PDP:The path to disintegration

The ‘evil’ omen had for long clouded the
party, but no one really expected the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to split on
its 15th anniversary.
The Eagles Square venue for the Special
National Convention had been decorated
with 38 cake stands on which were placed
inviting cakes representing one for each
of the states of the country, the federal
capital territory and one for the national
party.
Ahead of the commencement of the
convention, President Goodluck Jonathan
had successfully mobilised most of the
party’s powerful governors to ride with
him in a bus to the convention ground.
The sight of the party’s governors,
including the “five rebel” northern
governors entering the convention ground
in the same vehicle was to buttress the
sense of unity that party elders
desperately sought to portray.
That sense of unity was also something
the president conveyed in his speech as
he compared the survival and unity of the
party with its original contemporaries
formed about the same time in 1998.
“Of the three political parties registered in
1998, and I want you to listen, only PDP
has retained its singular identify and core
vision as a political movement till date
while others have been imploded along
the way or subsumed their identity in
search of political direction and
relevance,” President Jonathan declared
in his speech to the special national
convention of the PDP last Saturday.
It was as such an irony that on the day
that the party clocked 15 years that the
self proclaimed largest political party in
Africa split into two. It was the first time
that the PDP which had for most of its 15
years trudged on the path of crisis would
be splitting into two major factions with
its elected political office holders
identifying with different factions.
Dr. Jonathan it appeared had for some
time had a sense of foreboding that the
party entrusted to him by fate was
slipping from him. Penultimate weekend,
the president met with one of his
strongest foes among the governors, Dr.
Rabiu Kwankwanso in the presidential
villa.
At that meeting, the president it appeared,
seemed to nudge the governor to retrace
his step from the internal dissension that
he, Kwankwanso and four other
governors of Sokoto, Jigawa, Adamawa
and Niger had been fuelling in the last
few months.
*Fight at PDP Special National
Convention: Aids of Andy Uba and Tony
Nwoye clashed at 2013 PDP Special
National Convention. Photo by Gbemiga
Olamikan.
Also last weekend, less than 48 hours to
the convention, the president also met
with Governor Babatunde Aliyu of Niger
State.
Aliyu like Kwankwanso the week before
appeared to be conciliatory after the
meeting, telling State House reporters that
he remained a member of the PDP.
The sense of urgency by the president
and his minders to mend fence with the
five ‘rebel’ governors was apparently
based on intelligence reports that the
opposition within the PDP was already
making decisive moves to fracture the
party based on the long simmering crisis
that had pitched some of the governors
against the president and the national
leadership of the party as represented by
the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga
Tukur.
At the centre of the crisis is the allegation
by many of the governors that the
president has completely taken over the
party, punishing all those perceived to be
against his 2015 presidential effort.
Chairman of the Nigerian Governors
Forum, NGF, Governor Rotimi Amaechi of
Rivers State had been suspended from
the party on the basis of allegations of
being opposed to Jonathan’s 2015
alleged ambition or having a presidential
or vice-presidential ambition of his own.
While the president played the game of
reconciling with the governors, the
governors apparently did not believe the
president was sincere.
So it was not surprising that in the days
preceding the convention that many of the
governors sustained their consultations
which was now focussed on how they
could sustain their political relevance in
the polity given what they assumed was
the determination of the president and
Tukur to crush all opposition to the
president’s 2015 ambition.
Along the way the governors also
established contact with former Vice-
President Atiku Abubakar, who like some
of the governors, was also losing
relevance in the party to the new forces
loyal to the president.
But teaming up with Atiku had a problem
for the governors given the problems
between Atiku and his home governor,
Murtala Nyako, one of the five rebel
governors.
Engagement in politics
Atiku and Nyako have had a bitter-love
relationship in recent times since the
latter’s full engagement in politics in
2006. Nyako it is remembered was a
direct beneficiary of the onslaught against
Atiku by the forces of Olusegun Obasanjo
who paralysed Atiku’s political machinery
in his home base using Senator Jibril
Aminu to plant Nyako as governor in
2007.
However, following his problems with
Aminu, Nyako sought help from Atiku who
mobilised domestic support to help Nyako
win his re-election two years ago. At that
time it was alleged that there was a quiet
understanding that Nyako would support
Atiku for his own presidential campaign in
2015.
However, following that, Nyako was
alleged to have reneged as he again
resumed fighting Atiku and sided with
Tukur against Nyako.
So with both Nyako and Atiku forced
against the wall by the Jonathan forces, it
was apparent to all that the governors
had to combine forces with Atiku to
confront the president. The advantage
Atiku brought to the table was his
nationwide organisation and structure
which the governors lacked being that
they were limited to their states.
But before they could forge alliance with
Atiku the issue of the problem between
the former vice-president and Nyako had
to be sorted out.
Rebel governors
The task apparently fell on Governor Sule
Lamido of Jigawa State, perhaps the
most experienced of the seven rebel
governors.
Lamido was the one who was dispatched
to meet Atiku last Friday to prepare room
for a formal reconciliation between him
and Nyako. The details of the meeting
between Lamido and Atiku in Atiku’s
Asokoro, Abuja residence were not
immediately known, but it was learnt that
the ground rules for the rapprochement
with Nyako were established.
It is, however, difficult to believe that the
governors would have gone ahead with
the split on Saturday but for the events
that happened on the convention ground.
While many of the dissents who met the
president in the last few days complained
that the president did not bring anything
to the table, they were further grieved by
what some described as the brazen effort
by Tukur and the party’s handlers to take
what was remaining in their hands from
them.
Vice-President Namadi Sambo, President
Goodluck Jonathan, Dame Patience
Jonathan and Bamanga Tukur at the PDP
Convention in Abuja
After the president’s speech on Saturday
in which he highlighted the unity of the
PDP and how it had defied all odds and
remained one despite the fractionalisation
of the opposition, and as the convention
moved into election mood, the ‘dissident’
governors were pissed off by the seeming
circulation of what was described as a
unity list allegedly endorsed by the
presidency. That apparently was the last
stab.
When the 16 members of the National
Working Committee, NWC resigned in
deference to a report of the Independent
National Electoral Commission, INEC that
their election was irregular, there was a
general understanding that all of them
would be returned at the special
convention.
However, for Tukur and his allies in the
presidency, the election offered them the
opportunity to do away with non-
conformists in the party leadership who
were seen as allies of the governors or
opponents of Tukur.
Dr. Sam Jaja who was nominated as the
deputy national chairman by Governor
Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State was the
first target. He was removed on the unity
list and replaced by Prince Uche
Secondus, a long time party veteran and
associate of former Rivers State governor,
Dr. Peter Odili.
Equally troubling was the decision of the
Electoral Committee to remove elected
delegates from Rivers, Adamawa and
Anambra States following the spate of
crises in the states. Given that the PDP
governors of Adamawa and Rivers states
could not bring delegates to the
convention, it was not difficult for them to
take their long planned walk from the
party.
So as the president rounded up his
speech and as Mrs. Patience Jonathan
came down to cut the 15th anniversary
cake, the ‘rebel’ PDP governors
commenced consultations.
Kwankwanso and Lamido as if in a final
salutation to the party made a tour round
Eagle Square and from there proceeded to
the Shehu Yar`Adua Centre where they
were joined by Atiku and the other
governors including Amaechi who was
not at the convention ground, having been
suspended from the party three months
ago.
Atiku’s drama at the Eagle Square
Atiku on his part had made some drama
at the Eagle Square when he against
tradition refused to sit in the VIP stand
preferring to sit with delegates from his
native Adamawa State.
“The essence of this is to show that the
party belongs to the people and to convey
to everyone that those in the VIP stand
who now control the party have lost touch
with the people and Turaki is doing this to
buttress his opinion that the party must
be returned to the people,” an associate of
the former vice-president told Vanguard
ahead of the walkout on Saturday.
But how far the dissidents can go
remains an issue. The first issue is for
them to unify among themselves and bury
their own individual political differences
and objectives under a united dream of
overwhelming the Jonathan led PDP.
Reaction of the president
As a step towards that move, the seven
governors were yesterday at press time
engaged in a meeting with Atiku in Atiku’s
residence in Abuja where they were
aiming to bury differences between Atiku
and Nyako.
Following that, the rebels who are indeed
calling themselves the New PDP, hope to
gauge the reaction of the president to
their move.
As a source in their camp disclosed, their
plan is to see if the president would
respond positively to their issues and if he
does there could be some talking, but if
not, the new faction of the PDP would
then seek to explore options open to it.
Among the options, is going to join the
Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM
already registered as a political party and
believed to be the child of Atiku or forging
ahead with their own party, the Voice of
the People.
In the end, the governors could register
the VOP and allow the PDM to co-exist
with it as a way of diverting votes from
the PDP, given the closeness of PDM to
PDP on the ballot paper.
The temptation to sustain the rebellion is
fired by the popularity of the rebellion
among some other party faithful.
A number of women who were opposed
to the emergence of Dr. Kema Chikwe as
the national women leader including
some women with nationwide name
recognition it was learnt, are already
making contact with the Baraje-led faction
to team up with it. Another governor from
the Northwest who did not join the
boycott, Vanguard gathered yesterday,
had also made contact to join the
rebellion.
Yesterday, the president and his
associates were in an overdrive to stem
the rebellion. President Jonathan met with
former President Olusegun Obasanjo who
is a patron of the five northern rebel
governors apparently to bring him into
the trouble shooting mission.
A meeting between the president and the
rebel governors it was also learnt has
been arranged for late last night. The
meeting was yet to take off as at press
time.