By JIDE AJANI, Editor, Northern Operations
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has become a metaphor for bad behaviour within the polity, especially when viewed against the character of its past national chairmen. The latest in this apparently unending series of dumped chairmen is Dr. Emmanuel Okwesilieze Nwodo, who came in with much promise but who was dumped, yesterday, by the party. This is an analysis of why the party’s chairmen continue to fail and why the party falters.

PERHAPS, anywhere you find a scandal or a rascally behaviour in the national polity you are bound to locate directly or indirectly, the presence of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, chairmen. For the Nigerian  nation, a political party that continues to conduct its affairs in an indulgent manner may almost always suffer a discount on account of its national chairmen. None of its national chairmen has ever served out his two or four year tenure.

Its founding chairman, Chief Solomon Daushep Lar, was caught up in many rumours during the PDP presidential primaries in Jos, Plateau State, in February 1999.  Though a lot of pressures were brought to bear on Lar with a view to forcing him to join the Olusegun Obasanjo bandwagon, Lar, in the beginning was not swayed because he insisted on being neutral. However, because of the involvement of the military – and in the face of new realities – Lar’s seeming pillar of steadfastness crumbled.

While he did not come out to openly endorse Obasanjo at the convention, his body language suggested that the late Sunday Awoniyi, the Convention Committee Chairman, who did not want any form of bias, had lost an important ally. Obasanjo found him to be a fumbling chairman and, therefore, removed him once he settled as President and Commander-in-Chief.

Then came Barnabas Gemade who was ostensibly installed by the establishment – Gemade defeated Awoniyi at the party’s convention. But Gemade was soon to be enmeshed in tenure elongation brouhaha. The tenure of NEC members was to be extended from two years to four years and Gemade believed a retroactive arrangement was not out of place. However, unknown to Gemade, Obasanjo was done with him and Audu Ogbe was brought in as the new chairman. Gemade made a very instructive prophecy, that the fate that would befall his successor would be worse than his own.

Political rehabilitation

Now, Ogbe, whom many knew was being rehabilitated, politically that is, had served as communication minister during the Second Republic.  Languishing in political oblivion, the position of national chairman of PDP brought him back to limelight.  But Ogbe unashamedly allowed Obasanjo to suck him in by blatantly using him (Ogbe) to violate the PDP constitution.

How?

He appointed Ogbe as Special Adviser on Agriculture – but Article 15 of the constitution of the PDP insists that “subject to the provisions of this constitution, any member holding any office in the party at any level shall be deemed to have resigned that office, if he or she assumes any of the following offices… (d) Special Adviser or Special Assistant to the President or Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

Ogbe saw no wrong in that until Obasanjo began decimating the core values which the founding fathers of PDP wove round the party. It had to take a confrontation between Obasanjo and his deputy, Vice President Atiku Abubakar (on whose side Ogbe pitched) for the party chairman to see the evil in some of Obasanjo’s actions. Though Ogbe came out forcefully against Obasanjo, the same Obasanjo was to entrap Ogbe when he forced a resignation from him ahead of the expiration of his tenure as chairman.

Without a convention, Ahmadu Ali (of the Ali Must Go student unrest of the 1970s) was brought in as Ogbe’s replacement. If most PDP leaders had thought deeply, they would have found out that a mix of a former military head of state now civilian President and a former military federal commissioner for education would be too dangerous for the polity to suffer. But the few who saw through the potentially combustible mix and the dangers it posed were to be the first targets.

Massive mobilisation

Ali presided over what would perhaps be described as the worst phase in the history of the PDP. The tradition all over the world is that political parties engage in massive mobilization for members to swell.  But under Ali, PDP came up with what it dubbed re_registration exercise.

If that was what it was, there wouldn’t have been much hue and cry. What Ali and Obasanjo crafted was the employment of that exercise to disenfranchise its own members by not registering those perceived not to be willing to be ready to kiss Obasanjo’s backside. Strange!  It shouldn’t be. Nigerians are living witnesses to the convoluted arrangement which Obasanjo and Ali wrought to get rid of party members considered not to share their view of how the PDP should operate.

But because Obasanjo was PDP and PDP was Obasanjo, Ali did not know that there was a limit to his sphere of influence in the party. Ali’s wife wanted to run for a Senate seat and the husband had thought that, well, since this was their own PDP, he could also call some shots. Obasanjo made him know his limits and limitations. The then President in cahoots with willing hands in Delta State blocked Ali and his wife. Because of the way Ali came in, it would be difficult to determine which tenure he served.

When late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua became President and Commander_in_Chief, he attempted to redraw the moral map of PDP but was quick to realize that PDP in Katsina State operated on another paradigm compared to the PDP at the national level. Even his attempt not to interfere with the replacement being sought for Ali was pooh_poohed.

The state governors had their way by bringing in Vincent Ogbulafor in 2008, but Ogbulafor was to become the subject of a criminal litigation brought by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC. Interestingly, however, the crimes which he was charged for were committed in 2001, some 10 years ago.

For Dr. Nwodo, the latest casualty, his problem began when he sought to engage a reform agenda in the party. He was said not to have arrived at a proper consensus before dumping his idea on the party.  The state governors and some leaders of the party blocked the idea.

Then came his battles with Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State, his state. The governor was instrumental in Nwodo’s ascendancy. But no sooner had Nwodo become chairman than he picked up a fight with his governor over delegates’ composition and choice of candidates for offices.

Grounds for litigation

The last straw was the court order barring him from parading himself as PDP chairman on the eve of last week’s convention of the party.  It was agreed that Nwodo would stay away in obedience to the order and with a view to avoiding any potential grounds for litigation regarding the outcome of the convention.

Alas, it was an energetic Nwodo who bounced on the podium to deliver his speech to the convention – the grounds of this act was a purported court order vacating the earlier order. The embarrassment was such that even President Goodluck Jonathan was shocked at the sight of Nwodo. And whereas the convention quickly ratified a motion instituting Haliru Bello as acting chairman, the appearance of Nwodo left a sour taste in the mouth of leaders of the party.  The whole of last weekend saw a plethora of meetings and lobbying to either get Nwodo sacked or saved.

Yesterday, Nwodo kissed the dust of removal from office. Even the tenure of Ogbulafor which Nwodo was supposed to serve out is yet to end. Therefore, within a four_year tenure which has just entered its third year, the PDP has had three national chairmen.