OLUSOLA FABIYI
writes on the plan by the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic
Party, to poach from the ruling All Progressives Congress in its
build-up to 2019
Of all the 30 political parties in the
country, only the Peoples Democratic Party has a functional church built
within its premises. There is also a mosque, all within the compound of
the party’s national headquarters located at Wadata Plaza, Wuse Zone 5,
Abuja.
Activities within the church, which is
known as PDP National Chapel, picked up a few days to the conduct of the
last general elections, which the party lost to the All Progressives
Congress. The party, however, didn’t limit its prayers to the church
and the mosque alone.
On Tuesday, members of the party
gathered at the National Executive Hall. One of the agendas of the
meeting was to inaugurate the four committees set up by the party’s
National Working Committee.
The committees were those of the
National Convention, Reconciliation, Finance and Zoning. As usual, the
party would not start any business without appealing to God to be in
their business.
The lot of who to appeal to God in
prayer fell on a former Chief of Staff to former President Goodluck
Jonathan, Mr. Mike Ogiadome. Picking his words carefully, he said the
loss of the election was not that God was not ready to hear the prayers
of members of the party, but that the party and its members had offended
God.
It was with rapt attention that members
of the party including its National Chairman, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff,
members of the NWC and governors listened when Ogiadome launched into
prayers.
He said, “We offended God. We had done
what we ought not to have done. We were to rule for 60 years, but we
offended you God. That was why we were defeated during the last
election. Father, forgive us and give us back the Presidency in 2019.”
The hall, which was filled to the brim, roared with a thunderous “amen.”
“Father, we have learnt our mistake.
Return our party to Aso Rock in 2019,” he further prayed, and with a
renewed vigour, the members of the party answered with a more vibrant
“amen”.
The leadership of the party, however,
seemed to have realised that prayer without action might amount to
nothing in the country’s political space. Hence, since the party lost
the general election to its challenger, the All Progressives Congress,
in 2015, it had begun moves to rally round its disgruntled members on
how to regain power.
Several meetings had been called while
strategists were asked to examine the remote and immediate causes of the
party’s monumental defeat; the first of its kind the party suffered
since 1999 when the country returned to democratic rule.
This was why it said it was abiding by
the suggestion made by its committee on Post Election Review headed by
Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, by zoning the PDP
presidential ticket for the 2019 elections to the North.
The Deputy National Chairman of the
party, Uche Secondus, said the decision to zone the office to the area
was a collective decision by the NWC and other organs of the party. The
Rivers State-born politician said that the party would not repeat the
costly mistakes it made in the past, stressing that the PDP would act
upon the report of the committee to be able to provide what he described
as “a robust opposition” for the APC-led government.
According to him, “For the party to move
forward, it must obey the zoning system and constitution adding that
the party was poised to re-position to take over the presidential seat
from the ruling APC in 2019.”
The Acting Chairman of the party’s Board
of Trustees, Walid Jibril, also said the office of the President was
what the people of his area wanted, adding that this would help the
party regain power in 2019. Already, he said the search for the credible
candidate had already started.
He said, “A search for a credible
candidate had begun in earnest. We have zoned the Presidency to the
North but the Vice-President and other positions have not been zoned
because we are still consulting.”
He warned that anyone who attempted
jettisoning the zoning formulae would be treated as enemy of the north
and a killer of the party. The soft-spoken former member of the Senate
said, “May I also strongly warn on the dangers of not adhering to the
recommendations of Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s post election Review
Committee (2015) that the party should seek its 2019 presidential
candidate from the North of Nigeria to compensate for the obvious
violation of the zoning arrangement in the 2011 election which led to a
major apathy against the party in the North from 2011 culminating in the
poor performance of the party in the 2015 elections. Anyone who tries
to reverse the position, which had already been approved by the National
Executive Committee would ever remain an enemy to the North and a
killer of the PDP.”
The thinking in the party, according to
analysts, is that it lost the last general election because it fielded
former President Goodluck Jonathan. Jonathan is a former governor of
Bayelsa State, while President Muhammadu Buhari who defeated him hails
from Katsina State.
The search for the presidential
candidate has taken the former ruling party to the doorstep of the
currently ruling party. To show its level of seriousness and
determination, its leadership has already opened discussion with notable
political leaders from the northern part of the country on the need for
them to return to the erstwhile ruling party.
The discussion was aimed at convincing them that they could be the party’s next presidential candidate.
Among those being wooed are the Senate
President, Dr. Bukola Saraki; a former governor of Kano State, Sen.
Rabiu Kwankwaso; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; Governor Aminu
Tambuwal of Sokoto State and the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogora.
These are the men expected to slug it
out with notable politicians in the PDP like a former governor of Jigawa
State, Sule Lamido; Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe State, a former
Governor of Niger State, Dr. Babangida Aliyu and the Governor of
Katsina State, Ibrahim Shema.
Saraki, who is facing what could be
described as the toughest political battle of his life with his trial at
the Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged false declaration of assets
and Dogara were elected into their current positions with the help of
members of the PDP in the Senate and the House. While Dogara through his
political doggedness have been able to reunite with the leadership of
the APC, Saraki is becoming more alienated from his party.
But both men, who were former members of
the PDP, have also decided to pay members of their former party back
with headship of committees considered to be juicy and strategic at the
Senate and in the House of Representatives respectively.
The National Publicity Secretary of the
PDP, Olisa Metuh, confirmed the secret meetings the leadership of the
party had been having with its former members.
Metuh, who also confirmed that he was
partaking in such meetings, said it would be premature to mention those
who were contacted to return to their former party.
But he said the party was only
considering those he said had electoral values and had yet to constantly
condemn the party and everything it stood for in the past.
Metuh said, “Yes, I can confirm that we
have opened discussions with our former members who left us due to
misunderstandings and were aggrieved. We are already having meetings
with them and I can assure you that the discussions are going to yield
positive results. But for the fact that some of these gentlemen are
holding sensitive positions in the APC and in government, we won’t be
able to mention their names.
“They are not happy with the Federal Government and some of its policies and they have decided to team up with us come 2019.”
He said the PDP was sure that if it
could bring back the majority of its members who left the party for the
APC, it would win the Presidential election in 2019.
A member of the PDP NWC, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, said, “We are no longer in power and the number
of governors we have has reduced drastically. We therefore need someone
who is rich and has the contact across the country to help us wrestle
power from the APC come 2019. We all know that only the likes of Atiku
and former governors can do this for us. We want them back in our
party.”
The Acting Chairman of the Board of
Trustees of the party, Jibril, said that the party would want all its
former members, and new ones, to return to its fold.
The chairman of the BoT of the PDP told our correspondent that the doors of the party would remain open.
He said, “Any person who wants to return
to the party, including those you have mentioned, are free to return.
We need them just the way we need many others who were not our members
before. Anybody who wants to be our member is free to do so. We won’t
send anyone away. No, not now.”
A chieftain of the APC in Enugu State,
Mr. Osita Okechukwu, said the courting of members of his party by the
PDP was part of political re-engineering expected from the former ruling
party.
However, he said the efforts of the PDP
would amount to nothing because, according to him, APC members will not
leave the house they jointly built. He equally added that for a long
time, the APC and the PDP would remain the two dominant parties in
Nigeria, and because of this, politicians would be defecting from one of
them to the other.
He said, “We will continue to witness
such action but I don’t see the likes of Dogara, Tambuwal leaving the
APC. But if the PDP thinks that by coming to infiltrate and enticing
some of our members it can get the Presidency back in no distance
future, then it is daydreaming.”
Mr. Bagudu Usman, an ex-politician,
shares Okechukwu’s view, but adds that Nigerians should know that
nothing good can come out of such alliance if it is ever consummated.
Usman said, “Nigerians should give
President Buhari and his party time to fix the country. It is too early
for the PDP to be thinking of returning to power so soon after ruling us
for 16 years and there’s nothing to show for it.”
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