Sacking of Damagum, Anyanwu: Another chance at PDP rebirth
Story From Ayuba AHMAD
“The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago; the next best time to plant a tree is now.” This incisively wise adage from East Africa is, in my view, admonishing that, it is better late than never. Or, act now because it will become too late to cry when the head is off.
Established on the eve of the commencement of the nation’s ongoing 4th Republic in 1998, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, held the reigns of political power at the center and in the majority of the states of the country for sixteen years, from 1999 to 2015.
Besides the fact of its place as one of the truly national political parties, after the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, of the 2nd Republic, the Social Democratic Party, SDP and the National Republican Convention, the NRC of the ill-fated 3rd Republic, the reign of the PDP also has the irrefutable glory of having firmed the roots of democratic governance which today,, has had an unprecedented span of unbroken twenty-four years since Nigeria got her independence in 1960.
Due to a combination of factors which, significantly, include a lack of experience in political leadership, with the attendant inability to manage its tremendous fortunes as well as, the rage of the monsters of corruption and a virulent insurgency in the northeast, the PDP suffered a woeful loss to the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2015 general elections.
Consequent to its devastating experience at the 2015 polls, the PDP shriveled to a shadow of its former self as it embarked on a downward drift, losing along the way its grip on its members and, therefore, power and presence both at the federal and, state layers of government.
Still, the PDP had very glaring prospects of regaining power in the 2023 general elections as a result of the overwhelming majority of citizens’ disenchantment with the abysmal performance of the APC during the eight-year Muhammadu Buhari presidency.
The opportunity offered to the PDP in 2023 was, however, essentially flunked by the abrasive internal squabbles between its leading contenders for the party’s presidential ticket. Nyesome Wike, then outgoing governor of River State, was, simply, the greatest architect of the destructive intrigues, rigmarole, and horse-trading that ultimately cost the PDP victory at the polls.
First, Nyesome Wike’s blind ambition and machiavellian contrivances forced the party’s Vice presidential candidate in the 2019 presidential election, Mr Peter Obi, to quit the party for the then little-known Labour Party, LP.
The dire outcome of the exit of Peter Obi from the PDP was evident in the huge votes of 6 101, 533 he garnered at the polls. If those figures were added to PDPs Abubakar Atiku,’s votes of 6, 954, 520, the story of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the APC would certainly have been different today! Thanks to the treachery of Nyesome Wike, Bola Tinubu was elected with a majority vote of 8 794 726.
Not done with the party, Nyesome Wike put on the garb of a full-blown anti-party activist following his loss in the contest for the party’s presidential ticket and, later, the position of the running mate to the presidential flag bearer, Abubakar Atiku.
Unabashedly, with impunity and bravado, Wike spearheaded the internal rebellion of certain governors and sprinkles of other party chieftains on a mission of openly de-campaigning, undermining, and sabotaging the PDP in the countdown to the election and, later, at the polls.
Thus, the perplexing scenario where the PDP’s presidential candidate lost in River State,, but the party overwhelmingly won in the governorship and all the legislative contests. The PDP was also strangely lost in its age-long strong state of Benue, obviously because of the anti-party of Governor Samuel Ortom, an acolyte of Wike.
READ ALSO: PDP crisis: Go, join APC – Dino Melaye mocks Damagum
Emboldened by the fact that he got away with all his atrocities, now, as a serving Minister in the APC federal cabinet, Wike has become more brash and audacious in his newly chosen mission of further wreaking havoc on the PDP before the next round of elections in 2027.
After successfully contriving the ouster of Professor Iyorchia Ayu and installing a puppet of an acting National Chairman in the person of Ambassador Iliya Umar Damagum, Wike has been going about his invidious assignment with an amazing show of a high degree of recklessness.
Just why does Nyesome Wike appear to be above the party and all the other members? Why has the PDP failed all the while, to call Wike to order, call off his bluff, or subject him to the appropriate disciplinary measures enshrined in the party’s constitution?
The suspension of Iliya Umar Damagum as Acting National Chairman and Samuel Anyanwu as the National Secretary is not only an exciting, bold, appropriate,e, and very commendable action, but it is also a decision that is long overdue. Very long overdue.
The two top officials of the party have consistently demonstrated servile loyalty to Nyesome Wike, playing the roles of his lap dogs and puppets. A man who is generally known to have stupendous wealth, Wike is widely said to have secured the absolute loyalty, especially of Damagum, on account of his heavy material inducements.
Even as belated as it seems, the suspension, however, still comes as an expedient strategy in salvaging the nation’s fledging multiparty democratic system and halting the specter of a dangerous drift towards authoritarianism and one-party dictatorship is, currently frightfully hovering over the country’s political firmament.
In restoring order and sanity back to the party, it is advisable that the PDP must look beyond the derivable narrow electoral benefits to itself. The party must work towards the bigger and more heroic objective of working, in collaboration with other opposition political parties, to deepen the roots of progressive and truly representative governance in the country.
In this context, the recent suspension of Umar Damagum and Samuel Anyanwu must not be an end but a means to an end. This task demands that the party’s leadership go ahead to firmly tame the bull in its China shop. That is, the PDP must move very quickly, deftly, and resolutely to clip the overgrown wings of Nyesome Wike.
As it is, the People’s Democratic Party ought to have put a stop to the cantankerous antics of Nyesome Wike and his cohorts a long time ago. That way, the many electoral setbacks suffered by the party would certainly have been averted or, at least, mitigated.
However, the recent measures taken by the party are hopefully an indication of the awakening of a giant that has been in a deep and spectacularly long slumber. Sure,
If it does the needful, the PDP will be averting more calamities and, perhaps, embark on a mission of rebirth. 2027 is about three years hence.
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