By Emmanuel Aziken

The unfolding crisis in the PDP was one that had over time been covered up on account of the party’s previous hold of the apparatus of government. Now denied of such, the bubble easily burst given the absence of the mixture of power and money that had until recently kept the workers and the party leaders united.

As the crisis in the party national secretariat deepened at the weekend it was not surprising that elements in the party who had issues to grind with the national leaders were observed trying to stoke the crisis for the purpose of undermining the present leadership.

Chief Olisa Metuh, arguably the longest serving political operative at the national level of the party has become the object of the attacks against the party.

In the weeks leading to the recent national elections the gulf between the national secretariat and the former president had become very visible. The president and his lieutenants for one reason or the other refused to carry the party leaders along. Of the 12 members of the National Working Committee, NWC, only the national youth leader, Abdullahi Hussaini MaiBasira, it seemed, was accommodated in the president’s plans for re-election.

Luxury vehicles

That was underpinned by the fact that when brand new SUVs were distributed by the president’s campaign team, only him got a pick of the luxury vehicles.

The assertion that the NWC could go to hell was not lost on many of the party officials, many of whom instead of going to hell went abroad in the heat of the campaigns.

There were also reports that Chief Olisa Metuh particularly felt bad as he was almost always left to manage issues that fell from the mismanagement of the campaign by Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, the former antagonist of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan who the then president shockingly picked to be his campaign spokesman.

However, central to the unfolding crisis in the party was the directive from the national secretariat of the implementation of austerity measures as a reaction to the revenue shortfalls into the party.

In a memo from the national secretary, the party had said:

i.Reduction of the allowances of all NWC members by 50%.

1. Reduction of the number of personal staff of the NWC members by 50 per cent.

iii. Reduction in the number of security personnel attached to the National Officers by 50 per cent.

2015. The reduction of the salaries and allowances of all staff (Establishment and Staff of NWC members) by 50% effective August, 2015.
2016.   Abolition of the Research Directorate and transfer of its functions to the Peoples Democratic Institute.

Research directorate

“Furthermore, Establishment staff who would remain are required to obtain individual letter of revalidation from their State Party Chapter within one month of this circular as to their suitability for service at the National Secretariat.”

The proposal for staff to obtain revalidation letters from their state chapters was one seen as a way of sacking them from the party given the fact that some of the national secretariat staff have been on loggerheads with their state chapters.

A case in point is a national secretariat staff whose brother, is a prominent member of the APC and had in the past supported the brother’s campaigns at home while supporting the PDP at the national level.

Given Metuh’s prominent role in the present leadership of the PDP and the banishment of some national leaders who had in the recent past fallen out with him, it is not surprising that external influence is being inputted for the crisis that is swirling around him.

Some have traced the external influence to some PDP leaders in Anambra State who were dissatisfied with the outcome of the recent congresses that saw Metuh in dominant control of the party in the state.

Others have also traced the development to the faceoff between the party and the APC over the issue of the appointment of its new director general with the assertion that the DSS may have prompted the action.

*Olisa Metuh

Metuh’s conspiracy theory

Speaking on the issue yesterday, Metuh was quick to point at a conspiracy.

“For me it is more than a coincidence that issues like these would come up when we have gained the momentum on the ruling party and the government.

If the Publicity Department is making such an inroad on issues and making alternative proposals on government policies and making it hot for the DG of SSS and acting chairman of INEC, we find it more than a coincidence that the workers who administratively have been given letters by the secretariat for them to undergo a loyalty test because there were petitions that some of them are hobnobbing with the government, but what do they do? They turn back against only one aspect of the party, the Publicity Department, the one that is giving the government hell and they say, you publicity you people are not doing well.

So, we find it more than a mere coincidence and that is why we are careful not to engage with them. Besides, that we believe that most of our workers are loyal.

So we believe that going to the press is a very wrong thing to do. Ask them when husband and wife are quarrelling, do they take it to the market place or to the private house?

Truly, there is more than a mere coincidence with what they are doing.