Of all the 30 political parties
in the country, only the Peoples Democratic Party has a functional church built
within its premises. There is also a mosque, all within the compound of the
party’s national headquarters located at Wadata Plaza, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja.
Activities within the church,
which is known as PDP National Chapel, picked up a few days to the conduct of
the last general elections, which the party lost to the All Progressives
Congress. The party, however, didn’t limit its prayers to the church and
the mosque alone.
On Tuesday, members of the party
gathered at the National Executive Hall. One of the agendas of the meeting was
to inaugurate the four committees set up by the party’s National Working
Committee.
The committees were those of the
National Convention, Reconciliation, Finance and Zoning. As usual, the party
would not start any business without appealing to God to be in their business.
The lot of who to appeal to God
in prayer fell on a former Chief of Staff to former President Goodluck Jonathan,
Mr. Mike Ogiadome. Picking his words carefully, he said the loss of the
election was not that God was not ready to hear the prayers of members of the
party, but that the party and its members had offended God.
It was with rapt attention that
members of the party including its National Chairman, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff,
members of the NWC and governors listened when Ogiadome launched into prayers.
He said, “We offended God. We
had done what we ought not to have done. We were to rule for 60 years, but we
offended you God. That was why we were defeated during the last election.
Father, forgive us and give us back the Presidency in 2019.”
The hall, which was filled to
the brim, roared with a thunderous “amen.”
“Father, we have learnt our
mistake. Return our party to Aso Rock in 2019,” he further prayed, and with a
renewed vigour, the members of the party answered with a more vibrant “amen”.
The leadership of the party,
however, seemed to have realised that prayer without action might amount to
nothing in the country’s political space. Hence, since the party lost the
general election to its challenger, the All Progressives Congress, in 2015, it
had begun moves to rally round its disgruntled members on how to regain power.
Several meetings had been called
while strategists were asked to examine the remote and immediate causes of the
party’s monumental defeat; the first of its kind the party suffered since 1999
when the country returned to democratic rule.
This was why it said it was
abiding by the suggestion made by its committee on Post Election Review headed
by Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, by zoning the PDP
presidential ticket for the 2019 elections to the North.
The Deputy National Chairman of
the party, Uche Secondus, said the decision to zone the office to the area was
a collective decision by the NWC and other organs of the party. The Rivers
State-born politician said that the party would not repeat the costly mistakes
it made in the past, stressing that the PDP would act upon the report of the
committee to be able to provide what he described as “a robust opposition” for
the APC-led government.
According to him, “For the party
to move forward, it must obey the zoning system and constitution adding that
the party was poised to re-position to take over the presidential seat from the
ruling APC in 2019.”
The Acting Chairman of the
party’s Board of Trustees, Walid Jibril, also said the office of the President
was what the people of his area wanted, adding that this would help the party
regain power in 2019. Already, he said the search for the credible candidate
had already started.
He said, “A search for a
credible candidate had begun in earnest. We have zoned the Presidency to the
North but the Vice-President and other positions have not been zoned because we
are still consulting.”
He warned that anyone who
attempted jettisoning the zoning formulae would be treated as enemy of the
north and a killer of the party. The soft-spoken former member of the Senate
said, “May I also strongly warn on the dangers of not adhering to the
recommendations of Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s post election Review Committee
(2015) that the party should seek its 2019 presidential candidate from the
North of Nigeria to compensate for the obvious violation of the zoning arrangement
in the 2011 election which led to a major apathy against the party in the North
from 2011 culminating in the poor performance of the party in the 2015
elections. Anyone who tries to reverse the position, which had already
been approved by the National Executive Committee would ever remain an enemy to
the North and a killer of the PDP.”
The thinking in the party,
according to analysts, is that it lost the last general election because it
fielded former President Goodluck Jonathan. Jonathan is a former governor of
Bayelsa State, while President Muhammadu Buhari who defeated him hails from
Katsina State.
The search for the presidential
candidate has taken the former ruling party to the doorstep of the currently
ruling party. To show its level of seriousness and determination, its
leadership has already opened discussion with notable political leaders from
the northern part of the country on the need for them to return to the
erstwhile ruling party.
The discussion was aimed at
convincing them that they could be the party’s next presidential candidate.
Among those being wooed are the
Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki; a former governor of Kano State, Sen.
Rabiu Kwankwaso; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; Governor Aminu Tambuwal
of Sokoto State and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu
Dogora.
These are the men expected to
slug it out with notable politicians in the PDP like a former governor of
Jigawa State, Sule Lamido; Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe State, a former
Governor of Niger State, Dr. Babangida Aliyu and the Governor of Katsina State,
Ibrahim Shema.
Saraki, who is facing what could
be described as the toughest political battle of his life with his trial at the
Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged false declaration of assets and Dogara
were elected into their current positions with the help of members of the PDP
in the Senate and the House. While Dogara through his political doggedness have
been able to reunite with the leadership of the APC, Saraki is becoming more alienated
from his party.
But both men, who were former
members of the PDP, have also decided to pay members of their former party back
with headship of committees considered to be juicy and strategic at the Senate
and in the House of Representatives respectively.
The National Publicity Secretary
of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, confirmed the secret meetings the leadership of the
party had been having with its former members.
Metuh, who also confirmed that
he was partaking in such meetings, said it would be premature to mention those
who were contacted to return to their former party.
But he said the party was only
considering those he said had electoral values and had yet to constantly
condemn the party and everything it stood for in the past.
Metuh said, “Yes, I can confirm
that we have opened discussions with our former members who left us due to
misunderstandings and were aggrieved. We are already having meetings with them
and I can assure you that the discussions are going to yield positive results.
But for the fact that some of these gentlemen are holding sensitive positions
in the APC and in government, we won’t be able to mention their names.
“They are not happy with the
Federal Government and some of its policies and they have decided to team up
with us come 2019.”
He said the PDP was sure that if
it could bring back the majority of its members who left the party for the APC,
it would win the Presidential election in 2019.
A member of the PDP NWC, who
spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “We are no longer in power and the
number of governors we have has reduced drastically. We therefore need someone
who is rich and has the contact across the country to help us wrestle power
from the APC come 2019. We all know that only the likes of Atiku and former
governors can do this for us. We want them back in our party.”
The Acting Chairman of the Board
of Trustees of the party, Jibril, said that the party would want all its former
members, and new ones, to return to its fold.
The chairman of the BoT of the
PDP told our correspondent that the doors of the party would remain open.
He said, “Any person who wants
to return to the party, including those you have mentioned, are free to return.
We need them just the way we need many others who were not our members before.
Anybody who wants to be our member is free to do so. We won’t send anyone away.
No, not now.”
A chieftain of the APC in Enugu
State, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, said the courting of members of his party by the
PDP was part of political re-engineering expected from the former ruling party.
However, he said the efforts of
the PDP would amount to nothing because, according to him, APC members will not
leave the house they jointly built. He equally added that for a long
time, the APC and the PDP would remain the two dominant parties in Nigeria, and
because of this, politicians would be defecting from one of them to the other.
He said, “We will continue to witness
such action but I don’t see the likes of Dogara, Tambuwal leaving the APC. But
if the PDP thinks that by coming to infiltrate and enticing some of our members
it can get the Presidency back in no distance future, then it is daydreaming.”
Mr. Bagudu Usman, an
ex-politician, shares Okechukwu’s view, but adds that Nigerians should know
that nothing good can come out of such alliance if it is ever consummated.
Usman said, “Nigerians should
give President Buhari and his party time to fix the country. It is too early
for the PDP to be thinking of returning to power so soon after ruling us for 16
years and there’s nothing to show for it.”
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