Is nemesis dealing the Peoples Democratic Party a fatal blow or is the once-upon-a-time behemoth finally charting its self-destruct lane with suicidal equanimity? Whatever it is, the PDP is in a do-or-die with itself. This marriage of strange bedfellows is undergoing its strictest test of fidelity. And, going by the rate at which it thaws, its end may just be by the corner if its leaders continue to cover the truth behind the decay within, with a mask of deceit. Yes, it is natural for a former ruling party with an ambition to reign ad-infinitum to suffer some debilitating post-electoral defeat trauma having lost woefully to the All Progressives Congress. However, the positive vibes, which reflect the PDP’s ability to bounce back in no distant future, is being hampered by its pitiable whingeing over how it opened itself up for that inglorious exit from power. Down on its knees, it is shocking that the varied interests still spend quality time genuflecting over inane issues when common sense demands they focus on fixing the cluttered variables that eventually shattered their emblematic umbrella.
Without any shadow of doubt, Dr. Raymond Dokpesi was dead right when he listed the forced candidacy of former President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 election as a key variable in the sinking of the party’s boat. It does not matter that, typical of the Nigerian politician to beat a retreat at the heat of the moment, Dokpesi has eaten his vomit by denying apologising to Nigerians for the grave mistake his party made in fielding Jonathan at a time when an unwritten zoning formula favoured the North. We were all living witnesses to how Jonathan arm-twisted his way to grabbing power. He did not only lie about the existence of the gentleman’s agreement he entered into, but also ensured that those who insisted on respecting terms and conditions of the zoning formula suffered irreparable loss. How could Dokpesi forget so easily when his preferred candidate, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, was a casualty of Jonathan’s straight-faced breach?
It is quite amusing that Dokpesi would be playing the ostrich few days after he laid bare his mind on why and how the PDP became a lame duck. In fact, blaming the APC was a tasteless decoy and a cowardly afterthought. Do we assume that the High Chief lacked the capacity to stick to the convictions of the bare-knuckle truth he told his colleagues at the party’s national conference last week? Hear him: “There was impunity, imposition of candidates, breach of the zoning arrangement and lack of a level playing field for members. Make no mistakes; the PDP is aware that there were errors made along the way. We admit that, at certain times in our past, mistakes have been made. We did not meet the expectations of Nigerians. We tender our apology. But the past is exactly what it is. We call on all party faithful, supporters and sympathisers to partner with us going forward”.
You thought that was the truth? Not really. Though tagged a reconciliatory conference, the party’s apparatchiks have consistently demonstrated their affinity for rambunctious patterns of expression. They prefer to live in denial of what remains an open secret to keen followers of the Nigerian political landscape. They wondered why a non-executive member could be claiming to know more than the inner caucus—those who determined where the pendulum of candidacy swings. Brimming with riotous rage, Olisa Metuh, the PDP’s megaphone, says Dokpesi was simply applying the freedom of his mouth to its elastic limit. He said he could not have been speaking for the party which, in its wisdom, picked Jonathan as the best man for the job both in 2011 and 2015. “How can you regret a decision taken, where everyone was there – the NWC, NEC and the national caucus? What are we talking about? Everybody was conscious of the decision. Nobody was coerced into supporting the position.” Metuh had stated.
Courtesy of Mr. Metuh, we now know that Chief Vincent Ogbulafor was not coerced to vacate his position as Chairman of the PDP for daring to insist that the Presidential slot for the 2011 race ought to have been zoned to the North. The logic was to allow a fellow Northerner complete the aborted tenure of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. It should be clear to us that Jonathan won fair and square at the 2011 primaries without the bully tactic of the old wily fox from Ota, former President Olusegun Obasanjo. It was a ‘conscious’ decision that cemented the relationship of the party so much that there was no single dissenting voice when Jonathan decided to go for a second shot at the Presidency in 2015. That was why the party printed just one presidential nomination form for its sole presidential candidate and asked other “disloyal” members eyeing Jonathan’s seat to go jump into a distant Otuoke river! Hmnnnn….just imagine!
However, the party oligarchs appear to be more amenable to the interventions of another ‘outsider’ in unravelling the reason for the fall of the PDP. In his contribution to the discourse, Dr. Doyin Okupe, the cantankerous public affairs aide to Jonathan in the days of yore, put the blame at the footstool of a boss that failed to be ruthless in wielding power. For Okupe, the PDP committed a grave blunder by fielding a “God-fearing” man as its presidential candidate, instead of a ruthless mad dog. For him, nothing should be spared in an effort to cling on to power. That’s why he blamed his principal for lacking the balls to sack the electoral umpire, Prof. Attahiru Jega, whom he described as being partisan for sticking to his guns that card readers would be used in that elections. Is it not strange that the same card reader used in conducting elections leading to the emergence of PDP governors, senators and other lawmakers across the country was fingered by Okupe as a tool used by Prof Jega to rig President Muhammadu Buhari into power? You can’t help but wonder how Okupe came to the conclusion that Jega, the same man who pronounced Jonathan the winner of the 2011 election, had become profusely partisan by 2015.
Okupe has never failed to amaze and amuse in equal measure. Has he forgotten how he boasted that a Buhari would ‘never’ become the President of Nigeria? While sleeping on the sofa of self-denial, the leadership of the party would do itself a world of good if it takes another look at Dokpesi’s uncomfortable truth rather that Okupe’s sensational realism. No doubt, both have painted the truth from different prisms. One is reeling from the incalculable damage an incumbent wrought on the ambition of his principal and had painstakingly reeled out the facts. The other, still grappling with the tsunami that swept his boss off, simply tabled an excuse of unverifiable facts. It is for those who still wear their thinking cap correctly within the party to look at the mirror and tell themselves the home truth. The Nigerian electorate are becoming more and more sophisticated and conscious of the power of the thumb and it would take more than the ranting of yesterday’s men to deny them that right. Even today’s men need to be mindful of their conduct in office if they do not want to suffer the same fate that has turned the PDP into a crying baby!
Besides, the PDP did not fail for lack of trying to do what Okupe suggested; it lost at the poll due to the resilience of Nigerians to make sure that their votes counted, in spite of the several attempts to test their will. Aside the fact that Nigerians were tired of the serial failure by the then leadership to address the socio-economic crises plaguing the nation, in addition to the general insecurity in the land. The party got kicked out of power because the electoral body saw through its talk to do things differently in spite of all odds. It lost to the philosophical calmness of an electoral head who ignored the noise in the marketplace while focusing on the goal. If only the PDP can ignore the messengers and focus on the message by these two ‘outsiders’ and the damaging role they played at different points in the misfortune of the party, maybe it can begin a rebuilding process that would shoot it into prominence again. But then, all that would depend on the truth its leaders choose to see. So, which would it be? A delusion of what should have been or the illusion of what should have been done by every possible means to cling to power?
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