To make a strong impact in the 2027 general election, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) needs to do some introspections rather than hoping for the implosion of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), ONYEDIKA AGBEDO writes.
Apparently perturbed by the gale of defections from its fold amid talks of a possible coalition with other opposition parties towards dislodging the All Progressives Congress (APC) from power in 2027, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is surprisingly hoping for an implosion of the ruling party as the impetus to regain its gait.
On the floor of the Senate last Tuesday, three senators elected on the platform of the party from Kebbi State comprisingAdamu Aliero (Kebbi Central); Yahaya Abdullahi (Kebbi North) and Garba Maidoki (Kebbi South),announced their defection to the APC.The senators, in separate letters to the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, said they decided to leave PDP because it had become disconnected from the aspirations of the Nigerians it seeks to lead.
Before then, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State and other major stakeholders in the state chapter of the PDP, including the vice-presidential candidate of the party in the 2023 general election, Ifeanyi Okowa, and all federal and state lawmakers had defected to the APC. The mass defection in Delta State had fueled speculations that more governors and top PDP members would ditch the party and join the APC; a prediction partly confirmed by the defection of the Kebbi senators.
Thus, things are rapidly falling apart in the PDP. Unfortunately, the leadership appears not to have an antidote to the situation other than hoping for a damaging crisis in the ruling party that will rub off on the PDP.
This indication emerged through a former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, who predicted last Saturday that the APC would split soon. Lamido had also predicted that APC National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, and others would possibly defect to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) after the expected implosion of the ruling party.
Lamido, a former minister of Foreign Affairs and die-hard chieftain of the PDP, stated this while delivering a keynote address at the PDP state congress held at Aminu Kano Triangle, Dutse, Jigawa State.
“I’m confident that all those who left the PDP will return, including Ganduje, because very soon, the APC will burst and split into factions, having accommodated people with different mindsets.
“I said it, and I repeat – within six months, all those who defected to the APC will come back, and the PDP will rise with full force to wrest power in 2027,” Lamido said.
Speaking in the same vein last Wednesday, former National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, said the APC would not be able to handle the impending implosion coming to the party.
Ologbondiyan, who spoke while featuring on Channels Television programme last Wednesday, said the recent defections to the APC by some governors and members of other political parties may not end well for the ruling party.
He said: “I want to assure them; the implosion that is coming in the APC, they will not be able to handle it. It’s almost here as we speak. President Tinubu brought ACN into the APC, are they united today? They are fragmented.
“Former president Muhammadu Buhari brought the CPC into the APC, are they united today? They are fragmented. So, it’s going to be a season of implosion. They are talking about the PDP today and saying, ‘Oh, governors are leaving’. Do you know who will leave your party tomorrow? You don’t know.”
Analysts believe that ifthe indeed the PDP is desirous of making a strong impact in the 2027 general election, praying for the implosion of the APC is not supposed to be part of its strategies. To many political observers, the APC, like a cat with nine lives, has proved bookmakers wrong over and over again with regard to its ability to manage the tendencies within its fold.
Founded on February 6, 2013, from a merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the party has continued to disappoint those who described it as a platform “where vaulting personal interests will ceaselessly riot” because of the nature of its formation wrong.
The most recent case was the rumoured plan by the CPC wing of the party to pull out and join a coalition that would challenge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the polls in 2027. The defunct CPC members, allegedly led by the immediate past Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), were said to be angry with the Tinubu administration over what they described as his parochial reward and recognition system in the area of appointments and distribution of amenities.
But before the rumour could gain root, a former governor of Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-Makura, led other stalwarts of the defunct party to declare their loyalty to the APC.
“Recent misleading narratives suggesting a defection or disaffection among CPC stakeholders are false, mischievous and should be ignored. We remain an integral part of the APC and are fully aligned with its leadership and vision,” they stated in a communiqué signed by 23 heavyweights of that bloc.
The signatories to the communiqué were Senators Umaru Al-Makura, Ibrahim Musa and Mustafa Salihu, as well as Dr Nasiru Argungu, Dr Dominic Alancha, Aminu Masari, Adamu Adamu, Farouk Aliyu, AlmajiriGeidam, Waziri Bulama and AyubaBalami.
Others are Osita Okechukwu, OkoiObono-Obla, Lucy Ajayi, BalaJibrin, Uche Ufearoh, Yusuf Salihu, Abubakar Maikudi, MutallibBadmus, Muhammed Datti, Muhammed Etsu, Jerry Johnson and Alkali Ajikolo.
The declaration by these members signposted that the APC leadership made a deft move to nip the crisis in the bud; a mechanism PDP has either not built in its over two decades of existence or has quashed to serve certain interests.
Ganduje made reference to this in his response to Lamido’s claims on his (Ganduje) impending return to PDP. In a statement in Abuja last Monday by his Press Secretary, Edwin Olofu, the APC national chairman urged Lamido to concentrate on fixing the party’s internal issues rather than spreading baseless claims.
His words: “Ganduje predicted that the PDP will go into extinction by the end of 2025, based on the internal squabbles in the party.
“It is evident to any discerning observer that under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the APC continues to gain momentum, with prominent political figures across the country defecting to the party in large numbers.
“With such overwhelming national support, the APC remains focused on consolidating its achievements and preparing for a resounding victory in the 2027 general elections.
“In fact, we will soon receive Sule Lamido because very soon he won’t have where to go; the PDP is dead.” Responding to the The Guardian’s enquiry on the possibility of the APC imploding amid the current momentum, a foundation member of the party, Osita Okechukwu, ruled it out because “people are happy.”
He said: “I have never seen any implosion in a place where there is hope. Where is the implosion coming from? Now the APC has said that every state can generate its own electricity and industrialise its place under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution done under former president Buhari. It’s a constitutional provision. And we have more than 20 states governed by the APC. So, if you have a political party where people are happy, what are you imploding for?
“Now, there are development commissions across the geopolitical zones and the Federal Government has a huge budget for them this year. What does it mean? It means ‘gentlemen, prioritise development in your place; the Federal Government is going to fund you people. Don’t come and blame Tinubu or whoever becomes president in the next few years.’ Luckily enough for the South East, they appointed some of our best first 11 with Emeka Worgu as chairman, young technocrat Mark Okoye jnr as Managing Director and excellent Executive Directors. That was exactly what was done in the other geopolitical zones development commissions. The government appointed their first 11. So, where is the implosion coming from?
“What PDP is engaged in is what my headmaster told us to avoid during my primary school days. The headmaster said that assumption is the mother of all mistakes and advised us to avoid it. Instead of keeping their house in order, they are now going into the mother of all mistakes by assuming that APC will implode. No! You don’t live on assumption as a political party that wants to win elections.”
Okechukwu, who is one of those from the defunct CPC bloc that has pledged unalloyed loyalty to the party, traced the genesis of the problem with PDP to betrayal of trust, especially in the prelude to the 2023 general election.
His words: “The Scripture says that the man who is talking about the log in another person’s eyes should first of all remove the speck in his own eyes. PDP should first do an introspection on why after Dr. Alex Ekwueme was shoved aside in 1999, the Igbos still voted for PDP. Truly, Ekwueme, if not the founder, is one of the three founders of PDP. When he was shoved aside by the military junta, the Igbos did not get angry; they voted again for PDP. In 2003 when we came with Rt. Hon. Dr Chuba Okadigbo as the vice-presidential candidate to Muhammadu Buhari, they still voted for PDP. We pleaded with them that it was the Zikist alliance between North and South, a way of cooperating with the North so that we can one day produce the president of the country but they refused and still voted PDP. In 2007, we came with Edwin Umezuoke as vice-presidential candidate to Buhari, but they still refused. So, since then they have been voting for PDP.
“Then in the 2022 primaries, they suddenly had a funny idea; instead of giving the ticket to the South East, they threw it open with a spurious assumption that with a northern candidate they would win, hence Atiku Abubakar. Their assumption was that the northern electorate were quartered in a dormitory such that when they opened the doors, they would just guide them to the polling booth to vote for Atiku and he would win. But they didn’t know that the northern electorate is one of the most sophisticated. The good people of the North said it was the turn of the South; that they couldn’t vote a northerner immediately after Buhari. They voted for southerners and PDP lost. That is the material condition that led to the PDP’s predicament and sordid state of affairs.”
He advised members of the party “to try to come down from their high horse, do introspection and apologise to Nigerians for breaching the rotation convention and Section 7 of their Constitution.”
He added: “Albeit they are now manufacturing another awkward permutation. Their permutation now is that in 2027, the South would have ruled for 17 years or thereabout and the North for 11 years therefore the North is being cheated; as if Nigeria gained independence in 1999. They forget that when you want to talk of the number of northerners and the number of southerners that have ruled Nigeria, the North has ruled Nigeria for more than 40 years.
“Now they are planning again not to go South and former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, told them again that the presidency should come from the South in 2027. So, if they don’t want to remove the log out of their own eyes, why are they talking about the APC?So, they lack the locus standi to talk of the APC’s implosion when PDP is on the verge of total implosion?
“What you should ask yourself is why Wike and co. are angry? Why did the South not vote for the PDP in 2023? Why did the northern electorate they thought were in the dormitory not vote for them? You know that President Tinubu got more of his votes from the North than from the South. Why did they lose the Southeast zone, which was their main stronghold zone? Why are they not trustworthy such that Ndigbo as a whole do not trust PDP again? Look at the meeting they held at the Government House, Enugu, recently, where they threatened to quit the party. Did APC bribe Governor Mba, Senator Wabara, former governor Sam Egwu et al?These are topnotch members of the PDP in the South East. They sat for two days, came up with a communiqué and threatened to leave the party.
“So, they should ask themselves why and go back to the drawing board. If they want, they can hire those of us who are consultants to come and help them so that they would stop living on assumptions.”
