A whirlwind of discontent rages through the two main opposition parties – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP). The situation is worse in the PDP, a party many would want to look up to as a viable alternative if the ruling APC fails to meet expectations. Now, with the tumult of confusion in the two parties can Nigerians ever expect any challenge to the ruling party? The prognosis is gloomy and might be answered in the negative.
The crisis within the PDP is an old story whose retelling might not be necessary here. It could easily heighten my readers’ anxiety about what has happened to the great party that is now lying comatose struggling with seemingly a life-threatening ailment. As I write this weekend, the party is divided right down the middle with two acting chairmen and a plethora of other party officials all bearing similar titles. The party has enough court cases in hand all instigated by malcontents within. If the cases are not enough distractions, the unsavoury happenings in many state branches are enough headaches.
It is obvious to all discerning observers that PDP has failed to live up to its billing. This has become apparent in the off-season gubernatorial elections taking place these days. The party has already lost Edo State to the APC in the gubernatorial election that took place recently and the forecast for Ondo and Anambra states, which are scheduled for the next few weeks, don’t look any good for the beleaguered party. In the hastily arranged local government elections, the PDP boycotted the election in Rivers State where it even had a sitting governor.
The virus afflicting the PDP at the moment is commonly agreed to be the strife perpetuated by Nyesom Wike, then the all-powerful governor of Rivers State. He went on a patricidal warpath with the party when he lost the nomination to be its vice-presidential candidate in the last election. He refused all entreaties to let go and went ahead to cause deep ruptures within the party. The opposition APC, finding in him a convenient ally drew him, willy-nilly, into its inner sanctum. Wike’s intransigence and willingness to go against the grain within the party, and openly canvassing for the opposition ticket would be one of the main causes for the PDP’s loss.
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Relishing its prime catch, the APC on winning the presidential election, doled out to Wike the plum office of Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Despite sitting pretty tight within the APC-controlled government, Wike has continued to wage a relentless war of attrition against his party. He maintains a stranglehold on the PDP through the acting chairman who is rumoured to be his surrogate.
Wike is willing and ready to take on anyone opposing his agenda. When his Rivers State, home governor, Siminalayi Fubara started exhibiting some independence streaks, Wike went down on him with all his might. The tussle between FCT Minister Wike and Governor Fubara of Rivers State has been the most engaging political sideshow we are having now.
When other PDP governors attempted to intervene and Wike sensed that they would take sides with Fubara, he threatened brimstone and fire. He was quoted as saying “Let me assure all of you, not while we live will anybody take away the structure of PDP from us. But let me tell people, I hear some governors who say they will take over the structure and give back to somebody, I pity those governors because I will put fire in their states.” He has effectively factionalised the PDP, with his camp having the upper side. The PDP as it is now has been rendered ineffectual and is not in a position to face any election in unison.
I guess many would gloat over the self-inflicted misfortune that had befallen the PDP. “It is the law of Karma. It serves them right”, they would say. Verily it was not long ago that the PDP was the behemoth rampaging unchecked in the Nigerian political space and was using the same sinister tactics to emasculate opposition political parties. At a time during the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo, PDP caused so much mayhem within the opposition parties, ANPP, AD, CAN, etc., that many feared that they faced becoming permanently irrelevant. Somehow in a short while, the PDP became a victim of its successes and broke apart. A faction, the new-PDP reached out to the opposition ANPP, ACN, CPP and others to come together in a historic union in 2013 to face the PDP and wrest power from its grip in 2015.
Now we are at a juncture not dissimilar from that scenario. The country is in turmoil with a galloping cost of living and a legacy of untreated insecurity situation, exacerbated by infrastructural deficits all around. Clearly, the APC government has yet to fulfil our expectations. The high cost of living is a direct result of hastily executed government measures that were not well thought out. This is the time we need opposition parties to fashion out and sell to us alternative policies that will get us out of this logjam.
The opposition parties will need to reach out to each other and do the needful.
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