By Nnamdi Elekwachi.
Unifier worked against the letter and spirit of his party’s constitution – which clearly supports rotation of the presidency and other elective offices between Nigeria’s North and her South – to emerge party’s presidential candidate.
Governor Wike of Rivers State, a southerner who hitherto vowed to “support whoever wins” the party’s presidential ticket, having lost to Unifier, hoped to emerge as the presidential running mate under the party since he, Wike, had worked hard to keep the party in its low point and crisis moment. It did not go to plan, for Wike or, perhaps, as it turned out to be, Wike got eliminated in the power gaming board by certain interests. Wike himself had hitherto argued against the principle of zoning, contrary to the party’s constitution. Jettisoning rotation of offices, as against doctrine of the party, Wike had thought, would help him clinch presidential ticket against the Southeast, the only southern region yet to do the presidency under PDP. Well, Wike did not clinch the ticket that he sought.
Next, Governor Wike says party’s chairmanship must be ceded to the South in the spirit of equity since Unifier, the presidential candidate, is from the North. Unifier turns around and says zoning party’s chairmanship to the South would require amending the constitution of the party. Unifier, this way, did not remember that the same constitution was not amended but grossly abused with his emergence. In fact, it would be recalled that when former chairman, Vincent Ogbulafo was sacked on allegations of corruption, Dr. Bello Haliru Mohammed, a northerner, replaced him regardless of party’s constitution.
Even though there were strong, and perhaps superior arguments in favour of a chairman of northern extraction for the party since Jonathan, a southern Christian, was the sitting president, evidences abound that PDP has no regard for her own laws. So with her constitution, we may ask: PDP, quo vadis?
Ahead of 2023 general elections, pressure in the party’s ranks is not letting up. Two camps war themselves in a party that looks to unseating the one in office, the same which sacked it from power seven years ago. I do not know how the party intends to survive the current crisis of confidence rocking it since nothing has been done after the four reform committees it had set up after losing out in 2015.
Well, I am not concerned about PDP’s choice to lose Wike’s support by calling his bluff. If Unifier feels the party can survive such self-amputation, then, it is how best he understands unity. PDP as a party is synonymous with both breaking the law and bending the law. How did Obasanjo become board of trustees chairman if not by hastily amending the constitution of the party overnight after he lost out in the third term bid?
So, in this current infighting within the party, I just prefer to be an onlooker, a passerby. It is the party’s character to disrespect its own laws and so if it goes to the next elections limping on one leg, so be it. What people have never really seen is that PDP, from its get-go, has always been a house where impunity reigns with immunity.
I’m off to Timbuktu 🚶🐪…
(For a friend here who asked for my view on the ongoing PDP internal crisis this morning).