PDP lacks discipline. Can Saraki restore it?

Let’s not mince words about it. The major obstacle militating against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from performing its role as Nigeria’s major opposition party is lack of discipline. Indiscipline has been the bane and progress of the PDP, a party that once bestrode Nigeria’s political landscape as a colossus from 1999 to 2015. The situation became worse when the party was trounced by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 general elections. Since then, it has been wandering in the sea like a ship without a compass. Presently, the party is confused, vulnerable and lacking guidance or a sense of direction.

When the PDP was in charge as the dominant party in Nigeria, a former national chairman of the party, the late Vincent Ogbulafor, boasted in 2008 that it would rule Nigeria for 60 years. While it kept boasting and taking Nigerians for granted, leaders of the opposition kept planning, and before you know it, APC was formed in 2013, and the rest is now history.

Let’s take three examples in recent times to show how lack of discipline is hindering the PDP’s progress. First is Nyesom Wike, a former Rivers State governor and now a serving minister in President Bola Tinubu’s APC government. Since becoming governor in 2015, Wike has been determining who becomes what in the PDP. During the 2017 national convention of the party, he first supported Jimi Agbaje for the position of national chairman of the party. The convention was then postponed to December 9th and 10th, 2017. This time around, Wike backed Uche Secondus, and he won.

In August 2021, Wike led a ‘Secondus must go’ campaign, which greatly polarised the party and brought it to its knees. He eventually had his way, and Secondus was booted out. Speaking in December 2024 at an end-of-year thanksgiving organised by PDP stakeholders in Ahoada East and Ahoada West at Ukpata community in Ekpeye Kingdom, Wike boasted that “I kicked out Secondus as PDP chairman when he wanted to make his cousin Tele Ikuru to be governor.”

Wike openly worked against the PDP in the last election during the presidential election. Many Nigerians, including this author, supported him because of Atiku Abubakar, who wanted power to return to the north again at the detriment of the southern part of the country after Muhammadu Buhari, from Katsina, had ruled for eight years. Despite achieving his aim and emerging as the most powerful minister in President Tinubu’s cabinet, Wike continues to dictate the affairs of the PDP. He even sealed the national headquarters of the party in Abuja over failure to pay ground rent charges. How do we know if the ruling APC has paid its own ground rent charges?

How do you explain a situation where a man that was just an ordinary local government chairman when the PDP became Nigeria’s ruling party in 1999 is now the one calling the shots, holding the party by the jugular? Just because some PDP governors refused to support him in his fight against Siminalayi Fubara, his successor in Rivers, he even threatened to put fire in their states. What hubris!

The second example is that of the acting national chairman of the party, Ambassador Umar Iliya Damagum. Widely described as the PDP’s damager-in-chief, Damagum last week defended his ties with Wike. Damagum is occupying the office in breach of the party’s constitution, which clearly states that if the occupier of a position resigns or dies, another official of the party from the same zone should be elected. With the suspension of Iyorchia Ayu, the former national chairman from the north-central, stakeholders of the party believe the successor should also come from the north-central. However, Damagum, who is from the north-east, has continued to lay claim to the position just because he enjoys the support of renegades like Wike.

Last year, over 60 PDP members of the house of representatives called on Damagum to step aside, accusing him of being in bed with the ruling APC. A former national publicity secretary of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, also granted a series of interviews, blaming Damagum for the crisis plaguing the party, insisting that if the PDP must be at peace and remain a strong opposition party, he must step aside and revert to his position as the deputy national chairman, North.

Ologbondiyan also argued that for genuine reconciliation to take place, a new national chairman from the north-central zone must emerge. He said, “There is no debating the fact that for the PDP to be able to achieve its purpose, the course of justice must be pursued and must be followed. Damagum has taken over the responsibilities of a substantive chairman that ought to have come from the North-Central. If he had reverted to his own office and allowed the North-Central to produce a substantive chairman, some of the major issues in the party would have been resolved. No matter how long he continues to stay, Damagum is staying there illegitimately. It’s an issue in the party.”

The last example is that of Samuel Anyanwu, the former national secretary of the party. Anyanwu left his position to contest the governorship ticket of the party for Imo state in the 2023 general elections but lost to Governor Hope Uzodimma. The south-east zone, which nominated him for the national secretary position, thereafter nominated Ude-Okoye as his replacement, arguing that he ought to have resigned since he became a governorship candidate of the party.

But Anyanwu, in a counter move, approached a state high court in Enugu and later the court of appeal, arguing that it was not explicit in the party’s constitution that he would resign after he became the candidate of the party but lost in both courts.

However, the Supreme Court, in a final judgement on the matter, said that the court lacks jurisdiction to entertain the matter and asked both candidates to fall back on the party’s constitution and other internal mechanisms to resolve its leadership crises.

Speaking while addressing members of the PDP Press Corps in Abuja on Wednesday, Anyanwu said he was being persecuted because of his friendship with Nyesom Wike. He also accused Governors Peter Mbah of Enugu and Seyi Makinde of Oyo of being behind his ordeal.

How do you explain this? The acting national chairman of the major opposition party is an ally of Wike. The national secretary also admitted that he is close to Wike, yet the same Wike is more or less a major stakeholder in the ruling APC. That was why Wike had dared the PDP on several occasions to suspend him, yet the likes of Damagum and Anyanwu and the entire national working committee of the party couldn’t dare.

That is why I received the news that former Senate President Bukola Saraki has been appointed as the chairman of the PDP’s National Reconciliation Committee. Genuine stakeholders of the PDP should go beyond that. If Saraki decides to contest, he should be elected as the party’s next national chairman. What the PDP currently lacks is discipline; I strongly believe that Saraki has the capacity to restore it. Saraki is a no-nonsense person who will not kowtow to anyone engaging in anti-party activity.

In 2015, when the ruling APC decided to make Ahmad Lawan the senate president, Saraki chose to dare. He emerged as senate president and did a great job in checkmating the excesses of the Muhammadu Buhari administration. Two Senate Presidents have succeeded Saraki, Ahmad Lawan and Godswill Akpabio. Those who accused Saraki of being a traitor then are now praising him while accusing his successors of being rubber stamps and appendages of the executive arm of government.

Recently, during the sexual allegations crisis between Akpabio and suspended Senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, Saraki weighed in and called for a transparent and unbiased probe. His position did not go down well with Akpabio, who accused Saraki of plotting his downfall. Other past senate presidents will not speak because of the ‘padi-padi’ arrangement which is rife in the Nigerian system. The PDP needs the likes of Saraki to instil discipline in the party, not chairmen who go cap in hand to beg for funds and are therefore afraid to call party members to order when they err.

The party needs men who can look President Bola Tinubu in the face and tell him that the idea of a Muslim-Muslim ticket is unacceptable in a country like Nigeria. The party needs a man who has seen it all as a two-term governor, chairman of Nigerian Governors and Senate President, not one that can be barked at by party members and will cower in fear. That was what Chief Olabode George wanted to do in 2017 when he vied for the national chairmanship position but was frustrated by the likes of Wike, having realised that it will be difficult to order George, one of the founding fathers of the PDP around.

The Saraki reconciliation committee has started its job on the right footing. The committee should ignore Wike’s latest rantings that he is pulling out of agreements reached and will continue to fight for justice. What justice? You never wanted Atiku to emerge, and you succeeded. You also got rewarded with a lofty position by a party you claimed you were not a member of. What else do you want? Governor Makinde should also ignore him and rather support the Saraki committee in restoring order in the PDP and reconciling the aggrieved members.

The truth is, no sane person will enjoy the kind of privileges that Wike has in the ruling APC under President Bola Tinubu and will desire an opposition party to come to power.

If they wish, Nigerians are free to reelect the APC and President Tinubu for another term if they are convinced that they have done enough to merit it. However, in so doing, let it not be on a platter of gold because there is no strong opposition. The PDP must put its house in order and live up to its responsibility as the major opposition party in Nigeria. There is no better time to do so than now.

Akinsuyi, a former group politics editor of Daily Independent, writes from Abuja