The
ongoing internal chaos in the Peoples Democratic Party, which was
actually a predictable twist following the rate at which key members
were being ostracised with obvious cooperation of President Goodluck
Jonathan, is a repetition of a drama witnessed under the chairmanship of
Ahmadu Ali in 2006, when a group led by the founding chairman of the
party, Solomon Lar, set up a parallel faction to purportedly take over
the running of the party from Ahmadu Ali.
Declaring
its position known at the time, the splinter group announced through a
past Deputy National Chairman of the party, Shuaib Oyedokun, that it had
ceased to recognise the Ali-led leadership, as its faction was the
authentic. The faction also boasted of supports from 17 governors and
notable chieftains of the party. This split was in the middle of a war
over the then Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s fallout with his boss. And
thus it was considered a move sponsored by Atiku.
That
major split was triggered by alleged political victimisations in which
then Plateau State’s Governor Joshua Dariye and Anambra State’s Chris
Ngige, were suspended and expelled respectively. The ostracised members,
Oyedokun told journalists, were “chased out by those elements that were
mere beneficiaries of the struggles of the G34. Most of them in the
hierarchy of the party and government today are known Abacha foot
soldiers and they are at it again. Indeed, the PDP has been hijacked by
night guards.” Oyedokun added that his group was taking over the party
because “the existing national officers led by Ali were purportedly
elected by affirmation in a method that was strange to the party’s
constitution.”
PDP has always been mired in crises over
legitimacy of its national exco. The recent crisis was sparked by the
nullification of the election of 12 of the 16 members of its National
Working Committee by INEC on April 8, 2013; a crisis that did not not
end until a panel led by Anyim Pius Anyim was set up to intervene, hence
a recommendation for the sack of some members of the party’s national
executive committee- an imbroglio narrowly escaped by the embattled and
controversial party chairman.
The long-awaited special convention of
the party last Saturday brought to the fore a foreseen split which had
frustrated the unity of the party chieftains ever since the infamous
election of Nigerian Governors’ Forum in which River State’s Governor
Rotimi Amaechi and the Presidency-backed Governor Jonah Jang were both
“winners”. While the division was along a deepening conflict between
President Goodluck Jonathan and various state governors, it became a
repetition of an old drama with the involvement of Atiku who had never
had it easy, and who had also always been a political outcast and on the
opposite side of incumbent leaderships.
As the current Atiku-led faction battles
to chart the way for an already threatened party in its desperate
campaign for relevance and sympathy come 2015, the memories of a similar
act seven years ago continue to torment the psyche of the nation. Is
PDP going to survive this very split? Is the Tukur-led leadership ready
for this rise of an aggrieved faction? Is this the beginning of an end
of the self-acclaimed biggest party in Africa?
This second split is likely to deal a
heavy blow to the ruling party as it’s not only ill-timed but happening
at a time the oppositions merged to form a strong and attractive force.
It is however evident that PDP is again exhibiting its failure to
coordinate its internal affairs, tasking us with asking: is this finally
the end of the road for PDP?
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