PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY: THE RISE AND FALL OF AFRICA'S MEGA PARTY.

His Royal Majesty Muhammad Sanusi II the sartorial Emir of Kano arrests my attention everytime he gives a public speech. Not only am I captivated by his melodious accent and flawless diction, I am enthralled by the common sense in his submissions. In a celebrated lecture he gave to a group of youngsters titled ” overcoming the powers of vested interests” while he held sway as Governor of the Centrla Bank, Sanusi said ” when you see a man whose throat has been slit lying by the roadside, it will be a mistake to say the man died. No, he didn’t die, he was KILLED” Common sense is not therefore the exclusive preserve of a broken record sitting in the red chambers of the National Assembly.

The dominant topic today is the fate that has befallen the once all conquering political omnibus called the Peoples Democratic Party. As a foundation staffer of this fallen giant, I deem it worth the while to contribute to the debate or if you like, the postmortem analysis of the PDP. That the PDP has lost its soul is not a matter for debate. The argument is all about why and how things got to this sordid state.

In bringing up the various factors that led to the slitting of its throat, I may not be completely absolved of blames but I believe that Nigerians need to know the internal dynamics that have brought us to this funeral.
No political Party has been recieved with such acclaim, fanfare and expectations like the PDP was at formation in 1998. The reason was the unique circumstances of its emergence. After all, the nucleus of the Party was the legendary group of 34 courageous patriots who stood up to challenge General Sani Abacha’s self succession agenda. These heroes stood their grounds when some of the people who later controlled the PDP were hands in gloves with the rampaging dictator.

The PDP was seen by Nigerians as as a great bastion of hope and an expression of the people’s liberation from tyranny. It was therefore not difficult to market the Party across the country. The names did the magic. Nigerians were excited to see the likes of Alex Ekwueme, Sunday Awoniyi, Abubakar Rimi, Adamu Ciroma, Asheik Jarma, Wilberforce Juta, Dan Suleiman, Francis Ellah, BOLA Ige, Balarabe MUSA, Iyorchia Ayu, Isaac SHAAHU, Jonah Jang, Bamanga TUKUR, Chuba Okadigbo ,Onyeabor Obi, SOLOMON Lar, SULE Lamido, Musa Yakubu, Jerry Gana, AYO Opadokun etc create a platform that was meant to be the greatest political movement in the history of the Blackman.

This initial excitement was almost derailed when it was time to nominate a Presidential Candidate on Valentine’s Day in 1999. A vast majority of Nigerians had hoped that Alex Ekwueme who gallantly led the G34 struggle will be given the flag of the party in order to entrench the democratic ideals they fought for. Instead, the Military establishment working with remnants of the Abacha elements like Tony Anenih executed a script which saw to the emergence of General Olusegun Obasanjo as PDP Presidential Candidate.

This was the first major earthquake that tested the survival of the PDP. The heroic conduct of EKwueme who not only accepted the result of the Primaries but also led the campaign saved the PDP from imminent implosion. The leaders at that time quickly knitted a consensus arrangement which offered Ekwueme the Senate Presidency which he politely declined. The PDP then was not about the realization of personal gain but the survival of democracy.

The rot in the party began when the It opened its doors to people that fought them to a standstill. Supporters of General Abacha assumed control of the party very early in the day. Some of them became ministers and others led powerful cabals within the Obasanjo Presidency.

As time passed by, the PDP which was initially at the vanguard of popular struggle became unrecognizable. It became a direct opposite of the ideals of its formation. The Party became notorious for imposition, impunity and wanton corruption which were the things the founding fathers abhorred. Talk about a tree drifting from its roots. Can it stand?

The success of the PDP ultimately became its albatross. Subsequent leaders began to assume a false sense of invincibility, behaving as if the world revolved around their whims. Chief Tony Anenih for instance led a tour around PDP controlled states with the offensive mantra ” no vacancy” He started by pronouncing this in the Presidential villa and followed up with each state capital he visited.

Primaries became mere rituals to fulfill requirements of the electoral act while actual candidates emerged from dark rooms of devilish conclaves. The PDP introduced the anti democratic praxis of ” endorsements” by “caucuses”. It must be said that other parties have also been guilty of this. The Image of the party suffered steady erosion to a level where a President elected on the platform of the Party once admitted to the world that he emerged from a “flawed election”. The PDP which easily won in 1999 began to struggle so badly as to only win due to a flawed process!.

Overtime, the Party became the butt of cruel jokes. A referee in a football game who gave a wrong call instantly provoked chants of “PDP” from the spectators. A victim of Armed Robbery will casually say “they did me PDP”. The slogan of the party was mischievously changed from power to the people to ” share the money”. In short, the PDP became an object of ridicule and public disdain.

How then did this Party of adorable giants reduce itself to a group of inconsequential midgets? The answer cannot be far fetched. The Party overtime substituted integrity in leadership with buffoonery. It interchanged democracy with imposition. It swapped service with self aggrandizement. It replaced a broad based patriotic vision with narrow interests of people who conned themselves to power. The latter day PDP gave politics a filthy definition and frustrated good people out of it. Imagine a party formed by the Lars, Tukurs, Ekwuemes and Awoniyis etc now becoming the playground of Nyesom Wike, Ayo Fayose, Fani Kayode, Gabriel Suswam and Olisa Metuh?. Little wonder that some of these individuals have now swapped the soap box with court docks. Some have replaced their diamond watches with handcuffs.

The Publicity Directorate which I served since formation suffered the sharpest decline as the PDP encountered slow death. I was privileged to work with the ebullient Aniete Okon. I also worked with the urbane Emmanuel Ibeshi. I enjoyed the vibrancy of Venatius Ikem and the humility of John Odey. We flourished under the intellectual candour of Prof Rufai Alkali. This is where the good image of the party ended. Those who assumed office of National Publicity Secretary after these great names showed a demonstrable lack of character and zero consideration for their family names or integrity. The image of the party suffered because of the absence of decency in those who handled the image of the party. When the image maker is soiled, the organization is also soiled.

Press statements from the party no longer bore the alternative views of a responsible party. They became outlets for recycled gossip from a publicity secretary who had no idea about a civilized engagement. The office became a platform of extortion and a source of filthy lucre for an individual who has no modicum of shame in his DNA. We had a narcissist who was obsessed with gracing the cameras and news prints even if he was saying nothing.

However, The foundation for the present decline was laid in the Obasanjo years. Those were the years of de -registration of party members. That was the era of the ill fated third term campaign. It was the period where control of the country was surrendered to governors. Those were the garrison years. The party however managed to survive because of its control of government at the centre.

What we see today of the PDP are symptoms of a disease which underwent 16 years of gestation. If anybody thinks the current crisis can be wished away by the usual “family affair” attitude of sweeping things under the carpet, such a person needs to rethink seriously. The effectsof 16 years of brigandage are now here with us. The party is now at a tipping edge where its revival will be a miracle.

Even in its journey to the graveyard, the party has learnt nothing. The same sins for which they are now paying for are still being committed . If the convention in port harcourt was not been aborted for a second time, Jimi Agbaje, a member of atleast four different political parties before now would have been its chairman. He would have been chairman not because of his proven pedigree in the party, he would have been because he is the anointed son of the body of “cardinals” called governors of PDP. Agbaje is barely two years old in the party . It is the same way they brought Ali Modu Sheriff who has now become the chief undertaker and grave digger of the party. You can’t keep doing the same things and expect a different outcome.
Some critics have observed that those in the APC today were also part of the decay in PDP and therefore cannot be blameless for the damage we suffer today. The truth is that had the PDP remained true to its founding principles, those people won’t leave. It is evidence of decline for a former President to openly tear his PDP card. Something is wrong when three former National Chairmen of PDP are now ministers, senators and chieftains of APC. It is a tragedy for five governors to dump the party in one day. Of the 17 APC governors in the north, 15 were former PDP members!. Only the PDP can take such blows and still pretend that all is well

So the PDP did not really die, it was killed. It was killed by the acts of commission by its operators . It was killed by the infinite stupidity of its leaders. Albert Einstein must have had the PDP in mind when he said ” two things are infinite in the universe; the existence of God and the stupidity of man”.

As the nation mourns the demise of this once potentially great behemoth, let the lessons of its misadventure in our political system be alive in the consciousness of the ruling APC. The same ground that heralded their arrival can quickly become the graveyard. Ladies and gentlemen join me as I sing the nunc dimitis for the PDP which arrived the scene in a blaze of glory but departed in a hailstorm of shame

Written by Kenneth Gyado a public Affairs Analyst.