is that the party has become a bungled dream. I can imagine the lords of party politics, the national chairmen of Second Republic political parties, Obafemi Awolowo of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Adisa Akinloye of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Adeniran Ogunsanya of the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), banging their hands on the table over indiscipline by members of their parties as Damagum did! I can imagine the consequences of such on the errant chieftains. But that was when there was discipline and supremacy of the party.
The situation has changed drastically. Erstwhile Senate President, the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, was right that what Nigerians had were not political parties but mere rallies. Things have degenerated further. That of PDP is more piteous. It is even not certain how many members of the party can recognise their national chairman. It is that bad.
But, come to think of it! The rot in the party did not just happen. It had rather been there all the while, eating into the entire fabric before getting to the current malignant state. Wike is just a metaphor and nemesis for the lawlessness and crass indiscipline in the party. When he commenced his weird moves at crashing the PDP by elbowing out Uche Secondus as national chairman, elders of the party did not decode his agenda. When Atiku muscled his way for the PDP presidential ticket, beginning with enthroning his lackey, Iyorchia Ayu as the chairman, party lords looked the other way. When the PDP went against its own rule and denied the South East the chance of producing the presidential candidate in 2023, it was all politics. The chickens, as they say, have come home to roost and the party chieftains are crying over spilt milk.
As it is, what is not certain is if and when the PDP can recover from its present dangerous curve. But what is certain is that, with Wike, the party is paying the price for perfidy and years of indiscipline.
