With the prospects of the anticipated stepping down from office by next week by its Acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, the country’s leading opposition political party – Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), may be standing on the road to rehabilitation and recovery, from the series of crises that had befallen it since the circumstances of the 2023 general polls. This is courtesy of the reshaping of aspects of its internal crises which recently featured a gale of suspensions and counter-suspensions.
First was the suspension by the Acting National Chairman Damagum of the National Publicity Secretary Debo Ologunagba and the National Legal Adviser Kamaldeen Adeyemi Ajibade. Later a faction led by Yayari Mohammed, also suspended the Acting National Chairman Damagum and the National Secretary Samuel Anyanwu. Eventually, hopes of avoidance of a total meltdown of the party’s administration were kindled by the intervention of the PDP Governors Forum who called for a truce among the warring factions.
The merit of Damagum’s expected exit from office as Acting National Chairman derives from several factors of which his dalliance with Nyesom Wike, former Governor of Rivers State and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) – under the rival and ruling APC administration, must rank above others. Considering that Wike has for some time played the role of an agent provocateur in the affairs of the party, the current twists and turns in the affairs of the PDP, cannot be separated from his proclivities.
For instance it is no secret that Damagum’s leadership of the party has been skewed to serve less of the party’s constitution and objectives and more of the interests of Nyesom Wike. It is, therefore, for good measure that he may soon step down from office to give way for the much needed rebuilding of the party. With Damagum’s connivance, Wike had exercised a firm grip on the jugular vein of the party to the chagrin of not a few of its teeming members and non-members alike.
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Meanwhile, apparently unknown to many, the turn of events in the leadership circle of the PDP shares a congruence with the recent October 5 2024 local government polls exercise held in Rivers State, where Wike’s political clout was clipped. Accordingly, the result of the polls, literally wiped out Wike’s structure at that tier of governance in the state. The situation had not only signaled a re-evaluation of his electoral value not only in the PDP but even in the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, where he is serving as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory.
Until the Rivers State polls, Wike had enjoyed the support of the PDP leadership with Damagum as acting chairman, to undermine the governor of the Rivers State Siminalayi Fubara, who was denied the control of the party’s structure in the state. This led Fubara to court the collaboration of other political parties – especially the Action Peoples Party (APP) to field candidates that would be loyal to him after the elections. By this arrangement, out of 23 LG chairmen elected, 22 came from the APP and are ostensibly loyalists of Fubara.
In a situation where as the acting national chairman of the PDP Damagum would fold his hands and allow the blight of his party’s fortunes at the LG tier of a state as strategic as Rivers State, qualifies him for sanctions. Meanwhile, as far as many Nigerians are concerned, even as the series of twists and turns in the PDP leadership circumstances are swirling, it is imperative that the party’s leadership appreciates the constitutional responsibilities associated with its status as the leading opposition party. Hence, not a few Nigerians are concerned over the prospects of the party ever regaining its pride of place in the country either as a coherent opposition force or even a ruling party – a position it held between 1999 and 2015, when it lost power then to newly formed APC. That is why the current state of affairs in PDP remains topical to such Nigerians.
Nevertheless, for the PDP, the way forward offers challenges beyond the exit of Damagum. Rather, it entails the process of rebuilding the party from its grassroots to the top with close compliance with its founding vision and constitution. This point remains critical considering that since 2015 when it lost power to the APC and failed to regain same in 2019 and 2023 general polls, it had lost significant traction as a political party, with mass defection of its members to other parties. It is no more the fabled biggest political party in Africa.
Even at that, of major concern in its rebuilding exercise is that it now has high ranking members like Nyesom Wike and governor of Oyo State, Oluwaseyi Makinde, who openly engaged in anti-party activities. These were part of the G5 cluster of PDP governors who scuttled the presidential bid of Atiku Abubakar – the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 general polls. With that problem still lingering, the rebuilding effort by the PDP shall not be a tea party.
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