The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came to a climax on Wednesday following the dramatic resignation of the National Chairman of the party, Adamu Mu’azu. He had been under intense pressure to quit before he finally threw in the towel. Thus, Mu’azu is the first major casualty of the dismal performance of the party in this year’s just concluded general elections.
There have been accusations and counter-accusations over the cause of PDP’s woeful performance at the polls that resulted in the defeat of their presidential candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan and the loss of several states hitherto considered the strongholds of PDP to opposition All Progressives Congress, APC. The defeat was too bitter to swallow and Mu’azu and members of PDP’s National Working Committee, NWC, were made the scapegoats.
At the forefront of those who called for Mu’azu’s resignation were the Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, and the Director of Media and Publicity of the disbanded Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation (PDPPCO), Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who threatened to expose Mu’azu and others for the alleged ignoble roles they played in the defeat of President Jonathan in the 28 March presidential election.
Fani-Kayode who addressed journalists in Abuja on Tuesday on the allegation by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, that the hate campaigns promoted by the party’s campaign organisation led to its defeat at the presidential election, also threatened to disclose information that will shock the nation and party faithful about the alleged atrocities committed by some members over the years.
He thumbed his chest by saying that President Jonathan would have lost the presidential election by at least 10 million votes but for the intervention of his campaign team. Jonathan lost the election by less than three million votes. He described some members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) as “enemy within us,” alleging that two members of the committee worked for the opposition during the elections and also accused Mu’azu and other members of the NWC of undermining and sabotaging Jonathan’s campaigns.
Though Mu’azu extended the olive branch to aggrieved members of his party last week by appealing to them to put behind them the disappointment of defeat and not allow the situation to further divide the party, the crisis continued to simmer until he had to resign. Now that he has quit, we expect that there will be no more heating of the polity by the party’s leaders. The muck raking should stop now that Mu’azu has resigned. PDP’s leaders should rather set about the rebuilding of the party and gear up to play the role of the opposition party in the next political dispensation. They should take a cue from APC that played that role for sixteen years and was eventually rewarded by being voted into power at the federal level.
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