These are difficult times for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). An exacerbating leadership crisis is increasingly threatening to split Nigeria’s main opposition party. The whole crunch has been reduced to calls for the resignation of the current National Chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu. This has thrown up push and pull forces around the tenure of the embattled party chairman. One camp, led by the Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, is insisting on Ayu’s resignation as a condition for peace. The opposing group headed by the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, is putting up opposition to the call.
The growing dissension has caught up with practically all the crucial organs of the party, slashing their ranks down the middle. The situation has now assumed a North/South power struggle built around mutual distrust and suspicion. The National Working Committee (NWC), which Ayu heads, is not insulated from the conflict. Members of the organ are split up over calls for the chairman’s resignation. The emergence of Atiku as a presidential candidate has altered the entire power control levers in existence before the presidential primaries.
The call for Ayu’s sack took an extensive appeal as some Southern and Northern leaders, like PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) member, Chief Bode George, and former Plateau State governor, Jonah Jang, joined the call for the party’s leadership structure to be balanced and reflect a North/South geopolitical spread. While Atiku has declined to commit to Ayu’s sack, the national chairman had declared that he would not vacate the seat because he was elected for a four-year term in office.
But the gulf between both camps further widened when Ayu got a confidence vote from members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) last Thursday after weeks of speculations about whether he should retain his seat. The decision did not go down well with Wike’s group, which has continued to insist that he must step down. The former BoT chairman, Senator Walid Jibrin, however, gave up his position for Senator Adolphus Wabara, the former Board Secretary, who moved in as acting chairman to guarantee the presence of the South in the party’s top leadership echelon. This has been repudiated by the Wike’s camp as not far-reaching enough.
Every effort must be made to end the impasse in the main opposition party. We are concerned and deeply worried that the unfolding events in the PDP portend a possible recast of the 2015 scenario, where unresolved internal disputes led to high-profile defections to the then-opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). Among the defectors were five PDP governors who accused former President Goodluck Jonathan of reneging on a gentleman’s agreement to zone the party’s presidential ticket to the North.
Senator Ayu’s indiscretion is to blame for the current escalation of the problem. Rather than pursue a peaceful resolution of the matter, the national chairman reacted provocatively to the issues at stake. As the party chairman, we expected that he would be more circumspect and peace-embracing in handling the matters. Unfortunately, he reacted immaturely. His reference to Governor Wike and his supporters as “children” in issues of politics is regrettable. This indicates that the chairman is a poor crisis manager and puerile in his temperament and approach.
It is within the right of the Rivers State governor and his proponents to ask for what is fair and equitable, particularly when there is evidence that the presidential candidate of the party strongly promised that Ayu would step down soon after the primaries to maintain the power-sharing tradition which PDP is recognised and known for. It is unfair for the national chairman and Atiku to renege on this all-important mutual pact.
Therefore, Wike’s insistence on the right thing to be done is justifiable because it serves the interests of justice, peace, and unity in the party. And the right thing is for Ayu to identify with popular calls for him to resign, since he cannot emerge from the same region as Atiku. The truth is if the PDP must go into the campaigns and subsequently the general elections unscathed and in one accord, the so-called confidence vote on the national chairman by the NEC must be revoked to prevent disintegration. Ayu’s complete disbelief in the party’s history and its philosophy of inclusion, spread, and fairness is inconsistent with its founding fathers.
The reason the chairman initially committed to resignation should the presidential candidate emerge from the North was because of the established norms and conventions that find an anchor in the principle of rotation and inclusion. Furthermore, the reason former Vice President Abubakar and others left the PDP in the run-up to the 2015 elections was due to the perceived breach in the rotation of power arrangement that led to the party’s defeat.
It is therefore self-serving and myopic for anyone to advise the party to violate a well-known and settled principle between the North and South that prohibits the presidential candidate and the national chairman to come from the same region. It is unfounded and deceptive to say that five months to the 2023 elections is too short for the party to embark on a simple re-organisation of the NWC to guarantee the inclusion of the South and success at the poll.
The emerging arrogance and grandstanding in some quarters that the North has aligned towards the PDP and therefore the South has become inconsequential may be the party’s undoing for the third time. Every time the PDP lost between 2015 and 2019, it relegated the South in the scheme of things, and it is in the interest of the party to rise above manipulated pre-election polls that tend to corner the presidential candidate to expend money and move on with the campaigns.
A party with 13 governors and in which about five are in controversy is a non-starter ahead of the 2023 elections, regardless of sentiment and grandstanding and also not when competing against a party like the APC. Nigerians are carefully watching the PDP whether it is a party that can rescue the nation and guarantee fairness. It is this kind of short-changing of the South in the main opposition party structure that will make the people rethink.
Sadly, the party appears not to have learnt enough lessons that would make it stand firm against all odds, as individual ambition is fast becoming the overriding interest of its leaders rather than the passion to serve the nation. The crisis in the main opposition party has robbed Nigerians of the opportunity of giving attention to alternative views and having the Federal Government put on its toes. Not a few Nigerians were disappointed that the party could not project any official position when the pump price of petrol was recently jerked up.
Former Vice President Atiku, who today is regarded as the head of the party, must brace up to the challenge and muster the political will to do what is right. He has to reopen negotiations quickly and consider Wike’s demands, including ensuring Ayu’s exit for peace to return to the party. We make bold to state that Governor Wike cannot be intimidated, ignored or relegated, as he still relishes an enormous following. The party must beware of the activities of moles and fifth columnists in its folds, whose interest may be to fan the embers of a relentless feud for the APC to reap from and advance in power beyond 2023.