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By Kassim Afegbua.
I want to believe that some members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party-PDP, are under a spell to do the wrong things all the time. Despite the banana peel that resides around them, what they want to eat often makes them blind to their real intention. From Uche Secondus’s era to the present Iyorchia Ayu-led exco, the PDP executives are impervious to correction. How on earth will an opposition party battling to offer hope to Nigerians be engaging in hopeless indulgences. Illegalities upon illegalities permeate the inner sanctuary of Wadata Plaza. Imagine parallel primaries in Imo, Ebonyi, Abia, Enugu, Edo, Kano, Lagos, Anambra, all because some over-fed clowns masquerading as exco members are unable to speak the truth due to corruption and filthy lucre. Once they compromise their position, it is often difficult for them to speak straight. You are likely going to hear murmurs and stammers on an issue that requires a straight response. Trace the genesis of the crises bedevilling the party, you will see a function of dishonesty permeating the entire gamut of the narratives. One had thought the Ayu-led exco will mark a sharp departure from his predecessor, but the reality today is making the previous exco look ten poles taller.
How can you be an opposition party and be so determined in doing the wrong things in the name of politics? How do you intend to confront a behemoth APC and you trade in illegalities and absurdities. How do you prepare for an electoral battle with a divided house as a result of corruption? I heard from the grapevine at the Wadaza Plaza that before you are eligible to be a member of any committee to superintend over primaries, something must exchange hands. The murmurs and gossips are so loud at the Wadata Plaza. Under Uche Secondus, the PDP headquarters was dubiously referred to as “Casino du Wadata”, under this present Ayu leadership, the PDP headquarters is being referred to as “Wadata du Cash and Carry”. The level of underhand dealings at the headquarters is massively promoting injustice, manipulations, crass irresponsibility and illegalities. This present leadership disobeys court orders with reckless abandon. For the first time in a long while, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner for Edo state had to publicly declare that any primary election not monitored by INEC with recognised Adhoc delegates would amount to a nullity. There are validly obtained court verdicts on the Kano state PDP leadership tussle, and also on the Edo PDP stalemate, yet, Ayu’s leadership chose to look the other way with flagrant abuses being perpetrated. In the history of PDP since 1998, this is the most reckless Exco driven by a tactless, pompous, over-zealous and egocentric Chairman, who is unable to connect the dots of inclusivity.
This should serve as a lesson to all political actors in future engagements. When you enthrone jobless characters into party positions, what you get are a combination of inanities and stomach infrastructure and political buccaneers. The choice and emergence of Iyorchia Ayu as consensus chairman from the North Central zone is tellingly becoming a mistaken sort of. His initial profile of being a foundation member of the party and his touted ability to articulate the issues have all paled into insignificance over his failure to offer utility-driven leadership that can elevate the substance of the party to a pedestal of hope. Take a sample of the primaries conducted on Sunday, 22nd May, 2022 across Nigeria and the cacophony of condemnation that has attended them. Take Edo State for example. There have been persisting political logjam that requires truth and honesty of purpose to resolve. Adhoc delegate’s election was conducted and monitored by the electoral body. The Governor of the state, in trying to show strength, hijacked those that were sent from Abuja to Edo Government House. The 3-man Committee sat down, concocted a list and hurriedly returned same to the party headquarters. The Legacy PDP went to the field to conduct its own, duly monitored by INEC officials in line with the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
The Edo Governor’s camp quickly rushed to their own court to seek for an order that would prevent tampering with their concocted list. The Legacy PDP obtained orders from the Federal High Court, Abuja stating that the authentic list obtained from the field as monitored by INEC must be respected. Rather than make room for a robust dialogue between the factors and actors involved, even when an Appeal Court in Benin lampooned the lower state High Court for being too hasty in its approach, knowing it lacks the jurisdiction to so do, the PDP National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature issued a notice of primary election for the Sunday 22nd May, event. The NWC meeting earlier held to resolve these issues and those of other states, had not reached a conclusion on the lingering crises, yet the National Organising Secretary was too much in a hurry to please his sponsors. This scenario played itself out in several other states, leaving the party in a political quagmire of an almost irredeemable dimension. Two parallel primaries dominated last Sunday’s event simply because Iyorchia Ayu cannot speak truth to power. They have compromised their positions as leaders and executives of the party, chasing shadows and leaving the substance of every situation. Is this how PDP intends to confront their political opponents, the APC and others? What is wrong if Governor Obaseki was told in plain language to seek a political solution rather than tailoring the path of illegality and making the party fall within the ambit of contempt of court?
Only two weeks ago, I had accused the chairman, Iyorchia Ayu of compromising his position by jettisoning the zoning arrangement contained in the party’s constitution, and working from the answer to question in favour of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. One of his rottweilers and cousin of the Edo Governor, Pedro Obaseki was pouring saliva all over his mouth in trying to attack my very informed position. The crises that attended the outcome of the primaries are indicative of my earlier reservations about the propriety or otherwise of an Ayu-led exco. Edo State has become another battleground for Governor Obaseki’s attack dogs who are exploiting every opportunity to re-enact their paymaster style. By now, one would have thought that as opposition, PDP would put its house in order, reconcile all grey areas and resolve all the lingering crises across the states as well as obey existing court orders to create sanity in the system. Presently, PDP is in disarray simply because the leadership is greedily working to favour Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to make sure he emerges by fire, by force at the Saturday convention against the run of play. The grumbling at the headquarters is making Ayu’s predecessor look saner than what presently obtains. The level of divisions in Lagos, Kano, Edo, Ebonyi, Anambra, Delta, Enugu and Abia, deliberately orchestrated and being sustained by a troika in the National Working Committee, NWC, further underscores the compromised position of the leadership.
Ayu, Bature and the Legal Adviser have become a troika that is undermining the process of credible electoral engagement. They are not only working to make the convention’s outcome favour Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, they are deliberately ignoring court processes, at times, trying to dodge court service, in order to arm-twist the process. Given the reality in Edo State, it was pointless endorsing a primary election when the NWC had not come to a collective conclusion. Whilst a meeting was fixed for Sunday 22nd May 2022 in Abuja between Governor Obaseki and Dan Orbih to resolve the issues, the National Organising Secretary issued a go-ahead statement for the primary to commence, amidst subsisting valid court orders. PDP electoral process, as one staff of the National Secretariat told me, has become a “cash and carry” bazaar. “People are just making easy money, and lining their pockets with bribes upon bribes. In the history of PDP since formation, it has not gotten to this perpetual state of rot”, the staff enthused. Lamenting the woes of the party, the staff argued further that they had thought this present executive would behave differently from its predecessor, but “they appear worse off”. An opposition party that is poised to wrestle power from a behemoth ruling party, must consciously nurture its trail by doing the right things and delivering justice, fairness and equity to all participants through a level playing ground as guaranteed in the party’s constitution. The idea of jettisoning the zoning provision as captured in Article 7 of the party’s constitution was in itself a slap in the face.
Iyorchia Ayu doesn’t seem ready to back down on his Atiku Abubakar’s presidential project, the reason why the present crises in states that are the stronghold of Atiku’s co-contestants fit the skewed arrangement that is being envisaged to propel Atiku to victory. By Saturday, all roads will lead to the Abuja Velodrome where the party’s convention is billed to take place. Feelers are already suggestive of a deliberate effort to cause more confusion in the system to birth an outcome that would be heavily contested after the convention. Ayu and his members of NWC are utterly confused at the turn of events, and it is becoming more obvious that PDP may after all not be ready for the 2023 election. It might just turn out to be a mere fluke. That is the stark reality that stares us in the face. Painfully so.
