By UCHENNADOZIE
In the past weeks, primary elections and voter registration have dominated national discourse. Not even the assassinations in Borno State that saw the felling of the All Nigeria Peoples’ Party, ANPP, gubernatorial candidate, Fanami Gubio, and six others; plus the seemingly intractable Jos impasse could relegate electioneering to the background.

This is expected. A country of 150 million people with crude oil exports dangling between 2.1 million barrels and 2.4 million barrels per day, that’s a lot for politicians to hanker about.

However, the issues emanating from the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, primaries in Ogun State seem  to be the worst from all over the country. Yes, primary elections are not immune from party crises. Even in the United States, primaries to pick candidates usually lead to divisions and factions within the two prominent parties in that country.

Nonetheless, they always find ways to ameliorate the damages. Example was the appointment of Joe Biden as running mate to President Barack Obama; and the appointment of Senator Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State (equivalent of Foreign Affairs Minister) soon after their presidential swearing-in in January 2009.

Back to Nigeria, there has been a deluge of queries arising from the primary elections thus far. Virtually all the major parties have one issue or the other. In PDP, Abia State Governor Theodore Orji has just been stopped by an Abuja Federal High Court from parading himself as the party’s candidate; so has the court stopped Sullivan Chime of Enugu State, and Oyo’s Alao-Akala.

Ogun is both interesting and pathetic. Interesting because the crisis has pitched factions loyal to former President Olusegun Obasanjo led by Senator Jubril Martins-Kuye, Minister of Commerce and Industry, on one hand; and his (Obasanjo) godson, Governor Gbenga Daniel, on the other. Daniel, it would be recalled, rode on the back of Obasanjo and Kuye to power in 2003.

But today the centre can no longer hold. It’s pathetic on the other hand because, since the Federal High Court  upheld the Bashorun Soremi executive; Fadairo and Daniel have lost out completely.

Did I see this coming? Yes! This crisis did not start today. It started as far back as 2008, but let’s start with 2009 when cries started emanating from Ogun PDP. All was not well. I recall that Dr. Doyin Okupe,  former presidential spokesperson,  shouted hoarse, but nobody cared. There was an Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC,  report.

So were the Ekwueme report and the Nwachukwu report. These reports by eminent panelists headed by those distinguished individuals recommended a form of harmonisation in order to incorporate some party factions seen to have been unduly excluded from the mainstream.

After all, hitherto, the congress was not conducted with strict adherence to laid down rules. The Daniel faction would not have any of that. There is also the INEC report which the Soremi/Martins-Kuye/Olurin group relied heavily on.

The report by INEC from the commission’s Political Parties Monitoring Department stated that Senator Ibrahim Mantu, who led the Electoral Panel from Abuja, read out a prepared list of executives to which the crowd affirmed with a loud “yes”.

That was  in 2008
Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo in 2010 became the chairman of the party. Eager to set PDP in good stead, he decided to act on the  recommendations gathering dust in the chairman’s office.

Therefore, in August 6, 2010,  he addressed a letter to the National Vice-Chairman of PDP in the South-West dissolving the Ogun State PDP executive.

This was the situation that led to the dissolution of the state executive headed by Fadairo in order to incorporate other party faithful. But the Daniel faction treated this with impunity, more so, when a little afterwards he was appointed the zonal coordinator of Goodluck/Sambo presidential campaign organisation. Daniel failed to seize the opportunity to reconcile feuding party members.

It was this letter that gave impetus to party faithful to organise another congress wherein another executive was elected to pilot the affairs of the party. When Fadairo would not have any of that, Soremi and company went to court to formally quash the Fadairo executive. Subsequently, a Federal High Court restrained the Daniel faction from functioning pending the determination of the substantive matter. Fadairo did not hearken. Instead he took steps that were clearly in breach of the court order. Part of the breach was the conduct of primaries of PDP in Ogun State by him.

There was no need for Daniel to try to emasculate other party men including the former president who staked all to instal him. Second, there is always need for vigilance in politics, but in the case of Ogun, Daniel treated court-related issues with impunity. And, that has come back to haunt him.

Furthermore, PDP and the Presidency sometimes amuse me. The crisis in Ogun has remained intractable for years now as in Anambra State. What did PDP do? A few days ago, they sent three ‘wisemen’ to Sagamu to pacify Daniel (after he threatened to defect to another party).

Chief Tony Anenih,  former works minister; Chief Mike Ogiahdome, Chief of Staff to the President, and Mr. Kawu Baraje, PDP National Secretary,  went to Sagamu and came back empty-handed, in spite of concessions made by the Anenih team.

Ogun has not had a House of Assembly for more than six months. The state is currently being run by Daniel as a sole administrator. Neither PDP nor the Presidency deemed it fit to do or say anything.

One cannot deny the new wave of democratic practice blowing across Nigeria. However, there are too many cases in court over primary elections. While this is commendable as citizens, we prefer politicians to square it up at the soap box or in the courts rather than by bullets. It also exposes the underbelly of political parties as  incapable of organising themselves to observe internal democracy. PDP is not the only wrong-doer here, but, as the ruling party, they take most of the knocks.

For PDP to retain Ogun State, it is imperative for all factions to reach a compromise, because ACN and lately CPC pose a good challenge. At the end,  may democracy win.