The PDP national convention

ON Saturday, December 9, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held its national convention at the Eagle Square, Abuja. Prior to that day, like in any political struggle, the party succeeded in increasing the nation’s political temperature in a very huge way. Accusations and counter-accusations ruled the airwaves, with contestants alleging that their opponents had perfected plots to rig themselves into the party’s executive. Ideally, though, the conventions of political parties are opportunities to demonstrate competence and readiness to abide by the democratic ethos. For instance, in the orderly and coordinated manner it conducts elections into executive offices, a political party shows its readiness to be a participant in the larger democratic process that will ultimately involve the rest of the country.

Ahead of the convention, the PDP promised that it would signify an about-turn in its politics, transcending the ills with which it was hitherto associated. It will be recalled that, for 16 years, the PDP, which prided itself as the largest party in sub-Sahara Africa, was the party in government. It earned notoriety for vices alien to party politics in mature democracies. At its conventions in the past, the party worshipped Mammon. The highest bidders always carried the day. Imposition of party executives, thuggery and brazen display of brute force were the order of the day. By disowning those vices, the party sought to make Nigerians believe that it had learnt the bitter lessons of the past. It apparently hoped to instill a new hope in the country, showing that it had undergone a period of purgation which qualifies it to be the party to lead Nigeria out of its current stagnation.

The convention however showed that the PDP had learnt nothing from the ills of the past which threw it down ignominiously from the pinnacle of power and glory. At the end of the convention, it was obvious to all and sundry that the erstwhile largest party in Africa was battling internal convulsions. For instance, true to speculations in the public domain days before the convention, money was allegedly deployed with abandon. A serving governor in the southern part of the country was said to have bankrolled every facet of the convention, rolling out huge foreign currencies to buy the delegates who were opposed to his anointed candidate. This was done in a country where millions cannot afford two square meals per day. The scale of bribery was so huge that many tagged the convention a sickening display of turpitude.

Indeed, the perversion of democratic norms associated with elections in this clime was not only rife at the convention, it was taken to a brazen height. More than a week before the convention, a schema for rigging had already been advertised in the public. Nicknamed ‘Unity List’, it was a euphemism for a predetermined result. It was so bad that many people who still have a modicum of democratic blood running in their veins swore never to have anything doing with the party.  Before the convention, the PDP had witnessed massive step-downs among its chairmanship aspirants. While some claimed that the end had already been foreknown from the beginning and that the convention would be a mere rubber-stamp of the anointed candidates, many others claimed that they stepped down to promote order and democracy in the party. However, underneath these excuses was a realisation that the PDP was ready to swim anew in the vomit and shame which underscored its 16-year rule. As things turned out, those who campaigned vigorously for various offices ended up being the losers.

At the end of the exercise, it became obvious to optimists who had hoped that with the convention, Nigeria would set its foot on the path of democratic party politics, that the country was still in the mire that it had always been from the outset. If the PDP, on which many Nigerians hung their hopes of providing a viable alternative to the All Progressives Congress (APC) could perform so dismally in intra-party elections, redemption for the Nigerian polity is indeed still faraway. What makes the prognosis so disturbingly dismal is that the APC is in no way better than the PDP. Indeed, the party in power is worse. Bogged down by intra-party wrangling and self-recriminations, the APC has not even held its statutory convention, in contravention of its constitution which so demands. In office, it is cloning all the vices that the PDP was known by for in its 16 years in power and has apparently learnt nothing from the ruinous path of the PDP. The examples of both parties have shown that if indeed parties are the soul of democracy, hope for a truly democratic Nigeria remains a mirage.