BY CHIBUIKE CHUKWU
Once prided by its members as the biggest political party in Africa with membership dominating the political space in virtually all parts of the country, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the supposedly main opposition party in Nigeria, has become a playing ground infested by all manner of absurdities.
Since losing power to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015, the hitherto ruling party has failed to assert and organise itself in a manner deserving of the once flamboyant political party. While the PDP has been synonymous with crises and has failed to put its house in order, the current issues with the former ruling party can be traceable to the outcome of the last presidential primary election where the former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, emerged as the party’s flag bearer.
Recall that the genesis of the current problem bedeviling the PDP could be traced to the allegation of imbalance in the composition of the leadership positions in favour of the north against the south ahead of the last election.
The opposition to the imbalance was championed by Nyesom Wike, then governor of Rivers State, with the support of four other governors then and some prominent leaders of the party. Consequently, they had insisted that the then chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu (from the north), must resign for a southerner to take his position.
Wike and fellow G-5 governors then relied on an alleged promise made by Ayu before the exercise that he would relinquish the position should a northern candidate emerged as the presidential candidate.
After Atiku’s emergence, Ayu was called upon to honour his words but he failed to do so. As such, Wike and his allies, comprising Samuel Ortom, then governor of Benue State; Okezie Ikpeazu then of Abia; Seyi Makinde of Oyo; Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi then of Enugu, as well as other stalwarts like Donald Duke, former governor of Cross Rivers; Olusegun Mimiko, former governor of Ondo; Jonah Jang, former governor of Plateau, and Professor Jerry Gana, to mention but a few, excused themselves from having anything to do with the presidential campaign until the needful was done. Their adamancy then caused serious concern in the party.
The then crisis of the PDP was also hinged on the imperative of allowing for fairness as majority of the stakeholders mentioned above said it was wrong for a northerner to mount the podium after former President Muhammadu Buhari, thus they favoured a southerner to be the party’s flagbearer.
Their position was, however, not without opposition as those insisting on open primary said the issue of zoning arrangement which was the foundation of the problem could be addressed from both legal and political angles. Looking at it from the legal aspect, the party has not contravened any known law or rules in the process that led to the candidacy of Alhaji Atiku as the flag bearer. The 1999 Constitution (as amended), the then newly promulgated Electoral Act 2022, and the constitution of the PDP did not make any provision for zoning of the office of the president. But from the political perspective, the party also made spirited efforts towards ensuring that no particular region or zone was unjustly treated by the setting up of a committee to deliberate on the issue of zoning before the primaries. It was this committee that threw the context open for every region/zone to vie for the position (even though anything contrary would have been inconsistent with the subsisting law) and by so doing, gave further credence to the right of every eligible individual to contest regardless of his region or zone of origin. This was what set the trap of seeming unending crisis in the PDP.
