That PDP may rise again

ONCE the inferno of leadership brouhaha ravaging our great party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), simmers down and the dusts of accusation and counter-accusations recedes, then the obvious task will begin: the rebuilding of the party from the morass of self-inflicted horror political injuries. In respect, one is being mild to say the party had suffered monumental image assault all this while.

That the party is seriously hemorrhaging presently is an understatement. Candidly, the party is structurally and administratively anaemic. This condition must be tackled radically now before it becomes chronic and leads to unpleasant developments. For the party to rise again, now is the time to properly diagnose its malaise and prescribe the right drugs prescribed for its healing. Anything short of this will only exacerbate the crises in the party. Dwelling on the multi-coloured and bad-tempered crises that rocked the biggest party to its very foundations is not really necessary here, and neither does the blame game, or the blame shifting on enemies, both within and from outside. The truth is that of mismanagement of the party’s goodwill and allowing the opposition to capitalize on the gross indiscipline and impunity within our ranks to spring to life. Now we must strategise and re-strategize, we must build and rebuild, we must organise and re-organise for the party to come back to life. This is no mean task, but it’s doable.

In this wise, one must commend the efforts of Prof Jerry Gana led Reorganisation Committee. Taking the life support and revival efforts to rescue the party from slipping into a coma is commendable. And so also are the efforts of some of our founding fathers. One, Gen Ibrahim Babangide spoke well when Prof Jerry Gana led the other committee members to pay him a courtesy call. He actually spoke the mind of majority of members. The party can still spring back to life and reclaim its rightful position in the polity, if issues are well managed. The PDP no doubt, enjoys fabulous goodwill from the vast majority of the populace. Right from national to ward level, the party is well entrenched and well known. Therefore, it’s very easy to rebuild the broken wall and mend the collapsed emotions within the political family.

The various leaders at this point need to make some bold self-sacrifices for the party to come out of the present quagmire stronger and ‘hale and hearty’. This does not boil down to only Senators Ali Modu Sheriff and Ahmed Markafi alone; a whole lot of their sponsors both frontal and proxy must shed some ego weight and shift positions. To start with, it is my belief that all ongoing cases related to the leadership questions in the various courts in the country should be discontinued. Once this is done, coming to a roundtable discussion becomes easy and tension-free. We all know the root cause of the disharmony within the ranks of the party. All concerned at this point need to realise the collective damage their actions or inactions have done to the party. The cost is simply incalculable.

Rather than continuing bickering at this point, I think what we should all re-direct our energies to is the re-building process in the party. Unless this is done, and swiftly too, the party may still suffer some electoral embarrassment in the few states where the governorship elections will hold before 2019 general election. The case of Ondo State is still fresh in one’s mind, and by whatever stretch, Ekiti and Osun states should not be allowed to suffer the same unfortunate fate.

One is not totally lost to some charade and shenanigans within the party. No. Far from that. But the less one focuses on or talks about that, the better for the rebuilding of the party from the ashes of impunity and power drunkenness. One must at this point focus on how to salvage democracy in general, rather than dwelling on the unfortunate culture of impunity and flawed reward system adopted by the mandate holders within the party, a system that threw up only charlatans, monsters and people tainted with corruption allegations here and there.

We have dissipated so much energy on politically unprofitable ventures in these past months. And this has made the duo of Senators Sheriff and Markafi factional leadership thriving and intractable, at least until now. The oddities that played out at the aborted National Convention in Port Harcourt are still fresh in our minds, and therefore concerted efforts must be made in putting together a decent and workable National Convention to elect new leaders and give the party a new direction.

The present inability of the party to provide effective opposition is a major failing, an unpardonable one at that. A robust and vibrant opposition is a sine qua non for democracies all over the world. To all members, especially those plotting the fall of the party from within, those already looking above their shoulders to jump ship to another party, or those already permutating on forming a new party, they all should be told that we shall all sink or swim together. The current path of both factional leaders is a cul de sac, hence the need to toe the line of the Prof Jerry Gana led Committee and organise a proper Convention to elect new leaders.

And the earlier the PDP rises to its responsibilities as the main opposition party in the country, the better for the party, for the country, and even for the deepening of democracy and banishment of tyranny and dictatorial tendencies in the country.

•Chief Jimilehin, a party elder and legal practitioner, writes in from Lagos.