It is no longer news that top notch in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have made up their mind not to cooperate any more with the National Working Committee
(NWC) of their party, despite the call for truce by the National Chairman, Adamu Muazu, now on medical trip.
They have laid the blame of the party’s disappointing outing in the 2015 polls squarely on Muazu
and his co-travellers in the PDP NWC.
However, contrary to beliefs in some quarters, the opposition to Muazu is not coming from the South-South, South-East and South-West only.
Strong PDP voices in the North are also eager to see the back of
beleaguered Muazu. It is therefore a matter of time, and the political waves will move against the PDP NWC.
Among those who will lead the rebirth of PDP are definitely
some of the party’s outgoing governors who have masterminded critical intrigues within the party since the electoral fiasco of the recent past.
In the line up Three outgoing governors are being touted
to replace Muazu, among them former Rivers Governor, Dr. Peter Odili, and the outgoing Governors of Cross River and Delta States, Senator Liyel Imoke, and Dr.
Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan.
According to reports, one of the three is expected to lead the onslaught against the old leadership.
Apart from losing the presidency to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), the PDP under Muazu’s leadership also lost
control of majority states and seats in the National Assembly, thus bringing the party to the position of opposition leader, a status it never knew.
To rebuild the party and make it strong again, the South-South appears to be most favoured to produce Muazu’s successor.
Besides, since the formation of the PDP in 1998 the region has not been at the top leadership of the party despite its contributions to its success.
The party appears to be in dire need of leadership. Odili for one has not been very visible until lately when he decided to lend
support to Jonathan’s reelection.
It is uncertain how he would manage a party in which he has for long been out of touch.
As for Uduaghan, he was stopped from going to the senate as he had planned, while Imoke is a strong party loyalist believed to be capable of retrieving the party from its present parlous state.
Apparently, Akwa Ibom State governor and Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, Godswill Akpabio, who will be in the Senate
after leaving office this month, is expected to play a crucial role in the leadership of the emerging PDP as he has done before now.
Thus, besides outgoing governors, the PDP leaders in the National Assembly, prominently David Mark, Ike Ekweremadu, Emeka Ihedioha and others are expected to pull on their resources to raise the party out of its current spot.
Relieving Electoral Fiasco
Muazu’s problem seemed to have been compounded by the fact that he failed to deliver his state, Bauchi, to PDP, which also has the FCT minister and incumbent
governor, Isa Yuguda, defeated in the race for the National Assembly.
At the national level, Muazu has been accused in many quarters of working against the party’s interest during the electioneering campaigns.
In the same vein, other leaders of the party such as former Special Adviser to Jonathan on Political Affairs, Ahmed Gulak and
Ibrahim Suleiman-Zango, a chieftain of the party in the North-West have also called for Mu’azu’s sacking.
Zango had notably, last year, warned President Jonathan that Mu’azu might have planned to work with the APC and had like
a prophet predicted that if Muazu was not removed, Jonathan would be the first sitting president to be defeated in an election.
His warning preceded speculations by other political figures last year, especially in the
aftermath of the party’s primaries that Muazu was not working for the party’s interest.
It is not therefore surprising that the call for Mu’azu’s sack is growing louder than ever,
such that the entire South-West caucus of the party at a meeting in Ekiti over the weekend asked the NWC of the party to “honourably resign and give way for fresh
blood.”
South-South’s Quest But the quest to oust Mu’azu has even taken
ethnic dimension following speculation that the South East and South-South geopolitical
zones are plotting to take over the party’s leadership.
The two zones according to new
media reports are plotting to get rid of Mu’azu and install Cross River State governor, Liyel Imoke, in his place.
The speculation is understandably
prompted by the fact that South-East and South-South presently remain the only strongholds of the party at present.
In the South-East, the PDP won all the National Assembly seats even as it remains in charge in three out of the five states in the zone.
The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) which controls Anambra State is said to be only an appendage of the PDP.
In the South-South, the party has five out of the six states and just like in the South East, produced almost all the National Assembly
members. On the contrary, the party won only Taraba out of the 19 states of the old northern region, while it has only two states
of Ondo and Ekiti in the South-West.
Of the two zones nonetheless, South-South remains the favourite to take over the party’s leadership considering that it has the
financial capacity to bankroll the party which will be crucial for its survival since it does not control the centre any more.
Besides, the party winning five states in the South-South makes the zone the party’s strongest.
But even so, there seem to be growing concern over the loyalty of northern members of the party as many of them were alleged to be in sympathy with the APC.
For some of those who share the view that the South-South should take charge of the party, however, there are still other reasons,
paramount of which is that the North and South-East have remained in charge of the party for a long time, thus there is need for a change.
North’s ambiguous position at a point reports claimed that northern PDP governors have rejected the plot to sack the Mu’azu-led NWC less than a week
after it endorsed the proposal.
It was reported that three of the governors leading the ‘NWC must go’ project reportedly called Mu’azu and some members of the NWC to apologise for their action and pledge their allegiance to him and other members.
Among the pillars of the party in the North is Niger State governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, who is the leader of the Northern governors and, under his leadership, PDP
lost all the 19 states in the zone, except Gombe and Taraba, a development the PDP governors in the South are suspecting as
sprouting from northern agenda to kick President Jonathan out.
An Inexorable Development
Speculations have it that President
Goodluck Jonathan appears to be helpless over the development as some of the leaders of the party have warned him against the
sack of the NWC and allowing the governors to have their way.
On April 30, 2015, PDP governors
concluded that Muazu and other members of its NWC should take the path of honour and resign immediately.
This was the outcome of the meeting of 19 PDP governors
held at the Akwa Ibom Governor’s Lodge, Asokoro, Abuja.
They resolved that it had become imperative for them to go to pave way for new leadership, following the abysmal performance of the party at the March 28 and April 11 general elections.
The meeting, which was the first since PDP lost the presidency after 16 years of leadership, was a post-mortem on the election and the way forward for the party.
The governors were furious that the party had lost in its traditional states of Plateau, Niger, Kaduna, Benue, Bauchi and Jigawa.
Showing the Olive Branch
At any rate, the party Chairman who had been belligerent since the call for his removal began, recently became appeasing.
In a statement from his Chief Press
Secretary, Tony Amadi, after the party leader hastily embarked on an overseas medical trip, he sued for peace.
He urged all stakeholders and members of the party across the country to put behind them the disappointment of defeat, rest all
misunderstandings and put the survival and stability of the party ahead of all other considerations.
He noted that though the party’s defeat in the last general election is painful, members should key into the intervention by President Goodluck Jonathan and not allow
the situation to further divide the party.
Parts of the statement read: “The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has noted the various reactions that
trailed the unfortunate loss of our great party in the last general elections.
“In the last few weeks, the media has been fishing on these reactions with a section even blowing it out of proportion to a level that has become a threat to our oneness as a family.
“As the National Chairman and a key stakeholder in this party in the last 16 years, I quite understand and appreciate the concern, pain and frustrations of our members regarding our defeat.
“I am also deeply worried about the division the development has generated within the PDP family especially regarding whether or
not the national leadership should be dissolved as a direct consequence of our collective challenge.
“In the course of events, there have been reactions and counter-reactions among party members; mistakes have been made, some of them avoidable, but this is the time
to put all of them behind us and move ahead as our party and its interest remain paramount and overriding.”
Marking Time Regardless, governors Sule Lamido of Jigawa State and his Niger State counterpart, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, said on Thursday – a day after Muazu’s
statement, that they were on the same page as those who want the NWC sacked for allegedly leading the party to a ‘disastrous
defeat’ in the general elections.
They warned that if the call was not heeded, the NWC would be humiliated out when “the actual change will come in March,
2016, when we would elect new leaders at the national convention of our party.”
Lamido, who was guest to Governor Aliyu, during the commissioning of the multi-
billion Naira Shiroro bridge in Shiroro Local Government Council, particularly wondered:
“How could you lead a party to A disastrous outing in an election and you are still in place, take the blame for the defeat by quitting and if the PDP still wants you they
will beg you to stay.”
Governor Sule Lamido, however, noted that “it is not time for blame game. We should all accept that we made mistake and find ways
to correct it in the future.”
Apparently, President Jonathan, who stands a chance of leading the party’s BoT, may not be in a position to call the shots and
influence party decisions the way ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, had been.
Political observers believe that Jonathan is not assertive as Obasanjo and may – with
his exit from office – be less powerful in the party than he has been.
This is in addition to expected realignments and absorption of
returnee members who will definitely lose out in the scramble for a place in the APC’s sun.
