The PDP secretariat saga and matters arising

It has since become a cliche that Nyessom Wike, the energetic Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, is one of the most mentioned names in the media, political cycles and various discussions platforms in Nigeria today. Even when he is not in the news naturally, Wike purposefully gathers the press around him to chat with them in his raspy voice and push his views forward. And by the time the parley is over, his friends and enemies would have gotten enough sound bites to cut and throw around across the pervasive social media space in Nigeria.

Minister Nyesom Ezenwo Wike again received a lot of mention in the news and online discussion platforms in the past few days for daring to send his men to seal up Access Bank, FIRS office, PDP Secretariat and a host of other office buildings for failing to pay their ground rents to the FCTA.

The timing of Wike’s action for sealing PDP’s Secretariat stirred the anger of many Nigerians in and outside of the People’s Democratic Party which regaled in egotistic sophistry for nearly two decades as the largest political party in Africa. Wike’s action was immediately interpreted by many Nigerians who are friends of PDP, enemies of APC and critics of Wike as a premeditated attempt to frustrate the People’s Democratic Party from holding their NEC meeting. Since then, some concerned Nigerians have jumped into the discuss to condemn Wike and lampoon him mercilessly for his actions and inactions towards the party. Wike’s action was seen by many as one of his special strategies to kill the Party softly for failing to select him as their Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate for the 2023 elections.

Watching the unfolding events from the comfort of his villa and sensing that Nigerians will soon begin to see the sealing of PDP Secretariat hours before the party’s NEC meeting would be seen by many critical Nigerians as a case of the Voice of Jacob and the Hands of Esau, President Bola Tinubu quickly jumped in to intervene. He gave embattled PDP 14 days of grace to settle their ground rent and escape Wike’s sledge harmer. The President’s action doused the tension a bit and reduced the numbers of wagging tongues. Had he not taken that appropriate action, the President would have carelessly given free bullets to those who are angrily interpreting the defections into APC as his deliberate effort to turn Nigeria into a one party state, and they would have used those bullets attack him.

The closure of the PDP Secretariat has a lot of revelations and lessons for Nigerians who truly desire a nation that is committed to development. That closure brings to light one of the biggest evidence why PDP as a political party privileged to rule Nigeria for 16 years failed woefully in setting the nation on the path of true and irreversible greatness.

PDP has two Secretariat buildings as a matter of fact. The first one is it’s current Secretariat and the second one is its abandoned headquarters that’s been under construction for nearly two decades.

It’s quite easy to look at the issue of Wike’s closure of the PDP Secretariat from the angle of politics alone. By our nature as a people, the fact that the head office of the FIRS and 12 other high networth buildings were also closed will not mean anything to us. We will conclude easily, that the PDP secretariat was the actual target. We will reason that the other buildings were also closed to make it look as if PDP was not the real target. We miss the most important point in the saga by taking these emotional positions.

The main point in the saga of the closure of PDP’ s Secretariat is a question demanding answer. Should a party that has been in power for 16 years and is still aspiring to lead again owe ground rent for a decade in the first place? Should it owe any form of rent at all? If the PDP were to have a liaison office building in USA, UK or Canada, will it owe ground rent for a year and not lose the building? If that is the case, why then must a party that wants us to commit Nigeria into its care disregard the law so much that it saw no need to pay statutory bills for years. Instead of focusing more on Wike, we should focus more on these questions and demand answers.

Nigeria without doubt is a country of many brilliant people. Brilliant people ought to be able to do things exceptionally well. This always makes people wonder why Nigerians aren’t getting it right as a people. One of the reasons our country has never gotten it right is that we always miss the biggest point in most critical issues. In overlooking how and why PDP put itself in the precarious situation of getting it’s Secretariat building sealed for infraction and focusing on Wike as the aggressor, we intentionally or surreptitiously miss the point again. When we willy nilly choose to always miss the foundational point, we portray ourselves as a people who love to major in minor and minor in major. It’s hard to see how we can choose that path and expect everything to go well naturally with Nigeria.

Assuming that the FCT Minister closed the PDP Secretariat out of malice, would he or the Ministry of Federal Capital Territory Administration have had the opportunity to do so if PDP has been paying its ground rent promptly? If PDP fails to pay its ground rent for a year in UK, can it afford to make noise about the sealing of their Secretariat as political persecution? Shame will not alloy any serious political party make noise about an issue like this in any serious country. This is because they know what it will cost them politically in the next election. But in Nigeria, does it really matter? Yet, we want to live in a country that works. How will a country work when people pick and choose which law to obey and which law to disrespect or when to obey and when not to obey? How will a country work when people in power / government don’t respect the rules?

A Yoruba adage says “the person that will sow a dress for you, it’s the cloth he is wearing that you must first look at.” If we look at the cloth PDP has been wearing on its Secretariat buildings since 1999, no sane Nigerian will regard PDP as a serious political party to hand Nigeria over to for leadership.

PDP ruled Nigeria for 8 years of Obasanjo. 3 years of Umar Musa Yar’ Adua and 5 years of Goodluck Jonathan and for these 16 years PDP was a tenant in WADATA House. It was like a king ruling from the house of one of his subjects as a tenant for nearly two decades and boasting that he is the richest king in earth.

PDP used 16 years to plan and prepare to build their own befitting Party Head Quarters and it was already over 60% completed before Jonathan left office in 2015. Most Nigerians know that the chunk of the donations for that highrise building of about 7 floors was direct and indirect government money donated and allocated by party stalwarts and contractors.

Since 2015 till date, the PDP building has been abandoned by all of PDP big men and women. There has never been a time since 2015 till date that PDP has less than 30 percent of Governors, Senators and Honourables elected in the elections, yet, all these people demonstrated lack of wisdom and passion to complete their party secretariat building. Infact, the most annoying thing is that no development work has happened in that abandoned building since 2015 – 10 years ago.

PDP supplied the gum that Wike used to seal their party secretariat in a way. How did they do that? About six months ago, the FCDA in her revenue drive made it known that the ground rents of many buildings in Abuja haven’t been paid. WADATA House was one of the buildings listed then. It was during that revelation that many Nigerians discovered that WADATA House didn’t belong to PDP. Even with such news in the open, PDP management didn’t think it necessary to do anything about the rent until the building was closed. The question is “would the reaction to the closure of the Secretariat be the same if there was no big party meeting going on around the period?”.

How can a political party which can not run it’s affairs well, run the affairs of a country excellently? Only in Nigeria can such a political party feel cool and seek to return to national prominence without any soul searching exercise or heartfelt apology for it’s years of missed opportunities for greatness.

To be fair to PDP, it needs to be said that most of Nigeria’s political parties are poorly run and badly managed. Even though LP did well by coming third in the last election, how was the party before the Peter Obi surge? How has it been fairing since? How well run is APC the ruling party? If APC is being run well as a political party the charade of endorsing the president in their last NEC meeting would have been an exercise to assess how it’s government has performed in the last two years to see what’s working and what’s not working. SDP is the oldest party in Nigeria by name and it has a beautiful Secretariat in Abuja. But can it be said that SDP is a strong party that is being astutely run to give Nigeria the best leadership possible? Our poorly run political parties give us a glimpse into why our governments are poorly run across board. Our poorly run parties and government reflect the poverty of leadership qualities in our society. The society that selectively choose things to condemn and things to permit will be far from excellence and meritocracy for ever unless a miracle or revolution occurs.

Despite Buhari’s terrible performance, APC’s Tinubu won the election of 2023 to succeed Buhari. Only in Nigeria can a badly performing political party win election. Beyond the noise of rigging, we must look at our sense of assessing issues and correct what must be corrected.

Nigeria is a big community of politicians with no defined political philosophy, ideologies and little or no honour. As it was in 2014, disgruntled, desperate and power hungry politicians are now gathering together to present themselves to Nigerians as the best alternative in 2027. Nigerians will be carried away by their lies and smooth talk again because we always miss the point. And if we do, our self inflicted suffering will continue.
May God open our eyes in Nigeria to our truths and give us the courage to address them appropriately.

Osho is a leadership, political and good governance apostle. He is a development architect, a change strategist and a public affairs specialist.
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