By John OCHENELU

THE Senate’s rejection of a clause in the amended Electoral Act 2010, which sought to make the federal lawmakers automatic members of the National Executive Committees (NEC) of their political parties, doesn’t seem to impress many discerning democratically-minded Nigerians.

In other words, the concession by the Senate is insignificant because it deliberatively ignores the bigger public concern and anger over the decision to bar local government chairmen, party chairmen and state assembly members from becoming delegates to the critical decision of electing the occupant to the nation’s highest public office.

These are the key delegates in the election of the President because they are the closest to the grassroots. Disenfranchising them, therefore, is the highest treason against the will of the people.

In fact, even the lawmakers who arrogate to themselves the power to overturn the will of the people through myopic and selfish legislations or amendments owe their positions to the grassroots voters for whom the party chairmen, local government chairmen and state assembly members are representative voices.

Any amendment that ignores the voices of these key grassroots delegates is undemocratic and anti-people. The PDP is currently overwhelmed by a crisis of confidence as a result of this questionable amendment, which is principally intended to clip the wings of the Governors. In trying to achieve that objective, however, the federal lawmakers acting in cahoots with the President are solving a perceived problem by a remedy that will make the feared malady worse. Should we in all honesty blame the PDP Governors for bringing us to this sorry state of affairs in which disunity and chaos rears their ugly heads in the affairs of the ruling party? Certainly, not!

The rowdy opening of the PDP National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Tuesday December 14, 2010, was a sign of ominous future for the self-styled largest party in Africa. President Goodluck Jonathan, aided and abetted by the Party Chairman, Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo, is mainly to blame for his open and shameless defiance of the longstanding power sharing formula adopted by the PDP since 1999 for the sake of his desperate ambition to run in 2011.

Unity is the most priced asset of any nation because, without it, the economy and the democracy we so much love to build will be put at grave risk. In his desperation to achieve his ambition by taking zoning for granted, President Jonathan has gone for broke; he is ready to do anything, however indecent, to attain his ambition. As far as he is concerned, unity can go to hell as long as he has the power of incumbency to frustrate the process of internal democracy.

In fact, the contemptible capitulation of the PDP leadership under Nwodo to the arrogant defiance of the party’s zoning policy by President Jonathan is at the root of the current internal crisis in the PDP and the needless and bitter polarisation of the country. As a member of the party and a signatory to the power sharing agreement, the PDP national chairman should have firmly but politely told the President that he is bound by the Party policy on zoning. Unfortunately, Chief Nwodo’s leadership appears so morally timid to rein in a President whose ambition is threatening, not only the future of the party but also the unity of Nigeria.

A recent court judgment by Justice Lawal Gummi of the Abuja High Court, re-affirming zoning and reinstating that it is binding on the members of the party (including the President), presents a moral challenge to the Nwodo leadership.

His inability to stand up to the President and say hey man, you are not above the policy of our party; as a beneficiary of this power sharing policy, you must keep your 2011 ambition for the future, so that the unity we have achieved through zoning can march on.

Unfortunately, the timidity of the Nwodo leadership appears to make the President more mulishly determined to defy the party policy on zoning and despite the deepening division it has caused, the courage of the party leadership has crumbled. President Jonathan, rather than the Governors, is the main obstacle to progress and internal democracy within the PDP. Obdurately determined to rule beyond 2011 in breach of zoning, he is desperately using all the tricks in the book to frustrate fair play.

Mr. Ochenelu, a social critic, writes from Oturkpo, Benue State.