By JIDE AJANI
* February1999:  Presidential primaries in Jos, Plateau State:  Olusegun Obasanjo’s victory as the presidential candidate shakes the party.

*Late 1999: Katakata over choice of Bernabas Gemade over Chief Sunday Awoniyi as PDP chairman – Gemade wins at national convention but the process was considered undue

*Crisis over amendment of party constitution to extend tenure of national executive committee of the party by one year.  Gemade makes a push to make the law retroactive so he can benefit from the tenure elongation and this leads to crisis

*Emmanuel Ibeshi and Gbenga Olawepo (publicity secretaries of the party) insist that Gemade should not benefit just as they push for reforms in the party.  This leads to serious crisis in PDP.

* 2001: Gemade announces the suspension of Chief Anthony Anenih but this immediately backfires as the former was to recant the following day.  He is shoved aside but makes a prophesy that the fate that would befall his successor would be worse than his own.  Gemade, reluctantly bows out.

President Jonathan and former President Obasanjo

* Audu Ogbeh, long-forgotten Second Republic Minister of Communications is exhumed and made PDP chairman but this also creates its own ripples

* April 2002: Brouhaha over presidential ambition of Obasanjo for second term.  Crisis erupts in PDP as associates of Vice President Atiku Abubakar talks of a MANDELA OPTION which Obasanjo was expected to adopt.

This creates bad blood between Obasanjo and Atiku but they both tried to manage the crisis and keep it under the table.  Even the public declaration of Obasanjo for second term at the International Conference Centre, ICC, saw a president not mentioning the name of his running mate at all as he assesses his administration and prepares for a possible second term.

Just before then, Atiku, too, had played footsy by not making himself available for the public declaration but had to be compelled to attend to allow peace reign.  A pointer to how its presidential primaries would be.

* January 2003: Atiku eyeballs Obasanjo over presidential primaries

January 2003: State governors insist that Obasanjo would not be marketable for the 2003 elections; urges Atiku on; Atiku turns down the offer at the last minute.

* 2004: Signs of a divided PDP National Executive Committee, NEC – Obasanjo forces pitched against Atiku’s associates

* Late 2004: Audu Ogbeh hits Obasanjo in an open letter, complaining about Obasanjo’s seeming overbearing attitude and the shambles that the President’s action was turning PDP into.  Obasanjo responds and goes vulgar against his party chairman, insinuating that Ogbeh may have made so much money after being made chairman of PDP – mind you, between Obasanjo and Ogbeh, they flouted the PDP constitution which says a national officer of the party shall not accept an appointment in government at the same time: Ogbeh was made Presidential Adviser to Obasanjo on Agric.

* Early 2005: Peace brokered between Obasanjo and Ogbeh forces at the PDP NEC meeting. The temperature in the polity reached boiling point.  Obasanjo had planned to publicly disgrace his party chairman but forces loyal to the party chairman, too, had their own response agenda, the consequences of which nobody could predict.

* Shortly after, Obasanjo forces Ogbeh to resign ahead of the end of his tenure after he was cajoled to visit Aso Rock Presidential and a resignation extracted from him, personally by Obasanjo

* Ahmadu Ali of the ALI MUST GO is exhumed from private life and imposed as national chairman of PDP without an election in 2005

* PDP shocks the nation and the political world when it announces that members of the party would be re-registered as members – something akin to sacking all your workers and telling them to re-apply.

* PDP during that same period introduced what it called linkmen who determined those to be re-registered as members of the party.  This created bad blood not just in PDP but heightens tension in the polity.  The linkmen systematically refused to register Atiku and his associates.  It was all part of a build up to 2007 general elections and Obasanjo’s 3rd term bid.

* Obasanjo introduces a new phenomenon of tenure elongation dubbed Third Term.  This creates a new crisis in PDP and forces take sides.

* Third Term fails by April 2006

* Atiku and his associates are then forced out of PDP even while a case was in court on the matter

* 2007: Party congresses and primaries in shambles – PDP selects its candidates

* Presidential primaries and Obasanbjo’s insistence on Umar Musa Yar’Adua creates fresh crisis in the party; but Yar’Adua emerges as PDP presidential candidate but many limbs are broken and faces bruised by Obasanjo.

* 2008: Pre-national convention tussle between former Governor Sam Egwu and former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim tears the party apart – matter resolved and all aspirants for the post of national chairman file behind Vincent Ogbulafor.

* Ogbulafor then shoots from the hip in one of his first public statements by saying PDP will rule for another 60 years – Nigerians tear him apart.

* Ogbulafor’s statement about presidency and zoning sparks controversy; the Jonathan forces angling for 2011 presidential election exhume Ogbulafor’s alleged decade old fraud case.  He is forced out as party chairman

* A new group emerges tagging itself PDP Reform Forum, insists that NEC and National Working Committee, NWC, of the PDP should be dissolved.

*Okwesilieze Nwodo becomes PDP Chairman amidst controversy.

*PDP leaders dump zoning to accommodate Jonathan’s ambition and arrange its presidential contest in such a way that openly favoured Jonathan – 3rd quarter of 2010.

*Nwodo mismanages a court process regarding the legality of his person as chairman and this almost reduces the presidential contest to an illegality.

*Jonathan forces Nwodo to resign on account of that – January 2011

*Again, Jonathan insists that the governor of his state, Timipreye Sylva should not be allowed to contest the party’s gubernatorial contest.  He didn’t – December 2011.

*Seriake Dickson, a Jonathan acolyte emerges and wins the governorship – January 2012

*WHO WOULD JONATHAN ANOINT AS PDP CHAIRMAN ON MARCH 24