The ‘evil’ omen had
for long clouded the party, but no one really expected the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP to split on its 15th anniversary.
The
Eagles Square venue for the Special National Convention had been
decorated with 38 cake stands on which were placed inviting cakes
representing one for each of the states of the country, the federal
capital territory and one for the national party.
Ahead of the
commencement of the convention, President Goodluck Jonathan had
successfully mobilised most of the party’s powerful governors to ride
with him in a bus to the convention ground. The sight of the party’s
governors, including the “five rebel” northern governors entering the
convention ground in the same vehicle was to buttress the sense of unity
that party elders desperately sought to portray.
That sense of
unity was also something the president conveyed in his speech as he
compared the survival and unity of the party with its original
contemporaries formed about the same time in 1998. “Of the three
political parties registered in 1998, and I want you to listen, only PDP
has retained its singular identify and core vision as a political
movement till date while others have been imploded along the way or
subsumed their identity in search of political direction and relevance,”
President Jonathan declared in his speech to the special national
convention of the PDP last Saturday.
It was as such an irony that
on the day that the party clocked 15 years that the self proclaimed
largest political party in Africa split into two. It was the first time
that the PDP which had for most of its 15 years trudged on the path of
crisis would be splitting into two major factions with its elected
political office holders identifying with different factions.
Dr.
Jonathan it appeared had for some time had a sense of foreboding that
the party entrusted to him by fate was slipping from him. Penultimate
weekend, the president met with one of his strongest foes among the
governors, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwanso in the presidential villa. At that
meeting, the president it appeared, seemed to nudge the governor to
retrace his step from the internal dissension that he, Kwankwanso and
four other governors of Sokoto, Jigawa, Adamawa and Niger had been
fuelling in the last few months.
Also last weekend, less than 48
hours to the convention, the president also met with Governor Babatunde
Aliyu of Niger State. Aliyu like Kwankwanso the week before appeared to
be conciliatory after the meeting, telling State House reporters that he
remained a member of the PDP. The sense of urgency by the president and
his minders to mend fence with the five ‘rebel’ governors was
apparently based on intelligence reports that the opposition within the
PDP was already making decisive moves to fracture the party based on the
long simmering crisis that had pitched some of the governors against
the president and the national leadership of the party as represented by
the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.
At the centre of the
crisis is the allegation by many of the governors that the president
has completely taken over the party, punishing all those perceived to be
against his 2015 presidential effort. Chairman of the Nigerian
Governors Forum, NGF, Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State had been
suspended from the party on the basis of allegations of being opposed to
Jonathan’s 2015 alleged ambition or having a presidential or
vice-presidential ambition of his own.
While the president played
the game of reconciling with the governors, the governors apparently did
not believe the president was sincere. So it was not surprising that in
the days preceding the convention that many of the governors sustained
their consultations which was now focussed on how they could sustain
their political relevance in the polity given what they assumed was the
determination of the president and Tukur to crush all opposition to the
president’s 2015 ambition.
Along the way the governors also
established contact with former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who like
some of the governors, was also losing relevance in the party to the new
forces loyal to the president. But teaming up with Atiku had a problem
for the governors given the problems between Atiku and his home
governor, Murtala Nyako, one of the five rebel governors. Engagement in
politics Atiku and Nyako have had a bitter-love relationship in recent
times since the latter’s full engagement in politics in 2006.
Nyako
it is remembered was a direct beneficiary of the onslaught against
Atiku by the forces of Olusegun Obasanjo who paralysed Atiku’s political
machinery in his home base using Senator Jibril Aminu to plant Nyako as
governor in 2007. However, following his problems with Aminu, Nyako
sought help from Atiku who mobilised domestic support to help Nyako win
his re-election two years ago. At that time it was alleged that there
was a quiet understanding that Nyako would support Atiku for his own
presidential campaign in 2015.
However, following that, Nyako was
alleged to have reneged as he again resumed fighting Atiku and sided
with Tukur against Nyako. So with both Nyako and Atiku forced against
the wall by the Jonathan forces, it was apparent to all that the
governors had to combine forces with Atiku to confront the president.
The advantage Atiku brought to the table was his nationwide organisation
and structure which the governors lacked being that they were limited
to their states.
But before they could forge alliance with Atiku
the issue of the problem between the former vice-president and Nyako had
to be sorted out. Rebel governors The task apparently fell on Governor
Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, perhaps the most experienced of the seven
rebel governors. Lamido was the one who was dispatched to meet Atiku
last Friday to prepare room for a formal reconciliation between him and
Nyako.
The details of the meeting between Lamido and Atiku in
Atiku’s Asokoro, Abuja residence were not immediately known, but it was
learnt that the ground rules for the rapprochement with Nyako were
established. It is, however, difficult to believe that the governors
would have gone ahead with the split on Saturday but for the events that
happened on the convention ground.
While many of the dissents who
met the president in the last few days complained that the president
did not bring anything to the table, they were further grieved by what
some described as the brazen effort by Tukur and the party’s handlers to
take what was remaining in their hands from them.
After the
president’s speech on Saturday in which he highlighted the unity of the
PDP and how it had defied all odds and remained one despite the
fractionalisation of the opposition, and as the convention moved into
election mood, the ‘dissident’ governors were pissed off by the seeming
circulation of what was described as a unity list allegedly endorsed by
the presidency.
That apparently was the last stab. When the 16
members of the National Working Committee, NWC resigned in deference to a
report of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC that
their election was irregular, there was a general understanding that all
of them would be returned at the special convention.
However, for
Tukur and his allies in the presidency, the election offered them the
opportunity to do away with non-conformists in the party leadership who
were seen as allies of the governors or opponents of Tukur. Dr. Sam Jaja
who was nominated as the deputy national chairman by Governor Rotimi
Amaechi of Rivers State was the first target. He was removed on the
unity list and replaced by Prince Uche Secondus, a long time party
veteran and associate of former Rivers State governor, Dr. Peter Odili.
Equally
troubling was the decision of the Electoral Committee to remove elected
delegates from Rivers, Adamawa and Anambra States following the spate
of crises in the states. Given that the PDP governors of Adamawa and
Rivers states could not bring delegates to the convention, it was not
difficult for them to take their long planned walk from the party. So as
the president rounded up his speech and as Mrs. Patience Jonathan came
down to cut the 15th anniversary cake, the ‘rebel’ PDP governors
commenced consultations.
Kwankwanso and Lamido as if in a final
salutation to the party made a tour round Eagle Square and from there
proceeded to the Shehu Yar`Adua Centre where they were joined by Atiku
and the other governors including Amaechi who was not at the convention
ground, having been suspended from the party three months ago. Atiku’s
drama at the Eagle Square Atiku on his part had made some drama at the
Eagle Square when he against tradition refused to sit in the VIP stand
preferring to sit with delegates from his native Adamawa State.
“The
essence of this is to show that the party belongs to the people and to
convey to everyone that those in the VIP stand who now control the party
have lost touch with the people and Turaki is doing this to buttress
his opinion that the party must be returned to the people,” an associate
of the former vice-president told Vanguard ahead of the walkout on
Saturday.
But how far the dissidents can go remains an issue. The
first issue is for them to unify among themselves and bury their own
individual political differences and objectives under a united dream of
overwhelming the Jonathan led PDP. Reaction of the president As a step
towards that move, the seven governors were yesterday at press time
engaged in a meeting with Atiku in Atiku’s residence in Abuja where they
were aiming to bury differences between Atiku and Nyako.
Following
that, the rebels who are indeed calling themselves the New PDP, hope to
gauge the reaction of the president to their move. As a source in their
camp disclosed, their plan is to see if the president would respond
positively to their issues and if he does there could be some talking,
but if not, the new faction of the PDP would then seek to explore
options open to it.
Among the options, is going to join the
Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM already registered as a political party
and believed to be the child of Atiku or forging ahead with their own
party, the Voice of the People. In the end, the governors could register
the VOP and allow the PDM to co-exist with it as a way of diverting
votes from the PDP, given the closeness of PDM to PDP on the ballot
paper. The temptation to sustain the rebellion is fired by the
popularity of the rebellion among some other party faithful.
A
number of women who were opposed to the emergence of Dr. Kema Chikwe as
the national women leader including some women with nationwide name
recognition it was learnt, are already making contact with the
Baraje-led faction to team up with it. Another governor from the
Northwest who did not join the boycott, Vanguard gathered yesterday, had
also made contact to join the rebellion. Yesterday, the president and
his associates were in an overdrive to stem the rebellion.
President
Jonathan met with former President Olusegun Obasanjo who is a patron of
the five northern rebel governors apparently to bring him into the
trouble shooting mission. A meeting between the president and the rebel
governors it was also learnt has been arranged for late last night. The
meeting was yet to take off as at press time.
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