The ‘evil’ omen had for long clouded the party, but no one really expected the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to split on its 15th anniversary.
The Eagles Square venue for the Special National Convention had been decorated with 38 cake stands on which were placed inviting cakes representing one for each of the states of the country, the federal capital territory and one for the national party.
Ahead of the commencement of the convention, President Goodluck Jonathan had successfully mobilised most of the party’s powerful governors to ride with him in a bus to the convention ground. The sight of the party’s governors, including the “five rebel” northern governors entering the convention ground in the same vehicle was to buttress the sense of unity that party elders desperately sought to portray.
That sense of unity was also something the president conveyed in his speech as he compared the survival and unity of the party with its original contemporaries formed about the same time in 1998. “Of the three political parties registered in 1998, and I want you to listen, only PDP has retained its singular identify and core vision as a political movement till date while others have been imploded along the way or subsumed their identity in search of political direction and relevance,” President Jonathan declared in his speech to the special national convention of the PDP last Saturday.
It was as such an irony that on the day that the party clocked 15 years that the self proclaimed largest political party in Africa split into two. It was the first time that the PDP which had for most of its 15 years trudged on the path of crisis would be splitting into two major factions with its elected political office holders identifying with different factions.
Dr. Jonathan it appeared had for some time had a sense of foreboding that the party entrusted to him by fate was slipping from him. Penultimate weekend, the president met with one of his strongest foes among the governors, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwanso in the presidential villa. At that meeting, the president it appeared, seemed to nudge the governor to retrace his step from the internal dissension that he, Kwankwanso and four other governors of Sokoto, Jigawa, Adamawa and Niger had been fuelling in the last few months.
Also last weekend, less than 48 hours to the convention, the president also met with Governor Babatunde Aliyu of Niger State. Aliyu like Kwankwanso the week before appeared to be conciliatory after the meeting, telling State House reporters that he remained a member of the PDP. The sense of urgency by the president and his minders to mend fence with the five ‘rebel’ governors was apparently based on intelligence reports that the opposition within the PDP was already making decisive moves to fracture the party based on the long simmering crisis that had pitched some of the governors against the president and the national leadership of the party as represented by the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.
At the centre of the crisis is the allegation by many of the governors that the president has completely taken over the party, punishing all those perceived to be against his 2015 presidential effort. Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF, Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State had been suspended from the party on the basis of allegations of being opposed to Jonathan’s 2015 alleged ambition or having a presidential or vice-presidential ambition of his own.
While the president played the game of reconciling with the governors, the governors apparently did not believe the president was sincere. So it was not surprising that in the days preceding the convention that many of the governors sustained their consultations which was now focussed on how they could sustain their political relevance in the polity given what they assumed was the determination of the president and Tukur to crush all opposition to the president’s 2015 ambition.
Along the way the governors also established contact with former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who like some of the governors, was also losing relevance in the party to the new forces loyal to the president. But teaming up with Atiku had a problem for the governors given the problems between Atiku and his home governor, Murtala Nyako, one of the five rebel governors. Engagement in politics Atiku and Nyako have had a bitter-love relationship in recent times since the latter’s full engagement in politics in 2006.
Nyako it is remembered was a direct beneficiary of the onslaught against Atiku by the forces of Olusegun Obasanjo who paralysed Atiku’s political machinery in his home base using Senator Jibril Aminu to plant Nyako as governor in 2007. However, following his problems with Aminu, Nyako sought help from Atiku who mobilised domestic support to help Nyako win his re-election two years ago. At that time it was alleged that there was a quiet understanding that Nyako would support Atiku for his own presidential campaign in 2015.
However, following that, Nyako was alleged to have reneged as he again resumed fighting Atiku and sided with Tukur against Nyako. So with both Nyako and Atiku forced against the wall by the Jonathan forces, it was apparent to all that the governors had to combine forces with Atiku to confront the president. The advantage Atiku brought to the table was his nationwide organisation and structure which the governors lacked being that they were limited to their states.
But before they could forge alliance with Atiku the issue of the problem between the former vice-president and Nyako had to be sorted out. Rebel governors The task apparently fell on Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, perhaps the most experienced of the seven rebel governors. Lamido was the one who was dispatched to meet Atiku last Friday to prepare room for a formal reconciliation between him and Nyako.
The details of the meeting between Lamido and Atiku in Atiku’s Asokoro, Abuja residence were not immediately known, but it was learnt that the ground rules for the rapprochement with Nyako were established. It is, however, difficult to believe that the governors would have gone ahead with the split on Saturday but for the events that happened on the convention ground.
While many of the dissents who met the president in the last few days complained that the president did not bring anything to the table, they were further grieved by what some described as the brazen effort by Tukur and the party’s handlers to take what was remaining in their hands from them.
After the president’s speech on Saturday in which he highlighted the unity of the PDP and how it had defied all odds and remained one despite the fractionalisation of the opposition, and as the convention moved into election mood, the ‘dissident’ governors were pissed off by the seeming circulation of what was described as a unity list allegedly endorsed by the presidency.
That apparently was the last stab. When the 16 members of the National Working Committee, NWC resigned in deference to a report of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC that their election was irregular, there was a general understanding that all of them would be returned at the special convention.
However, for Tukur and his allies in the presidency, the election offered them the opportunity to do away with non-conformists in the party leadership who were seen as allies of the governors or opponents of Tukur. Dr. Sam Jaja who was nominated as the deputy national chairman by Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State was the first target. He was removed on the unity list and replaced by Prince Uche Secondus, a long time party veteran and associate of former Rivers State governor, Dr. Peter Odili.
Equally troubling was the decision of the Electoral Committee to remove elected delegates from Rivers, Adamawa and Anambra States following the spate of crises in the states. Given that the PDP governors of Adamawa and Rivers states could not bring delegates to the convention, it was not difficult for them to take their long planned walk from the party. So as the president rounded up his speech and as Mrs. Patience Jonathan came down to cut the 15th anniversary cake, the ‘rebel’ PDP governors commenced consultations.
Kwankwanso and Lamido as if in a final salutation to the party made a tour round Eagle Square and from there proceeded to the Shehu Yar`Adua Centre where they were joined by Atiku and the other governors including Amaechi who was not at the convention ground, having been suspended from the party three months ago. Atiku’s drama at the Eagle Square Atiku on his part had made some drama at the Eagle Square when he against tradition refused to sit in the VIP stand preferring to sit with delegates from his native Adamawa State.
“The essence of this is to show that the party belongs to the people and to convey to everyone that those in the VIP stand who now control the party have lost touch with the people and Turaki is doing this to buttress his opinion that the party must be returned to the people,” an associate of the former vice-president told Vanguard ahead of the walkout on Saturday.
But how far the dissidents can go remains an issue. The first issue is for them to unify among themselves and bury their own individual political differences and objectives under a united dream of overwhelming the Jonathan led PDP. Reaction of the president As a step towards that move, the seven governors were yesterday at press time engaged in a meeting with Atiku in Atiku’s residence in Abuja where they were aiming to bury differences between Atiku and Nyako.
Following that, the rebels who are indeed calling themselves the New PDP, hope to gauge the reaction of the president to their move. As a source in their camp disclosed, their plan is to see if the president would respond positively to their issues and if he does there could be some talking, but if not, the new faction of the PDP would then seek to explore options open to it.
Among the options, is going to join the Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM already registered as a political party and believed to be the child of Atiku or forging ahead with their own party, the Voice of the People. In the end, the governors could register the VOP and allow the PDM to co-exist with it as a way of diverting votes from the PDP, given the closeness of PDM to PDP on the ballot paper. The temptation to sustain the rebellion is fired by the popularity of the rebellion among some other party faithful.
A number of women who were opposed to the emergence of Dr. Kema Chikwe as the national women leader including some women with nationwide name recognition it was learnt, are already making contact with the Baraje-led faction to team up with it. Another governor from the Northwest who did not join the boycott, Vanguard gathered yesterday, had also made contact to join the rebellion. Yesterday, the president and his associates were in an overdrive to stem the rebellion.
President Jonathan met with former President Olusegun Obasanjo who is a patron of the five northern rebel governors apparently to bring him into the trouble shooting mission. A meeting between the president and the rebel governors it was also learnt has been arranged for late last night. The meeting was yet to take off as at press time.
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