PDP: Living to fight another day?  

Abuja Bureau Chief, LEON USIGBE, writes that the much anticipated Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 98th National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting has come and gone but fears remain that its woes are not yet over. 

In the throes of a leadership struggle and lack of internal cohesion, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) attempted to engineer new confidence in its supporters and observers these past few days with several organs of the party holding meetings and the climax of which culminated in that of the National Executive Committee (NEC).

The days leading up the NEC were frenetic and anxiety pervaded the air as stakeholders were unsure of the fate of the shaky main opposition party that once prided itself as the largest political party in Africa.

Two distinct groups appeared to be struggling for its soul — one wanting to pull the party to coziness towards President Bola Tinubu and his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the other intent on keeping its distance with the government to maintain its main opposition role. The first tendency was personified by the National Working Committee (NWC) members led by the acting National Chairman, Ambassador Iliya Damagum, whose push to remain in office is thought to have the imprimatur of the Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike. The former Rivers State governor has the most influence on the NWC, having been its principal financial backer. Reciprocally, the NWC is seen as amenable to his whims and caprices and viewed by the second tendency as working to give him complete control of its structure.

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar leads the group keen to prevent that and he has allies in the North-Central zone stakeholders who insist that Damagum has to revert to his substantive deputy national chairman (north) post to allow a politician of the region’s extraction to serve out the term of Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, who was forced out prematurely from his office as the national chairman by forces believed to be loyal to Wike.

The Atiku/North-Central counterforce is backed by the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) and a section of the PDP House of Representatives caucus. Before the NEC meeting, this group insisted on the fulfillment of the constitutional requirement that prescribes under section 47(6) specifically that: “Where a vacancy occurs in any of the offices of the party, the executive committee of the appropriate level shall appoint another person from the area or zone where the officer originated from to serve out the tenure of the officer.”

The struggle caused the party to drift and the NEC, which supervises the work of the party and all its organs and ensures that all function democratically and effectively, was tasked with the responsibility to steer it back on course. But if advocates and observers thought that last Thursday’s  NEC meeting would cause leadership change, they were quickly urged to temper their expectations by PDP Governors Forum, whose chairman and Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, signaled that no such issue would be tabled at the session.

“I said the issues have been resolved and we look forward to doing it within the constitutional provision of the party. So, we are not here in this meeting that is preceding NEC to discuss about change of leadership. We are talking about resolving all issues and going forward so that at the end of the day, the timelines allowed in the constitution for congresses would have been done.

“Certainly, the public is free to ‘permutate’ and discuss and then NEC will decide on some of these issues,” he said at the end of the forum’s meeting preceding the NEC.

But the BoT’s position was slightly at variance with this. Its chairman, Adolphus Wabara, said at the opening of the NEC: “Recalling the events that led to the ousting of the former chairman of the party in person of H.E. Senator Iyorchia Ayu, the current acting chairman has spent over a year in office, whereas as the usual practice of the party, the region from whence the national officer hails from should have produced a viable candidate to complete the tenure of the former national officer.

“Furthermore, the contentious issue surrounding the office of the National Secretary has regrettably sown seeds of discord within our party. The ambiguity surrounding this position has led to confusion and internal strife, hindering our collective efforts to pursue our noble objectives.

“The solutions to these two challenges are clearly imbibed in our party’s constitution but deliberate litigations have made the application of these constitutional solutions impossible. It is incumbent upon us to resolve this matter with utmost urgency, guided by transparency, fairness, and the best interests of our party and its members.”

The PDP House of Representatives caucus group of a 60 member-coalition led by Ugo Ugochinyere was adamant that Damagum had to go at the NEC meeting. “We say no to the last minute plan to shift today’s expected step down of Umar Damagum as acting national chairman of PDP to August 2024, before a candidate from North-Central zone can take the chairmanship position of the party which is a last minute plan by the APC loyalists (in the PDP) backing him up, so as to give them room to use the few months extension period to inflict irreversible damage on the PDP by filling the over 19 PDP states with party state executives with pro-APC members as state party officials. NEC members must stop this madness today if they want PDP to survive,” Ugochinyere said before the commencement of the meeting.

In the end though, NEC confirmed his fears by deferring Damagum’s fate to a session tentatively scheduled for August.

The acting national chairman has thus survived albeit temporarily.

Bala Mohammed explained this. “In the next two months, we will see a lot of activities. Leadership is a responsibility. We said in September we would have come out from our congresses. We will look at the issue of leadership and look at the issue of our constitution where it will be. And we will do it with no rancour.”

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, spoke on the reason the NEC did not discuss leadership change. “Our party emphasizes the need for reconciliation and stability within the party at this time. Therefore, the issue of the National Chairman, Damagum, has been deferred to the next NEC meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for August 15, 2024.”

According to Governor Forum’s chairman, there was no disagreement with the decision of the NEC not to deliberate on the party leadership issue. Mohammed stated: “You can see there was no dissension and rancour. It was planned that the party will have an implosion. PDP is more than that, we have risen beyond all these idiosyncrasies. This party is a united party that is guided by experience and constitutionality. There were a lot of permutations and mischievous thinking outside there.

«But we looked at all the issues and we worked along our guidelines and constitution. There is no problem or dissension and problem among members,» he explained.

The NEC decision or lack of it was a relief to the acting national chairman even though he put up a brave face over his recent troubles. “This is not a matter of life and death. I am still an elected member of this NEC. Even if I revert to deputy national chairman I’m still a member of NWC. The issue of surviving or not does not emerge,” Damagum maintained after the NEC meeting.

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