SINCE the March 28 bloodless revolution which saw the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as President-elect and President Goodluck Jonathan who conceded defeat before the final announcement of the results of the presidential election, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not only unable to recover from the shocking devastation, it has been embroiled in serious vertical and horizontal bickering that may deal the final death knell on the party which did not only pride itself as the biggest in Africa, but boasted it would rule Nigeria for sixty unbroken years.
But as God would have it, the PDP has been swept off after sixteen years of its corrupt grip on power characterized by massive stealing and looting of public resources, insecurity, poor infrastructure, high rate of unemployment, poor energy and water supply as well as ailing health and educational systems. Nigerians were obviously sick and tired of the unending broken promises from the PDP house of commotion and the obvious way forward, was for Nigerians to be provided an alternative political party which the All Progressives Congress (APC) readily supplied.
Since their loss at the polls, it has been an endless blame game. Accusations and counter accusations. The National Chairman of the PDP, Adamu Mu’azu was accused by Akwa-lbom State Governor and Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum of being responsible for the fail of the party. He was accused by Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State of not leading campaigns, but was a mere participant in the rallies and campaigns organsised by other organs of the party. This accusations, however, falls flat on the face because President Jonathan allowed himself to be deceived by the so-called Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN).
All PDP members and indeed Nigerians knew that the TAN became so powerful that they completely usurped the role of the party executive and cornered all the funds meant for the party for their unending jamborees aimed at bamboozling President Jonathan. They first deceived him with a phony project that they want to collect signatures of 20million eligible voters in Nigeria to urge him to come out and contest the 2015 polls. They claimed they went round all the communities and geo-political zones in Nigeria and overshot their target and got over 22.5 million signatures of eligible voters in Nigeria urging Jonathan to come out and contest. The group went about buying voters cards, inducing voters with huge sums of money all of which didn’t work for the TAN ambassadors and in the end, President Jonathan got only 12 million votes. It was then clear to him that the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria sloganeering was a fraud after all.
In one of my articles entitled “Denouncing Dame Patience Jonathan’s Hate Campaign,” published before the March 28 Presidential election, I stated unequivocally that Dame Patience Jonathan has an unfortunate record of being very abusive and foul-mouthed. She is quite un-African as she has no respect for constituted authorities. In fact, she sees herself as the President, not the First Lady. I stated that “If President Goodluck Jonathan loses the March 28 Presidential election, a minimum of 50 per cent of the blame should go to Dame Patience Jonathan.”
True to my predictions, Adamu Muazu and others also fired their salvo back that “Dame Patience Jonathan, Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti and Femi Fani Kayode, should be held responsible for the misfortune of President Jonathan and the PDP at the polls.”
It is common knowledge that Dame Patience Jonathan was highly obsessed with power and intoxicated by her status. She is rude, uncouth in her choice of words, uncivilized, corky, proud, crude, ill-mannered, and primitive. Even within the PDP, she humiliates key officials in public.
It was Dame Patience Jonathan that caused the problem between her husband and Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State. She is also fingered in the dispute between Jonathan and Governor Seriake Dickson. She was again fingered in the political feud between the APC and PDP in Rivers State which sadly, resulted in bloodletting and destruction of property worth billions of Naira. What more? Dame Patience Jonathan, it was that led the campaign of hate against the North when she carelessly said dem dey born children throw away for outside, we no dey throw away our children for outside.
What with the nuisance constituted by Femi Fani- Kayode and Governor Ayodele Fayose on television and newspaper advertisements, falsely claiming Buhari had no certificate and that all ex- Heads of State from North West died in office and that Buhari will also die in office? Sadly, all sorts of profane advertorials by the duo, had the ears and approval of Goodluck Jonathan.
Nigerians knew that instead of focusing on development issues and sufficiently convincing them with a blue print on how to take Nigeria out of its pariah status to a country that Nigerians would cherish, the PDP cronies spent billions of US dollars, stolen from our commonwealth to haul insults at just one man- General Muhammadu Buhari. The agenda was to paint him as much as possible as the devil itself. They presented him as a northern regionalist who loathes Southerners. They presented him as an unrepentant dictator who will kill everybody if he wins, they presented him as a religious extremist who hates Christians, not knowing that Buhari’s driver and cook are both Christians. They even said he launched Boko Haram and is the one funding it! What a bag of lies! So, those who in the heat of infighting within the PDP point accusing fingers at the trio, are quite in order because Nigerians took exceptions to their vituperations and campaign of hate and voted massively for the President-elect.
After their woeful defeat, one would have expected that the PDP would go back to the drawing board and get a think tank to carry out a post-election research on why the party lost. Perhaps, they would have discovered the truth of what led to their downfall and then chart a way on how to begin to rebuild the party and position it for a credible opposition just as what happens between the republicans and the Democrats in the United States of America. But they are not toeing this credible line. Instead, on a daily basis, the cracks and infighting within the PDP widens and deepens. The South West chapter accuses the South-South of being responsible for their failure. The South-South accuses the North, the north blames the party’s misfortune on the South-South and South East. Even the NEC meeting scheduled recently could not hold as the National Chairman travelled out of the country. In Bayelsa, Dame Patience Jonathan is rumoured to have opened another war front against Governor Seriake Dickson with a determination to unseat him. This new war has seen four of the state’s PDP lawmakers defecting to the APC last week.
To say the least, the current war within the PDP is capable of leaving the country with one party state for a long time to come because the PDP is not only rudderless at the moment, but heading for a political hara kiri. They are dancing naked and fighting to finish as none is willing to yield to the other. In the face of the unending altercations, most members are either angling to defect to the APC or quit politics completely. Whichever way they chose to go spells catastrophe for the fallen party.
Can this party, therefore, constitute a credible opposition? The answer is an obvious no, because most of the party men and women cannot be trusted with truth any more. Most of them are merchants of death and purveyors of falsehood. Imagine a Fani-Kayode who is standing trial for money laundering telling Nigerians that they had a situation room collating election results and that they were two million votes ahead of Buhari in the presidential election. He was still insisting on this falsehood when Goodluck Jonathan pulled a call across to Buhari and conceded defeat. Can this kind of character tell Nigerians anything in the next four years of APC administration for them to believe? The answer is no. Can Ayo Fayose tell Nigerians anything for them to believe? Who in the PDP of today can Nigerians trust again?
Nigerians expected that the PDP would build on the sportsmanship spirit of Goodluck Joanthan, but they seem to have lost it completely and it is quite uncertain when the raging war would end, no one can really tell. For the APC, it is time to assume office and focus on delivering positive change to Nigerians whether there is opposition or not.
• Mr. Dan Owegie is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (A PC), Edo State.
Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu
